(October 1, 2016 at 11:28 am)ChadWooters Wrote:

(September 30, 2016 at 11:27 pm)Rhythm Wrote: I've already told you that I don't feel like indulging you.  You and I both know the material explanation for both sound and music.  We learned it as children.  Why not proceded directly to whatever it is you'll pivot to after that tiresome and pointless discussion played itself out?  That's what you want to talk about...whatever it is, and I'm not big on foreplay.

I don't need a scholarly essay, just an executive summary of your version of materialism. How you would deal with the ontological status of a song might guide me to better understand the context for your statements. You are under no obligation to explain yourself unless of course it is your intention to communicate your ideas as clearly as possible.

This would be so much clearer, if you would just state whatever it is about you're hoping music can segue into.   Asking me what music is made out of, from a materialists pov, is as inexplicable as asking me what a wooden chair is made out of.  Music is made out of sound...a wooden chair is made out of wood. You don't care, though....you already know that, that;s not what you're fishing for, and neither of us is foolish enough to keep pretending otherwise, right?

(October 1, 2016 at 11:31 am)Rhythm Wrote: @Whatevs.

Aren't we simply discussing the value we might place on whatever science could tell us about art, the different subjective meanings individuals might take any given work to represent, above?  We don't seem to be discussing a subject that science -can't- tell us something about.  I think we both agree that in some sense neither of us gives a shit what science might have to say about art,  we both agree that science cannot replace art.  Neither of these things, though, make art immune to science.

Yeah, I think so.  My point isn't that there is nothing for science to study in the field of art.  I'm just saying science can't replace it without loss.  In that sense, the world of ideas is larger than science.  Science is like Texas/Alaska kind of huge in there, it just isn't the whole kit and caboodle.

(October 1, 2016 at 11:25 am)Rhythm Wrote: Your contempt for science through straw is showing.  

I don't have contempt for science. I don't even have contempt for the study of neural correlates for behaviors. I do, however, have a slight contempt for the conflation of assumptions and conclusions. I guess I just don't like circles very much.

Quote:Don't backpedal now.  You're disputing our experience, and you see no value in the non-science.  Own it.  Now you may have an arbitrary position on how many assumptions to make, that;s your business..but I;ve been pretty clear about how many assumptions I would make, what type, and why.

I'm not disputing your experience. I'm disputing your interpretation of your experience, and in particular the philosophical stance which while related to it in some sense, isn't really required.

I would like you to stop saying that I have a contempt for science, because that is not true. In fact, I respect science enough not to abuse it by conflating science with other branches of philosophy.

(October 1, 2016 at 11:54 am)Whateverist Wrote: Yeah, I think so.  My point isn't that there is nothing for science to study in the field of art.  I'm just saying science can't replace it without loss.  In that sense, the world of ideas is larger than science.  Science is like Texas/Alaska kind of huge in there, it just isn't the whole kit and caboodle.

As a guy with some formal music training, I've seen some science of music-- fMRI scans, neurological and hormonal theory, as well as some physical science-- harmonics, tuning, etc. and even statistical analysis of note distributions. So science can be ONE ANGLE of inquiring into things like music (or even mind), but I totally agree with you that science is not a substitute for other avenues of inquiry into things.

(October 1, 2016 at 12:15 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(October 1, 2016 at 11:25 am)Rhythm Wrote: Your contempt for science through straw is showing.  

I don't have contempt for science.  I don't even have contempt for the study of neural correlates for behaviors.  I do, however, have a slight contempt for the conflation of assumptions and conclusions.  I guess I just don't like circles very much.

You don't have contempt for the illogical non-science that you are, here, objecting to?  Calling it non-science or a conflation of assumptions and conclusions does not change how you feel about it, or what it is. The body of knowledge exists, you have contempt for it. You express it openly and plainly.

Quote:I'm not disputing your experience.  I'm disputing your interpretation of your experience, and in particular the philosophical stance which while related to it in some sense, isn't really required.

You keep calling qualia an assumption as though that were somhow a problem for the science thereof.  If you think that this is anything -other- than disputing -our- experience.........I don;t know what to tell you. I don;t assume that qualia exists, nor do you. I very literally observe it, and that is bound inextricably to the definition of the term itself...it's the thing we hope to explain. So if you can't get past that, and we can't start on that common ground...we can -have- no discussion. There's nothing to talk about. Science is not attempting to explain qualia that we assume to exist, it's attempting to explain qualia as a fundamentally undeniable truth of -every single human beings on the planets experience, it is the very -term- for our experience. If that's not enough to move it past the category of assumption, to you, then nothing will or can. Your objection is not with materialism, but with knowledge itself. Good luck.

Quote:I would like you to stop saying that I have a contempt for science, because that is not true.  In fact, I respect science enough not to abuse it by conflating science with other branches of philosophy.

Yes, I know that you;d like for me to stop saying that..I already opined upon it...we decided to hug it out, but here again it rears it's head. I would hope that, at some point...repeatedly pointing this out helps you to realize that your objections are in internal self contradiction. You cannot first claim that materialism (or science) cannot account for something....and then object to all of the ways that it accounts for that very thing. Both statements cannot be true, if you have something to object to.....then obviously there is an accounting -to- object to.

You can only, rationally, express your disagreement with that accounting, or in your case, contempt.

(October 1, 2016 at 11:19 am)bennyboy Wrote: Tell me how you know ANYONE experiences anything subjectively, i.e. can experience qualia.

What does that even mean? You are equivocating. First you need to define what it means to experience something subjectively then we can see if it matches reality.

(October 1, 2016 at 11:19 am)bennyboy Wrote:  It seems to me if you are really going to take such a strong position on mind, you'll have at least be able to determine unambiguously what physical systems do or don't have it.  Are you able to do this?

No. First you need to determine unambiguously what you mean by 'qualia' and know how to spot it before you ask someone else to determine what physical systems do or don't have it.

I think qualia is a bullshit term of absolute no use whatsoever. It's a term like free will. You are making the assumption that it actually exists. I don't. What you are doing is using an ill defined term and then because no one knows what it really even means, then demanding that someone can match it exactly to some aspect of reality. And when they flounder because they don't even know what they are supposed to be looking for, you use it to fill in what you want to believe.

Your position is based on asking questions that are framed in way that they cannot be answered because they are ill specified and then drawing conclusions from that.

(October 1, 2016 at 11:22 am)bennyboy Wrote:

(October 1, 2016 at 10:09 am)Mathilda Wrote: There are two ideas here:

1) The brain is solely responsible for consciousness and intelligence.
2) Consciousness and intelligence are a product of something non-material.

In my opinion, these options are neither mutually exclusive nor sufficiently inclusive of all the possibilities.

For example, it may be that the fundaments of mind are intrinsic to ALL matter, at all levels.

How? How is that useful? What explanatory power does that have? How can we test for it? What reason do we have to suspect that it might even be the case? How could we make use of thinking like this?

It's not falsifiable. It's not reproducible. It's not scientific. It's not based in reality. It's woo.

(September 29, 2016 at 2:48 pm)Tangra Wrote: I was alluding to the fact that you and I are people, not bodies. That a body is not a person and a person is not just a body.

First of all for something to be fact it must be true, and for something to be true it must have evidence. And there is no evidence to indicate that personhood is anything other than an outgrowth if the body's physical processes. In fact all the evidence goes the other way, that human consciousness is an outgrowth of the complex processes of the brain, viz there is no such thing as a human soul as it has nor ever had a purpose.

When you look at the world with evidence as your guide it is a lot different than the one you construct with your wishes.

(October 1, 2016 at 11:53 am)Rhythm Wrote:

(October 1, 2016 at 11:28 am)ChadWooters Wrote: I don't need a scholarly essay, just an executive summary of your version of materialism. How you would deal with the ontological status of a song might guide me to better understand the context for your statements. You are under no obligation to explain yourself unless of course it is your intention to communicate your ideas as clearly as possible.

This would be so much clearer, if you would just state whatever it is about you're hoping music can segue into.    Asking me what music is made out of, from a materialists pov, is as inexplicable as asking me what a wooden chair is made out of.  Music is made out of sound...a wooden chair is made out of wood.  You don't care, though....you already know that, that;s not what you're fishing for, and neither of us is foolish enough to keep pretending otherwise, right?

The first question that comes to my mind is whether the Sid Vicious version of “My Way” is the same song as the one sung by Frank Sinatra. There is also a question about whether a piece of sheet music or a 45 rpm vinyl recording qualify as songs and in what way. I don’t think anyone truly believes that a quantitative analysis of physical vibrations gets very far on those types of questions. The fact is that when people talk about a song, what is it “made of” or how it is transmitted are never discussed. People talk about its structure, sense and affect. Anyone coming into the conversation and insisting that what makes a song a song is just vibrations in matter would be rightly considered a fool.

(October 1, 2016 at 2:53 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: The first question that comes to my mind is whether the Sid Vicious version of “My Way” is the same song as the one sung by Frank Sinatra.

In a legal sense, in the sense of it;s composition, in the sense of any given performance as it relates to another specific performance or indeed..vis a vis any given performance of the same by any other?

Quote:There is also a question about whether a piece of sheet music or a 45 rpm vinyl recording qualify as songs and in what way.

Is there that question? Who asks that question?  They both have songs on them, or not.

Quote:I don’t think anyone truly believes that a quantitative analysis of physical vibrations gets very far on those types of questions. The fact is that when people talk about a song, what is it “made of” or how it is transmitted are never discussed. People talk about its structure, sense and affect. Anyone coming into the conversation and insisting that what makes a song a song is just vibrations in matter would be rightly considered a fool.

I think that the production and transmission of sound are discussed more often than you seem to think.  There is such a thing as a music industry, after all.  What do you think sound engineers do, exactly? 

No one insisted any such thing, ofc, yet more straw.  You asked what music was made out of, I told you it was made out of sound.  Is that foolish?  Is it untrue?  Is it immaterial?  So what, then, is the issue for materialism here supposed to be, exactly? Materialism is a statement regarding the composition of the things we see. If you have questions regarding something -other- than thir composition, those questions would not have any relevance to the materialist position itself. The materialist position..is that music...is made of sound. Sound, to whit, being vibrations that travel through the air or another medium and can be heard when they reach a person's or animal's ear.