From your usage of the phrase, you clearly believe that "intellectual masturbation" is a bad thing, so let me ask you frankly - is it the intellect that you despise, or is it masturbation? And are you also opposed to the dilution of peanut butter with chocolate?
On a (slightly) more serious note, I do believe that art has to have meaning and worth beyond its "worth" as a commodity. (In fact, that's pretty much the textbook definition of art.) Your statements about supply and demand, and finding buyers, imply that art has merit only to the extent to which it is able to entertain. Art and entertainment both play very important societal roles, but they are not the same, and can't be judged by the same standards. Specifically, the idea that art only has value if it can pay for itself is stupid. (I'm not implying that you explicitly said that in your post, but it's one that I see tossed around a lot on/.) That's a bit like saying that non-profit corporations are worthless because they don't make money.
Having said that, I agree that the current state of copyright law (and enforcement) seems to have virtually nothing to do with protecting the creators of art and everything to do with squeezing out profits for the publishers and distributors - and that extending the length of copyright doesn't seem like the way to fix it.
Most people would argue a distinction between writing a fugue or set of variations on someone else's theme and juxtaposing visual elements which you did not create with audio elements which you also did not create. Considering Rachmaninoff and Brahms, who each wrote extensive works on the same theme of Paganini: in both cases, the excerpted theme is approximately 5% of the original caprice from which it's taken, and comprises less than 1% (in its original form) of the new works. In many of each composer's variations, the original theme is completely unrecognizable; indeed, often it's a contour, an interval, a harmonic relationship - or even something more abstract - that ties the variations into their source material. So it's not at all accurate to say that such works "embed the entire work of a contemporary" - unless you mean simply "a continuous fragment of work by another composer."
A more interesting comparison, perhaps, would be someone like Franz Liszt, who frequently performed fairly direct transcriptions of orchestral works to bring them to a wider audience - composers like Berlioz or Wagner, who he felt deserved greater popular attention, but also Beethoven symphonies, for example, performances of which were often hard to find unless you lived in a major cultural hub. (I remember reading an anecdote about a regional (Viennese, I think?) orchestra in the mid-19th century that rehearsed Beethoven's Fifth Symphony nearly two hundred times, over the course of a year, before abandoning it as too difficult.)
I have never understood the sense behind the insult "mouth-breather", which seems to have gained quite a lot of undue traction. Is it considered less uncouth to spray dried nuggets of mucous at your conversational partners than to breath filthy mouth air at them? For that matter, why is mouth air considered less savory than nose air? In which orifice would you rather put your tongue (positing third-party orifices, of course)?
Frankly, if the incessant chattering of humankind was occasionally interrupted by a few deep breaths through the mouth, the world would be a better place.
And in what magical fairyland, may I ask, do you live, in which the government doesn't watch over your every move and treat you like a child? Personally, I would prefer a government that compels its citizens to do things that are in their own interests over one that compels its citizens to do things that are in its own best interest.
As far as your complaint about laws that protect only one person from themselves, most of the laws mentioned by the grandparent - compulsory voting, gun control, pet laws, socialized medicine - don't even come close to falling under this category. Censorship of videogame sexuality is a complex issue, but one that I would guess is not primarily aimed at protecting adults from their own baser urges. So I guess it's the seatbelt laws that have you all riled up?
Anyway, all governments are what you dismiss as "nanny" governments. Some of them are just more pleasant about it than others.
he was only able to get two people out of a crowd of five hundred college students to say that downloading a movie or album is wrong.
Doesn't this rather indicate that only two in five hundred college students are willing to publicly call many of their peers thieves? Somehow I have the feeling that if Mr. Pogue had instead asked the members of his audience to raise their hands if they believed that such a download is morally justified, he would not have had 498 respondents - and that if he had called for responses by secret ballot, the answer would likewise have been significantly different.
"Bach? The genius of the man lies exactly in his ability to shape and recognize patterns."
No, no, a thousand times no. That is merely one of the many aspects of Bach's genius. It would be like saying that Shakespeare's genius was his ability to match letters with other letters in a clever fashion. Music is fundamentally rhetoric; it has grammar, and structure, and meaning; and - like rhetoric - its meaning goes far beyond its mere structure. If Bach is nothing more than pattern-matching to you, then (I am sorry to say) you are missing out on a lot.
Mathematics doesn't give me "icky ideas about cold, unfeeling science". I simply don't believe that it's some kind of all-encompassing magic bullet.
"Just because YOU don't understand the mathematical relationships, doesn't mean that they don't exist."
I agree entirely. However, just because YOU don't understand the mathematical relationships, doesn't mean that they do exist. The question is not whether music can be expressed mathematically - as you pointed out earlier, digital recordings are obvious proof that it can. The question is whether music can be generated mathematically. The context under which this discussion arose was one of interpretation, not composition (can a robot be programmed to interpret music "convincingly"), although I admit that I opened the door for the question of composition.
You speak of limiting the data set. As far as music composition goes, this is a reasonable proposition. The elements of music composition are finite, if staggeringly vast. However, this does not indicate that the problem is automatically soluble. Your viewpoint seems to be that of course a computer can write great music, if only we provide it with enough data - and how could anyone be foolish enough to think otherwise! I am not arguing, for the record, that a computer will never be able to compose music on par with history's greatest composers (although I personally doubt that this will be the case.) I am arguing, however, that to assert the notion of artificial intelligence through brute force as an obvious truism is arrogant at best - and I firmly believe that composition is a strong-AI question, not an exercise in heuristics and data-mining.
Talking about interpretation, however, limiting the data set is much less useful than you seem to think, because there are few finite elements, as there are with composition. Taking smaller samples nonetheless leaves you with an infinite continuum of possibilities, in pitch, in timing, in tone color, in volume. Just to draw the bow across the string and back again invites infinite possibility. And yes, I am speaking within the limitations of good bowing technique.
You write that you can't tell the difference between A 440 and 441. I would invite you to ask your favorite professional symphonic oboist to tune 1Hz sharp, and enjoy the resulting firestorm. Speaking as a string player, the difference in sound is (to put it mildly) massive. To be fair, some of that difference is the result not merely of the change in frequency, but in the tension across the instrument.
Earlier, I wrote that the question at hand is whether or not music can be generated mathematically. Of course, this is not completely accurate. The question (at least implicit to most people's understanding) is whether non-crappy music can be generated mathematically. Part of the trouble is that "non-crappy" is a bit hard to quantify. Obviously, it's trivial to algorithmically generate trivial music. It's certainly possible (although somewhat less trivial) to generate music that uninspiringly fulfills a few fundamental aspects of basic harmonic and structural functionality. But is it possible to generate music that has meaning and complexity, perversity and humor; music that toys with the fulfillment and defiance of our expectations; music that reflects the ultimate truths of human existence as well as the transitory issues of the present? (I know, I know, you don't believe in all that crap - it's just math.) Somehow I doubt it's the easy slam dunk you propose.
One of my favorite moments in the standard literature is at the end of the first movement of Brahms' B major piano trio, the primary idea of which is the concept of diatonic expansion. The final structural resolution comes moments before the end, when Brahms presents the second theme twice - first in its original incarnation (slightly altered for the key), and then in an intervallically expanded form, creating a sublime ascension across the two strings that trails off into the briefest moment of total suspension of time. What makes this tiny episode so brilliant is that Brahms doesn't actually orchestrate the ascension from the cello to the violin, as any sensible composer would. I
"Geez, what will they think of next, music stored in a digital, binary format? Never happen."
If you're implying that the storage and replication of music is comparable in difficulty to its creation or interpretation, then I can only weep at your ignorance. My computer can show me a scanned image of Monet's Water Lilies, but that doesn't make it an artist.
"Music is all about mathematics."
I'm not sure where you got that idea. Perhaps you're not listening to very good music? Music is, and has always been, about the manipulation of emotion and intellect. Naturally, certain structures and patterns emerge, some of which are mathematically definable. To assert that they are ALL mathematically definable is pretty arrogant. "As any Computer Science student can tell you", there are plenty of problems that are easy to formulate, but algorithmically insoluble.
"We're talking about a COMPUTER here. Math is EVERYTHING it does."
That is the problem.
Consider vibrato on a stringed instrument - a crucial aspect of interpretation, yet only one of many. Because there are an infinitely divisible number of positions on the string (as there are of any finite space), there are an infinite number of theoretically possible vibrati from which a performer is free to choose (even within the space of an inch and a half) - for one fraction of a single note. Obviously, no intelligent performer would use a uniform vibrato for an entire piece, or even an entire phrase - in many cases, not even for an entire note. Similarly, within the timescale of the piece - four minutes, seven minutes, an hour - there are an infinitely divisible number of potential events; in this context, let us say opportunities to vary the vibrato. How do you plot this matrix of potential vibrati, infinite in two axes, in a mathematical simulation? A computer can plot a function through this space. A musician can traverse it at will.
Slashdot Mirror
From your usage of the phrase, you clearly believe that "intellectual masturbation" is a bad thing, so let me ask you frankly - is it the intellect that you despise, or is it masturbation? And are you also opposed to the dilution of peanut butter with chocolate?
/.) That's a bit like saying that non-profit corporations are worthless because they don't make money.
On a (slightly) more serious note, I do believe that art has to have meaning and worth beyond its "worth" as a commodity. (In fact, that's pretty much the textbook definition of art.) Your statements about supply and demand, and finding buyers, imply that art has merit only to the extent to which it is able to entertain. Art and entertainment both play very important societal roles, but they are not the same, and can't be judged by the same standards. Specifically, the idea that art only has value if it can pay for itself is stupid. (I'm not implying that you explicitly said that in your post, but it's one that I see tossed around a lot on
Having said that, I agree that the current state of copyright law (and enforcement) seems to have virtually nothing to do with protecting the creators of art and everything to do with squeezing out profits for the publishers and distributors - and that extending the length of copyright doesn't seem like the way to fix it.
Don't forget about the Guild Of American Theatrical Stage Employees. I forget the link, but you can probably find GOATSE on google...
will now be Tom from Myspace.
Most people would argue a distinction between writing a fugue or set of variations on someone else's theme and juxtaposing visual elements which you did not create with audio elements which you also did not create. Considering Rachmaninoff and Brahms, who each wrote extensive works on the same theme of Paganini: in both cases, the excerpted theme is approximately 5% of the original caprice from which it's taken, and comprises less than 1% (in its original form) of the new works. In many of each composer's variations, the original theme is completely unrecognizable; indeed, often it's a contour, an interval, a harmonic relationship - or even something more abstract - that ties the variations into their source material. So it's not at all accurate to say that such works "embed the entire work of a contemporary" - unless you mean simply "a continuous fragment of work by another composer."
A more interesting comparison, perhaps, would be someone like Franz Liszt, who frequently performed fairly direct transcriptions of orchestral works to bring them to a wider audience - composers like Berlioz or Wagner, who he felt deserved greater popular attention, but also Beethoven symphonies, for example, performances of which were often hard to find unless you lived in a major cultural hub. (I remember reading an anecdote about a regional (Viennese, I think?) orchestra in the mid-19th century that rehearsed Beethoven's Fifth Symphony nearly two hundred times, over the course of a year, before abandoning it as too difficult.)
The highchair game was great until everyone started botting. :(
I have never understood the sense behind the insult "mouth-breather", which seems to have gained quite a lot of undue traction. Is it considered less uncouth to spray dried nuggets of mucous at your conversational partners than to breath filthy mouth air at them? For that matter, why is mouth air considered less savory than nose air? In which orifice would you rather put your tongue (positing third-party orifices, of course)?
Frankly, if the incessant chattering of humankind was occasionally interrupted by a few deep breaths through the mouth, the world would be a better place.
And in what magical fairyland, may I ask, do you live, in which the government doesn't watch over your every move and treat you like a child? Personally, I would prefer a government that compels its citizens to do things that are in their own interests over one that compels its citizens to do things that are in its own best interest.
As far as your complaint about laws that protect only one person from themselves, most of the laws mentioned by the grandparent - compulsory voting, gun control, pet laws, socialized medicine - don't even come close to falling under this category. Censorship of videogame sexuality is a complex issue, but one that I would guess is not primarily aimed at protecting adults from their own baser urges. So I guess it's the seatbelt laws that have you all riled up?
Anyway, all governments are what you dismiss as "nanny" governments. Some of them are just more pleasant about it than others.
Funny... I imagine that's what your cells are telling each other about you right now.
(Of course, cell language is pretty limited - that's probably the only words they know.)
he was only able to get two people out of a crowd of five hundred college students to say that downloading a movie or album is wrong. Doesn't this rather indicate that only two in five hundred college students are willing to publicly call many of their peers thieves? Somehow I have the feeling that if Mr. Pogue had instead asked the members of his audience to raise their hands if they believed that such a download is morally justified, he would not have had 498 respondents - and that if he had called for responses by secret ballot, the answer would likewise have been significantly different.
"Bach? The genius of the man lies exactly in his ability to shape and recognize patterns."
No, no, a thousand times no. That is merely one of the many aspects of Bach's genius. It would be like saying that Shakespeare's genius was his ability to match letters with other letters in a clever fashion. Music is fundamentally rhetoric; it has grammar, and structure, and meaning; and - like rhetoric - its meaning goes far beyond its mere structure. If Bach is nothing more than pattern-matching to you, then (I am sorry to say) you are missing out on a lot.
Mathematics doesn't give me "icky ideas about cold, unfeeling science". I simply don't believe that it's some kind of all-encompassing magic bullet.
"Just because YOU don't understand the mathematical relationships, doesn't mean that they don't exist." I agree entirely. However, just because YOU don't understand the mathematical relationships, doesn't mean that they do exist. The question is not whether music can be expressed mathematically - as you pointed out earlier, digital recordings are obvious proof that it can. The question is whether music can be generated mathematically. The context under which this discussion arose was one of interpretation, not composition (can a robot be programmed to interpret music "convincingly"), although I admit that I opened the door for the question of composition. You speak of limiting the data set. As far as music composition goes, this is a reasonable proposition. The elements of music composition are finite, if staggeringly vast. However, this does not indicate that the problem is automatically soluble. Your viewpoint seems to be that of course a computer can write great music, if only we provide it with enough data - and how could anyone be foolish enough to think otherwise! I am not arguing, for the record, that a computer will never be able to compose music on par with history's greatest composers (although I personally doubt that this will be the case.) I am arguing, however, that to assert the notion of artificial intelligence through brute force as an obvious truism is arrogant at best - and I firmly believe that composition is a strong-AI question, not an exercise in heuristics and data-mining. Talking about interpretation, however, limiting the data set is much less useful than you seem to think, because there are few finite elements, as there are with composition. Taking smaller samples nonetheless leaves you with an infinite continuum of possibilities, in pitch, in timing, in tone color, in volume. Just to draw the bow across the string and back again invites infinite possibility. And yes, I am speaking within the limitations of good bowing technique. You write that you can't tell the difference between A 440 and 441. I would invite you to ask your favorite professional symphonic oboist to tune 1Hz sharp, and enjoy the resulting firestorm. Speaking as a string player, the difference in sound is (to put it mildly) massive. To be fair, some of that difference is the result not merely of the change in frequency, but in the tension across the instrument. Earlier, I wrote that the question at hand is whether or not music can be generated mathematically. Of course, this is not completely accurate. The question (at least implicit to most people's understanding) is whether non-crappy music can be generated mathematically. Part of the trouble is that "non-crappy" is a bit hard to quantify. Obviously, it's trivial to algorithmically generate trivial music. It's certainly possible (although somewhat less trivial) to generate music that uninspiringly fulfills a few fundamental aspects of basic harmonic and structural functionality. But is it possible to generate music that has meaning and complexity, perversity and humor; music that toys with the fulfillment and defiance of our expectations; music that reflects the ultimate truths of human existence as well as the transitory issues of the present? (I know, I know, you don't believe in all that crap - it's just math.) Somehow I doubt it's the easy slam dunk you propose. One of my favorite moments in the standard literature is at the end of the first movement of Brahms' B major piano trio, the primary idea of which is the concept of diatonic expansion. The final structural resolution comes moments before the end, when Brahms presents the second theme twice - first in its original incarnation (slightly altered for the key), and then in an intervallically expanded form, creating a sublime ascension across the two strings that trails off into the briefest moment of total suspension of time. What makes this tiny episode so brilliant is that Brahms doesn't actually orchestrate the ascension from the cello to the violin, as any sensible composer would. I
"Geez, what will they think of next, music stored in a digital, binary format? Never happen."
If you're implying that the storage and replication of music is comparable in difficulty to its creation or interpretation, then I can only weep at your ignorance. My computer can show me a scanned image of Monet's Water Lilies, but that doesn't make it an artist.
"Music is all about mathematics."
I'm not sure where you got that idea. Perhaps you're not listening to very good music? Music is, and has always been, about the manipulation of emotion and intellect. Naturally, certain structures and patterns emerge, some of which are mathematically definable. To assert that they are ALL mathematically definable is pretty arrogant. "As any Computer Science student can tell you", there are plenty of problems that are easy to formulate, but algorithmically insoluble.
"We're talking about a COMPUTER here. Math is EVERYTHING it does."
That is the problem.
Consider vibrato on a stringed instrument - a crucial aspect of interpretation, yet only one of many. Because there are an infinitely divisible number of positions on the string (as there are of any finite space), there are an infinite number of theoretically possible vibrati from which a performer is free to choose (even within the space of an inch and a half) - for one fraction of a single note. Obviously, no intelligent performer would use a uniform vibrato for an entire piece, or even an entire phrase - in many cases, not even for an entire note. Similarly, within the timescale of the piece - four minutes, seven minutes, an hour - there are an infinitely divisible number of potential events; in this context, let us say opportunities to vary the vibrato. How do you plot this matrix of potential vibrati, infinite in two axes, in a mathematical simulation? A computer can plot a function through this space. A musician can traverse it at will.