blather
what_science_cannot_see
andru235 PART ONE

i will use an analogy

there is a piece of music

one way to know the piece of music is, obviously, to listen to it. in this way, you /experience/ the music.

another way to know the piece of music is to acquire the sheet-music and study it. in this way, you acquire a concrete understanding of what is transpiring in the piece of music, but cannot experience it. ["yes i can! studying the music is experiencing it!" not the same. i will explain why later.]

the experience of listening to the piece of music is beyond words. two people hearing the same piece of music will have radically different responses to it; for one, great pathos is evoked, for another, old memories are triggered, a third person sees landscapes or plain colors (synesthesia), a fourth is inspired into future actions...and on and on and on. multiple listenings will have multiple responses. the piece of music lives, via transentience or memes or interspirit or universalism or whatever one wants to call it.

now, lets study. the opening unison leads to a 6:4 upward fourth while the bass enters into tremolos descending along the phrygian. hemiola transpires, a quintuplet against two. the f-major diminished seventh leads unexpectedly to b-major via the e-flat in the melody (now d-sharp). arpeggiaturas in the alto contrast the pedal tone in the bass. ten sforzando chords precede a false cadence, leading into the development. blah blah blah blah blah.

now. i am a composer and baroque keyboardist. on every music theory test i've ever taken i've received over 95%. i'm not trying to brag, i'm merely establishing my credentials. because i think theory is absurd and irrelevant except as a curiosity. when i compose i couldn't care less about theory. my writing has structure, is harmonious, and usually contrapuntal. but do i do these things to appease theory? no, i let the music 'write itself', more or less. i could say, i'm going to start with tritones. but if i'm not in the mood to start with tritones, the music quickly becomes forced; and if i am in the mood to start with tritones i do so without thinking twice about it. when i get stuck, the resolution comes by mentally 'listening' for the solution. on the rarest occasions i find a solution via theory but after writing a bit more i usually discover a better solution and replace it.

"what does that have to do with anything?"

two things. first, theory is almost completely unrelated to praxis.

"but praxis, even when unintended, follows theory!"

well of course. but what provides the value, whatever the value may be: the theory or the experience?

"i value studying theory, so there!"

that's nice, but the reason you value studying theory is because of its ramifications on experience.

"no it isn't!"

oh? so if you could either have ten CDs of your favorite music but never see the notes on the staff, or you could have the complete scores but never hear the piece, what would you select?

a) "i'd take the scores!"

you're being intentionally difficult. and that is fine. i mentally 'hear' music by reading from the page as easily as i read popular fiction, and i wouldn't take the scores unless i had no option. yes, i can mentally 'hear' most of a new piece of music without hearing it aurally, but this is almost never remotely comparable to experiencing it actualized, and i say 'almost never' because i suppose it *could* happen, though it hasn't yet. indeed, if the theory of it was so fulfilling, why do most composers present and past fight to get their works performed? isn't understanding the theory of it enough for them?

b) "beethoven was deaf but he wrote great music because of his understanding of theory!"

ok. beethoven wasn't happy about being deaf, because it prevented him from hearing his music (or anyone elses, for that matter). the theoretical beauty of his works did not sustain him. and did his method of writing commence with theory, or was it one of the tools in the toolbox? well, he advocated composing out in nature because it inspired him (symphony #6, piano sonata #15, piano trios op. 70, etc.). was it the complex carbon chains drifting through the spring air? or was it the cumulative sentient experience? gee, what a difficult question.

it's not that i think theory is 'bad'! but theory is far removed from experience, and understanding theory is no surer a route to enhancing experience that is experience itself. many composers have turned to composing sheerly from theory, i.e. serialism or anti-tonalism. and while a fractional percentage of people may find value in these forms, most do not. however i don't advocate pandering to the masses, i'm merely observing that these works have not had the experience-enhancing effect that other forms of music have: chant, medieval, renaissance, baroque, rococo, classical, romantic, ragtime, jazz, rock, rap, hip hop, lite, ska, blues, bluegrass...etc.

a firestorm always comes forth when i address the past-century's 'classical' music. it seems that, unlike all other musical forms, if one disagrees or *gasp* dislikes it, one is 'inferior' or 'unenlightened'. this is pretentious
bullshit, pure and simple. i don't like
jazz, at least, very little of it, but who cares? so i don't like jazz. someone else out there doesn't like baroque. i don't think less of them for it! the snobbery surrounding contemporary classical music reminds me of the emperor's new clothes; no one actually likes the music but everyone pretends to have been 'moved' or 'awestruck' so they can save face. it isn't that this music is 'bad' or shouldn't be written, but to exempt it from criticism because of its strangeness is arbitrary and little more.

styles aside, the surest theoretical route to a good piece of music seems to be: start with a rule (of whatever type) and after a while, break that rule. :-) it is not the 'rule' that supplies the delight of experience, other than to be disregarded.

stay tuned for part two-coming in about fifteen minutes 		050503
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andru235 PART TWO

okay. i can already feel the ardent theorists picking, picking, picking, searching out all the holes in my argument. the holes are there! just like in every single argument that has ever existed.

so where was i.

let me address two more aspects of the musical analog before we begin teleporting around.

1) it isn't that building a piece of music from theory is impossible to do. it's very possible. and time consuming. and cumbersome. and restrictive (the temptation to follow one's heart is overwhelming). and at its best, it will be no 'better' than anything else. even if composed solely for theoretical purposes, doesn't the real joy come from experiencing the work?

if you *really* insist, despite all this, that theory is the champ and experience is unimportant, put your money where your mouth is and from now on listen only to modal scales and serial music. blast that serial music from your car, wear headphones wherever you go so as not to 'taint' yourself with music created by and intended for experience. you can put on all the airs you like, and who knows, maybe you really will enhance your life-experience by doing so (hah!). because enhancing life-experience (even if the enhancement comes from anger or chaos or sadness, etc.) is the only real motive for doing anything, even matters of practicality. this is as close to a guaranteed common ethic as anything human arrives at.

2)earlier i mentioned that the piece of music 'lives'. of course, the 91% of humans that believe life only exists in terrestrial biological entities will never see this until they open themselves up to something greater. but one you open your eyes to this, you'll see it everywhere!!! it's a grand benefaction; why it is resisted by the humans and not the other creatures has to do with a whole other series of posts.

now, as this piece of music lives. in the human realm, the result of experimenting with boundless atonality and aleatory features is that of the mutant child. wherever these pieces of music go, they meet hostility, resentment and dissatisfaction. a few respond with neutral gestures. i have never seen someone respond to these musics with exuberant, genuine pleasure (seen a few pretenders, but eyes...eyes tell stories!), and the only pain evoked was aurally physical. in another realm, amongst another species, perhaps these works are the paragons of excellence. here, they are not loved by their audience and seldom seem loved by their creators. cruel and unusual!

now! in creating a piece of music, for instance, it isn't that one must please anyone at all. but to create it out of spite is symbolically dangerous (to oneself! [see karma, for instance, or the golden rule: do unto others as you'd have unto yourself]).

"how do you know they create it out of spite?"

i don't! i'm only saying, if one does. but: is there any merit to creating a child and not loving it? the child doesn't have to be this or that; you can teach the child theory (or praxis) to your heart's content; but you should love it! i'd venture that most who disagree with the children part of this felt unloved by their parents (biological or otherwise).

"but a piece of music (or art) isn't human!"

see above, re: 91% of humans are blind to non-biological life.

"but a piece of music isn't life!"

see above: see above.

"but art doesn't even approach the sanctity of life!"

perhaps not to you!

"if i don't consider it sacred, who cares if i only heed theory?"

the life you create might care.

"BUT IT ISN'T LIFE!"

ok, blindy-pants. everything is life, dear. are you going to wait until you are dead to see that?

let's move on to part three. 		050503
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ever dumbening okay, so i read much of this, enjoying, then i tired of it because it is theory (proving your point?). so now i want to hear some of your music instead. email me some mp3s. por flavor. 050503
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The Heretic SCIENCE IS NOT A MONOLITH. IT IS OBSERVATION AND EXTRAPOLATION. YOUR ARGUMENTS BELIE YOUR OWN DOUBT. MOST PREACHING SEEMS TO COME FROM THE PREACHER'S OWN UNCERTAINTY. WHY ALL THE MISSIONARY RHETORIC? 050503
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andru235 PART THREE

preface: i suppose i flattered myself unduly by assuming the theory-bound would critique this; it's more likely that readership won't exceed myself, i suspect. so i apologize to myself for undue flattery.

"you also flattered yourself unduly in part one, when you went on and on about your musical skills."

yes, it was excessive of me, hmm? i suppose i am a bad, arrogant person because 9/10ths of my posts are regarding your infiniteness being far worse and far better than my infiniteness. there is no superiority, really. eye of the beholder.

"eye of-"

*ahem*. let's continue.

you protest that you like theory and the scientific method. that's nice and all, but it retains a blindness that could prove fatal.

the last step of this analogy before arriving at the scientific corner is to teleport to other, non-musical sites.

literature: what has more to do with your enjoyment of fiction reading? the titillating plotline or the regular placement of semi-colons? would enhance your life-experience more for someone to write terribly but use semi-colons properly, or for someone to misuse semi-colons but write in a manner you find excellent?

art: if someone tells you all about a painting, do you have more than a clue as to what it actually looks like? not unless it is a very, very simplistic painting, and even then, you won't imagine it exactly without some sort of psychic gift. if someone offered you a look at the painting you would enjoy more than any other, or merely the technical schematics of it, which would you opt for?

travel: experiencing the sight of a site you have always dreamt of seeing, or a pamphlet laying out the theoretical details of the site?

sex: for those of you with sex drives, if you could have a great sex life with your partner (or greater, if you are already there), or the theoretical details about a great sex life with your partner, what would you select? the experience of the great sex life with your partner? or the knowledge that if you had that sex life, you'd regularily shoot a tablespoon or your orgasms would last x-seconds/minutes or that you'd burn an average of how many calories?

eating: say you're hungry, and not deliberately fasting. in fact you are starving. and you have a desire to live. now, before you is a great feast of your favorite foods that no one else is going to eat. would it enhance your life experience more to know that the complex-sugars in food-x would trigger a salival rush that would continue the digestion commenced by mastication, or would it be more life-experience enhancing to eat?

by now you ought not have trouble teleporting to other topics, so let's arrive at our destination: part four. 		050503
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andru235 so!

having contemplated the relationship of theory and praxis, let's look at science. anyone who has read my atomic posts can probably figure out where i am going.

if you knew nothing about music except that the dots on the staff seemed to have certain relation to one another, would the experience of the dots be accessible? of course not. one would have to experience the dots by hearing them. if one began pushing dots around, one might understand the change in ratios of one dot to the next - but one wouldn't understand the significance to the experience built from it! because, in the case of music, it is in the experience that it 'lives'.

if you knew nothing about humans except that they were a pile of complex carbon chains and H2O (plus some other stuff), would you have any idea what it was like to feel the summer wind on one's neck or the touch of one's lover? nope. these things would be invisible. now, if you messed around with the chemical pile and a while later it decayed into other stuff, you might understand the chemical reason for the change. but would you understand what the experience was for the entity? nope. not if you didn't know there was sentience in the human!!! and where is the evidence of sentience in humans? the brain doesn't hold the key...nor the heart, nor the pineal gland, nor the bone marrow, nor the metatarsals...

if there is a spirit, it won't show up physically; it's spirit. spirit, if it does exist, might be everywhere. nihilists like to deny this but they have no more proof than the crazed religious fundamentalists or even the most rational deist. so if there are other entities experiencing the surrounding cosmos and micros that are not biological, we won't find them with science!

after science discovered cells, how long did it take before the mere 'knowledge for knowledge's sake' became tinkering became someone's fame became someone's medicine became someone's wealth became someone's powertrip? molecules? atoms?

atomic experience is so far removed from us on the dimension of micro-to-macro that even a single virus is composed of millions of atoms (a SHORT strand of DNA is over a million bonds between four multi-atom-containing units) nothing about atomic experiencing will be viewed by scientists.

"who cares if atoms are experiencing?"

if they are, fissioning them isn't very golden rule, is it?

"the sun uses fission and fusion"

we aren't the sun. we don't have any inherent bridge to the powers of fission and fusion. we can do zillions of wonderful things on this planet without the slightest awareness of fission.

"so, what's an atom gonna do to us?"

most humans are not in favor of a giant alien race invading and enslaving/destroying earth. golden rule.

"that's not the same!"

can you prove it isn't?

go to the galaxy. you probably already know about this, but for those that don't: there are clusters of hundreds of galaxies. there are clusters of these clusters. there are clusters of clusters of clusters. there are clusters of clusters of clusters of clusters. and on and on. we see this with theory and that's nice.

but if a sun or star is experiencing we will not find that out with science. there will be no brain and there will not be a nice, handwritten letter asking us how we are.

"who cares if a star has feelings?!?"

it would be best to be certain it doesn't before we send are nuclear waste at it.

"this is ridiculous. what is your point?"

my point is that science cannot see the very thing we consider most relevant to existence: our ability to experience it! and if we cannot find it in ourselves, how will we find it in others?

as though anyone hasn't noticed, our dependence on science may proove to be even more costly that our previous 'dependence on religion', if that is what we were.

i'm no fan of religion! i think that (for a diverse world) it is equally shortsighted and narrowminded, but in a different way.

but while religion may leave us without hot water, computers and fast food, science has already generated tons (literally) of several highly toxic substances that will require maintainence for the next 100,000,000 (hundred million) years or more. failure to maintain religion may lead to rioting and chaos, but failure to maintain the byproducts of our oh-so-clever science will now lead to no-more-biology.

and that would be a tragedy for science itself. talk about cutting off one's "knows" to spite ones "faith"!!! 		050504
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andru235 e.d.: most of my music is on sheets of paper.

heretic: your hasty response has confirmed my suspicions - you are a devoted contrarian, and that's fab. i used to be one also, and have not moved very far away.

but it was never my allegation that scientists function as a cohesive unit. 'science', as you say, is observation and extrapolation. this may lead to many places, but will never lead to experience. it simply cannot!

what someone would know of me from having watched me and extrapolated about me wouldn't come close to the experience of being me. i have spent much time in contemplation of this, mainly out of youthful frustration regarding the chronic disconjunct of how others [claim to] interpret me and what i actually meant/felt/thought.

why does my long-preach bother you any more than your own short-preach? considering the vast array of hundred-page scientific or religious preachings, surely i am not notably scurrillious or without evidence.

do my evidences proove anything? nope. does any evidence proove anything? nope. oh how that riles some people!

but ultimately can one prove one existed yesterday to oneself? nope. even a video-recording could have been digitally edited, etc. indeed, there isn't even proof of the moment, as it is gone as soon as it is.

one can only proceed from proofs if one has faith in proovability. so i suppose the one proof is that if someone believes in proovability, that is proof of faith? heh heh, the maelstrom of logic leads to many emotions. 		050504
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kimbo jones cutting off one's "knows" to spite one's "faith"...LOL...that's pretty damn funny 050504
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The Heretic TRY NOT AVOIDING SPEEDING CARS. THEY INDICATE THAT OTHER THINGS CAN INFLUENCE OUR CONTINUED EXISTENCE. IT IS AN EXPERIENTIAL ARGUMENT YOU ARE LIKELY TO LOSE. I DO NOT PREACH. I MAKE CONDITIONAL STATEMENTS. 050504
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andru235 of course our physical existence can be influenced by physical events. i never claimed otherwise!

preach, d.1: to expound upon, esp. to urge acceptance of or compliance with.

how are your probable *but* unprovable statements not preaching? the all-caps is especially preachy, as though i wouldn't read your response anyway! i mean, go ahead and use all caps, it doesn't bother me. but it is quite preachy.

and there isn't anything wrong with that; although you apparently feel that there is. de gustibus non est disputandum, i guess.

while i have stated this in myriad posts already, i guess i must state it once more. is anyone really that influenced by discussion and/or argument? i'm fully aware that almost nothing i say will induce heretic, for example, to think differently. it will be his/her own life that is the primary teacher, via experience.

i used to be a stark nihilist; i was certain there was no explanation to anything except for the scientific explanation. then i realized that even the scientific explanation failed to convey more than basic details about the existence of things. so then i figured, hey, why not try on some other mindsets? and i discovered that the only way i really know what i think about a concept/theory/philosophy is after i have genuinely attempted to experience it.

what i came out of this with was a renewed interest in some aspects of science, but also a renewed instance in things psychic and metaphysical - both of which i had always previously dismissed as sheer baloney.

once i accepted the possibility of psychicness, i started experiencing psychicness! i can't prove it to you, nor can you disprove it; but i will always know there is something inexplicable and mysterious beyond the facade of physical explanation, because of several personal experiences beyond my ability to linguistically convey.

and there were many things i had thought about and known about as a child that i was trained to disregard, which upon a reassessment of multi-life-ism, suddenly made tons of sense. and once i took up that notion, i began to see that all over the place, too.

on the other hand, i genuinely tried on christian pants for a few months and had no results. no results with judaism or buddhism, either. to each his own, i guess. everyone has their own mystical path, and for some, the mystical path is the denial of mysticism.

if you have already decided that zoroastrianism is how it is, you'll see it everywhere. the evidences against it are like rocks thrown into the sea. and if you have already decided that mere physics is at the root of everything, one will see no evidence to the contrary because one wouldn't believe it if one did! for if an astounding spiritual event occured, it would be immediately dismissed as being something else, and consideration of it would there stop.

it pisses of religious zealots, it pisses of scientists. but the two - for all their concrete difference - are abstractly similar in as many ways as not.

people have survived crashes with speeding cars, BTW. for some, it has even been a productive part of their life experience (not a majority, of course). 		050504
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andru235 * [it pisses of ... = it pisses off] 050504
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