(January 5, 2015 at 11:59 am)Alex K Wrote: But aren't there some absolute standards that allow us to say that say, a Bach fugue is a more intricate and complex creation than a more or less harmonically primitive I-IV-V-I pop song? It's not like all music is created equal.I believe in very few absolutes...c and maybe 0 degrees Kelvin.
The market decides what music is more equal.
The "art community" is a sub-population which prospers by convincing themselves and sometimes others that there is an absolute ranking of artistic worth and that they know what it is. They prosper in direct proportion to the detree to which they can convince others that that is the case. AFAIK there is no natural law which states that harmonic complexity is innately superior to, for example, a Beyonce autotune.
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat?