Sorry, but I honestly see all of that response as just some sadly defensive woffle. No real content at all.
I'll leave aside that you obviously, quite intentionally, refused to answer even one of my very clear questions in my last post.
You really should look into your motives for that kind of evasion.

I'll respond to this one bit only. You said...
"Logical. Why debate something when you call it fact? There is no margin for debate unless new evidence comes to light because it is fact. To repeat, when it is superseded. Completely logical."

I know you presented this as your knockdown argument,
i.e., look it's "Logical", "Completely Logical", and therefore obviously just "so right that's it's not worth contesting it"

Unfortunately, it actually just perfectly illustrates, yet again, that you either can not or will not see the huge difference between two very straightforward concepts.
A fact is not the same thing as a statement of fact.
They are two totally different concepts and your knockdown sentence completely confuses them.
You have to start seeing that, and understanding that, or forever keep on providing these confused responses.

So, what's wrong with your question "Why debate something when you call it fact? There is no margin for debate unless new evidence comes to light because it is fact."

I will now dismantle that 'knockdown argument' calmly and carefully and show you why the question is just completely missing the point. I am going to deliberately repeat the same ideas over and over and over again so that there is just no excuse left for not understanding them.

A mini case study...in basic philosophy of facts
There is a phenomenon in reality which we call gravity. For this discussion, here are a few things that do NOT matter...
It doesn't matter at all which word we use to label that phenomenon.
The word "Gravity" is a human invention but it will do just fine for this discussion.
It doesn't matter how Newton described what the phenomenon does or how correct his human made theory is or is not.
It doesn't matter whether Einstein's more comprehensive human made explanation, of what gravity is, is correct or not.
Einstein's model is a more superb model of the world than Newton's model, but all of that is still irrelevant here.
The only thing that actually matters for this discussion is that 'something happens' - bodies with mass are attracted to each other.
That phenomenon has been happening for billions of years before any humans ever existed.
That phenomenon is an example of what we mean when we use the word fact.
Notice (really important) facts existed before humans did!
I'll describe the phenomenon as simply as possible by just saying 'Gravity exists'.
Note that me, you, Newton, and Einstein could, in principle, all be totally mistaken about every thought we have ever had about gravity and none of that would change the reality of the fact. The phenomenon which I choose to label with "Gravity exists" is a factual feature of the universe, a 'state of affairs', a 'way the world just is'.
If you could prove that all humans know absolutely nothing about gravity it would still not change the fact of 'Gravity exists'.
All of the above is what philosophy would call 'Ontology', which roughly means - a study of what actually exists.

I have laboured that ontology point long enough. Now let's move on...

Now we talk about what philosophy calls 'Epistemology', which roughly means - a study of how we know stuff.

If I say "Gravity exists", I have just made a speech act. I have just manufactured a statement.
It is a statement that is based on a belief that my brain also manufactured.
My belief and my statement might actually correspond to the reality of 'gravity existing' or it might not. I could just as easily have made this statement "Gravity does NOT exist". That statement might reflect my sincere belief and I might actually think my statement "Gravity does NOT exist" is a true claim about a fact of the universe.

No matter what my belief is and no matter what statement I make, I can never be 100% sure that the belief does actually correspond to the 'fact of the matter'. But there IS a 'fact of the matter' out there somewhere, (whether I know anything about it or not), and I hope that my belief does correspond to that 'fact of the matter'.
I'm in bad shape if my belief about something and the fact of the matter contradict each other.

So now look again carefully about what I said in my post. I always referred to (alleged) facts.
i.e., I am always referring to human claims, beliefs about facts, statements of facts.
When I make a statement like "Gravity exists" I did NOT just create a fact, I created a statement which claims to say something true about the world. It claims to correspond to an actual fact but the claim might be true or it might be false.
I repeat... The claim itself is NOT a fact. It is a statement about an alleged fact. A fact which exists (or doesn't exist) and which is totally independent of any claims made about it, and which existed (or didn't exist) a long time before any humans even existed to manufacture any beliefs or claims.

So read these next sentences carefully, they are in the exact same format as my original post.
(alleged) Brute fact: "Gravity does exist"
(alleged) Brute fact: "Gravity does not exist"

The only thing we have here are claims; they are statements based on beliefs.
They are not facts, they are just sentences!

Can you see the folly of your sentence yet when you say
"Why debate something when you call it fact? There is no margin for debate unless new evidence comes to light because it is fact."

It is misguided because... the whole point is "we are NOT 'calling it a fact'"
We are not confusing these claims about facts with the facts themselves. These are just statements about facts.

Read this bit a million times...
When we label these sentences as (alleged) brute facts...
- we are not constructing facts (that's the Universe's responsibility)
- we are just making claims about alleged facts
- we are NOT calling the sentences facts - that would be a category error.

That classic old analogy of the famous french painting might help here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images
The famous Magritte painting of a pipe with the words written underneath "This is not a pipe"
Some people think that's a silly arty joke but it is an important point.
There is a pipe somewhere, and there is a painting of a pipe, and the two concepts are very different.
It really is a huge category error to stare at the painting and say "that is a pipe"
It is not a pipe - it is a painting!

Same here (analogously)...
(alleged) Brute fact: "Gravity exists"
"Gravity exists" is not a fact, Those two words are just a claim about a fact.
You can look at the sentence as much as you want but if you want to look at the fact you need to look elsewhere to find the real thing.

So, we have made claims about something and the claims might be true or they might be false.
What else do we know?
We are also claiming that because these are (alleged) brute facts and NOT (alleged) personal/social facts then we know how to settle the arguments about which claims are true and which claims are false. Our method to settle which claims are true and which are false is to consult reality and (try to) see what the real facts are.
This is a big deal - it is (for example) very, very different to how we should engage with claims about personal tastes.

So, of course, your 'why bother debating?' question is just a misguided question.
All of the debating definitely still needs to happen, because all we know at first is that there is a real factual answer somewhere to be found, but we still need to figure out which claim, if any, is actually correct. And in the example above it is clear that all we have so far is two sets of beliefs, either of which, in principle, might be right or might be wrong. So, now we do need to debate about a million things, like how to do the science, how to test the validity of the science, even how to explain why we believe what we believe, but in amongst all of those debates and investigations, 'the fact of gravity existing' is just sitting there not caring about how much we get right or get wrong in all of our clever investigations.

Your knockdown argument "Why debate something when you call it fact?" falls apart because we never did "call it a fact".
We only made claims about facts and we always need to debate the claims.

At the end of the day, this is all so ridiculously simple,
unless you're someone that stares at Magritte's painting and insists that you're looking at a pipe!

 

Last edited: Jan 17, 2020

I did not write dictionaries or the entire historical records but you obviously think you know more than they do. I read about half a paragraph and like MMJ it all started to look like "blah blah blah blah blah I have Dunning-Kruger syndrome".
Bye

 

The boring line by line response first then something more constructive.
You wrote a very petulant response - I'd suggest not something you can feel proud of.

You said... "I did not write dictionaries or the entire historical records"
and neither did I - but I am capable of reading some of them when necessary or useful.

You said..."but you obviously think you know more than they do"
and that's just another soundbyte insult. In your insult-driven fantasy, which text do you see me claiming to know more than?
I simply find myself agreeing with well thought out ideas and disagreeing with poor ideas,
and I am capable of expressing ideas and providing criticisms of ideas - clearly.

You said..."I read about half a paragraph..."
and then you gave up ... this from a man who claims to like learning?

You said..."and like MMJ it all started to look like "blah blah blah blah blah I have Dunning-Kruger syndrome".
and you know full well that this is an overt and embarrassing display of child-like mud slinging instead of engaging in criticising ideas. So, I can criticise ideas (as we all should) but when they're your ideas being criticised, the game suddenly changes to insulting people.
Allow me to quote the wise @Thumb: "The moment any human being insults another, anything valid they may have to say after that point is lost and that is human nature."
Now, if only you could live up that lofty moralising?

However, after your insult-driven rage has died down, if and when you ever get back on track with robustly discussing ideas instead of mud slinging, there are still several very specific questions from my posts that you seem to be embarrassingly hiding away from answering.

They include...

[1] Do you believe facts are real?
Your statements, so far, include being on both sides of the fence from one quote to the next.
e.g.,
You wrote..."Being in academia, there are no brute facts. While it may be considered a fact for one group it is not for another."
and
You wrote... "Basically, a fact is a thing that is known to be consistent with objective reality and can be proven to be true with evidence"
Even they both sound good, They can't both be true! That's a bit like the "having your cake and eating it" scenario.
So quite simply... please tell us - what do you believe?

[2] Do you believe that "Ultimately, everything is just a personal interpretation"
You have written several sentences that seem to imply that you do believe that,
but it's still an open question to be definitively settled - so please settle it - please tell us what you actually believe.

[3] Do you understand the distinction I made (shown below) between (alleged) brute facts and (alleged) personal/social facts? and I have added much further clarification in subsequent posts to try to eliminate confusions between fact and statement of fact

[4] If you do understand the distinctions (above) do you agree or disagree with whether these distinctions matter or not? If you think they do not matter then can you please provide your reasoning?

I obviously do think they matter and I have provided examples in the context of discussing arguments about music (which was of course the whole point of the exercise)

This is what I call constructively dismantling ideas. It is far more useful, and far more civilised than petulant mud slinging.
If a precious personal belief gets confronted while this happens, that is good news!
We should always regard events like that as an opportunity for self-reflection and growth.

 

Last edited: Jan 18, 2020

I don't think any philosopher has worked on boringness yet. Your spirit of entrepreneurship in that field can save the entertainment industry forever and makes your a millionaire.

 

I don't think any philosopher has worked on boringness yet. Your spirit of entrepreneurship in that field can save the entertainment industry forever and makes your a millionaire.[/QUOTE]

I have him and MMJ set to ignore but I can tell you he is no qualified philosopher. I am sure his COD made him reply after I set ignore.
Pick any dissertation in music from any reputable university or any decent classical or jazz theory examples online from institutions and you will see how accurate my statements are. A philosopher never uses his wording. They suggest, propose and argue and use those words succinctly, more than likely exactly, not in attack, defense, opinion or any way other than researching a variety of similar and conflicting ideas. They acknowledge the value in others and question the methods or motives, they seek to understand. This is the true nature of philosophy, to truly understand, not know more than anyone else. This is done for the purpose of gaining knowledge not to negate the value or worth of another human being. This is why I know neither is remotely qualified in anything other than how to wedge your cranium firmly in your gluteus maximus.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhesive
I found this way more useful with only one e between h and s and also the redundant space character removed.

I don't blame dear AD much because I sometimes do the same. I'm ashamed of my deeds.

Thanks @Thunoing Thumbs for helping us to get out of misdirection.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 18, 2020

These days all anyone has to do to see if something is correct, is to do one thing and then confirm it. Look it up and ensure at least two, preferably three different places have near-identical information. They call the sources for end-users a dictionary, encyclopaedia or historical data for a good reason. To go further, most PhD, DMA (Arts) theses are often readily available that support a great deal of the other reputed documents. They did not make a giant Harry Potter novel because it's not fiction. With the readily available information on the Internet, it is easy enough to find sources of information with a good reputation for anyone, there is no excuse other than laziness or refusal to believe there may be valid opinions other than ones own.

Most people in music for example, when someone says they are an expert check out the music of the person saying it. Most often it will match the purported skills of the teacher or proposer. That also confirms their legitimacy or if they are a charlatan.

 

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The difference between @Lager's comments and @Thunoing's comments are intriguing.

That's one of your better posts. You call what I write boring. I can't argue with that at all. And there's a delicious irony in noting that my philosophy-oriented post about personal/social facts explains precisely why I cannot dispute @Lager's opinion.
So congrats @Lager, for an authentic opinion expressed succinctly, and with your usual flair for sarcasm added (and one of your better sarcasm examples). An enjoyable 30 second read.

By contrast, @Thunoing's comments are just sad. They are just rambling around in desperation land.
@Thunoing - your fear of having your wise old guru image dented is palpable. When you feel it threatened, you run to whatever imaginary high ground you can find in your fantasy world, the fantasy world where you are regarded are the wise old sage, helping us lesser experienced upstarts to see the folly of our ways. It's just sad - and it's not working very well, and as an almost incidental aside it seems to be destroying your chances of real engagement with actual ideas.

As for the actual contents of my philosophy posts, it is just hysterically funny to see you incompetently trying to criticise the ideas. You seem to have some utterly deluded idea that I'm trying to post original philosophical compositions - when I'm obviously not! Trying to incompetently attack 'my ideas' is folly because they are NOT my ideas at all.
Any capable philosopher would recognise immediately that absolutely nothing I have written in those posts is original.
And I have certainly never pretended to be posting original philosophical thoughts.
Quite the opposite, it is no more original than someone doing a remix of someone else's classic songs.
My style of writing is my own, and my mini essays are composed on the fly, (and as @Lager will attest, that style and the subject matter is apparently boring to most people - no surprises there) But ALL of the philosophy ideas in those posts have been crafted by many generations of philosophers and those ideas have mainstream acceptance in the Philosophy community and especially in the Philosophy of Science community. There's just nothing controversial in there and nothing to argue about unless you want to go really deep and challenge the fundamentals. The only novelty in my post is the suggestion for a discussion (that hasn't happened) about 'what might it be like to use those classic ideas when engaged in arguments about music topics?' That novel suggestion is just an unanswered question.

So, my failure (and it is a failure) is to bring some mainstream, widely accepted, basic philosophy ideas into a novel context, i.e., into a forum where people are arguing about music issues. The theme of my posts was 'how and why some arguments about music go astray' and to identify which widely recognised philosophical ideas might contribute to understanding why that happens. That was a novel (slightly original) aim but the actual philosophy ideas that I brought into the discussion were absolutely not original.
What that does mean though, is that I am more than 99% certain you will not find any faults in the actual philosophy arguments, and I'm more than 90% certain that you won't find any significant faults in my descriptions of those ideas. They are the arguments from genuine masters of the game. Most of those arguments have withstood at least 50 years of rigorous scrutiny, some of the more core arguments have withstood thousands of years of scrutiny.

The idea that you or me or anyone else here is going to upturn those ideas with our own crackpot alternative ideas is pretty comical.
And in that context, @Thunoing, your philosophically feeble attempts at contradicting those ideas, really are an embarrassment.
The posts are there for everyone to see; so, go find someone that really does understand philosophy, (clearly that is not you) and I'm pretty sure they will quickly say, "it's coherent and it's correct".

So, I would like to say the following...

* to all the people who took one look at this experiment and thought "you must be joking, I'm not interested in that!"
My response is 'thank you'. I think that your 'walk on by' response is entirely authentic and I learnt something from that
- i.e., no-one's interested. - fair enough, doesn't upset me in the slightest.

*to @Lager, the "I'm not walking on by, I'm going to sneer at it" response, is what I've come to expect from you.
It's critical, it's blunt, and it has some authenticity. (and it made me smile, as usual)

* to @Thunoing, man you are in a sorry state. You seem to be 100% motivated by convincing everyone of your wise old guru status (not just here but in many posts) and that dodgy motivation easily eclipses every other authentic motivation that you display. It seems like you will go to almost any length to prop up that self-assumed prestige.
In this thread all I did, was dare to expose a simple fact, i.e., that you had not automatically already understood the basic philosophical ideas (as you asserted), and that you had in fact demonstrated some very obvious misunderstandings, and continued to display those misunderstandings after the errors were clearly pointed out. Faced with that exposure, instead of adjusting your misunderstanding of some basic ideas, your 'saving face', 'must preserve the guru status' defence mechanisms immediately launched into overdrive (and they're still operating at level 10 even now) The irony is that all those attempts to preserve that image just reek of desperation, and they just end up fully exposing the insecurities you're trying to hide.
I know this next sentence will fall on deaf ears, but if you ever read it carefully, you might notice that this is not just a 'he says versus he says' slanging match. What I just described above about your responses is an honest observation. In comparison, all the nonsense mud slinging that you have tried on me is just visibly obviously your defensive panic running amok.
You are just adding more embarrassment to your posts - that's not what a self-alleged wise old guru should be doing at all!

But it won't stop you, of course it won't, we're sure to see some more Trump-style mud slinging - just watch this space.

 

Last edited: Jan 18, 2020

I have no idea what this means.

Ive worked in music for several decades and made a successful living from it. Having said that, I certainly don't consider myself any kind of "expert". More than that, the other professionals that I know would never (I hope) assume to refer to themselves as "experts".

Here's a thought for you to consider or not: if you hear a piece by a composer that you consider to be rubbish do you assume that the composer wrote that as a reference of his/her skill base? Or may I ask the question, have you ever worked with a producer who directs you?

I would say that perhaps 80 percent of what I have produced is commercial crap. 10 percent is listenable and perhaps half of what remains is anything Id suggest represents me as an artist.

All Im saying is, be careful how you judge another composers work. Be aware of the commercial constraints that might be in place that allow that person to make a living from music.

 

if someone claims to be an expert then they have some kind of catalog of their experiences. Most experts have 20-30 years of experience at least. Not all of it will be crap or superb, commercial or not and most will show their skills, even if producing for someone else. If all of it is sub-standard musicianship, composing, performing or orchestrating, or they say I know everything about theory and not one piece of music they demonstrate in playing is above a high school student skill level then they are a charlatan by calling themselves an expert.

P.S - Most 'experts' also would not consider themselves one either nor would they ever say they are.
As far as production goes, a crap song can still be produced well (or badly). Arranging and orchestration can improve it and production can have all the right ingredients but its default nature is still often one or the other. A great melody or tune is just that. An ordinary one will not be great unless it is changed.

 

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If you know that someone is interested in saving face and know/suspect that they suffer from insecurities,might it not be construed as unkind to enflame their discomfort by pointing them out to others in a very public fashion?In my experience most people have fashioned a public persona for themselves that they hope doesn't project those insecure aspects of their identity for fear of public rejection or ridicule.So even when it's obvious to me that someone is presenting themselves in a way that I perceive not to be a true representation of what I think they want others to think of them,unless they themselves are arrogant,insulting, and or unkind or just spouting patently erroneous information on important topics/issues or espousing what I deem to be unpleasant ideas I tend to err on the side of live and let live why upset someones apple cart so to speak?Is it really so important to make them aware of their weaknesses when the distress it may cause them is weighed against the desire to point those weaknesses out?Intellectual rigour is best used in serious discussions not in situations when people are simply sharing their personal ways of getting music done which after all was the main idea of this thread.

 

Last edited: Jan 18, 2020

@the real Pict - You are correct, very much so. Guilty.
Perhaps if they owned their own crap as well and did not attack people that initially tried to help them and did not spew vitriol and make threats in an attempt to discredit everyone else except themselves, then this would not be a consistent event. Assessing by what people on here for over two years have said, he has generated far worse responses than mine from many others.

 

The glaring inconsistencies just keep on mounting up - don't they?
@Thumb wants to preach about not insulting people - I agree !,
but @Thumb, saying that immediately after accusing me of...
- being not remotely qualified in anything other than how to wedge my cranium firmly in my gluteus maximus.
I've never actually tried that, not sure where it is - not really qualified. I'll ask @Thumb for expert advice if I get curious.
- and accusing me of suffering from Dunning-Kruger syndrome?
Really? then @Thumb preaches about not insulting people. You don't see just a teeny weeny bit of hypocrisy here?

But it gets much funnier... now I'm being accused of having magical powers too.

According to @Thumb's impressive maths, apparently I've accumulated bad responses for over 2 years.
Ignoring the uncomfortable fact that the stats actually say the opposite, perhaps his robust philosophical analysis can explain exactly how I managed to achieve these mythical 2 year's bad responses IN THE LESS THAN 9 MONTHS THAT I'VE ACTUALLY BEEN HERE.
But hey, he has the facts. (you know facts - the things he claims don't exist in our world)
He said "Assessing by what other people on here for over two years have said..."
Well, who are these fellow magicians that commented negatively about me for 15 months before I even arrived?
I really would like to meet them. They sound very talented and I'd like to learn about their psychic abilities please - really, I would! While I'm conversing with those psychic stars perhaps you should be reviewing what's obviously more than a bit wonky in your 'Assessing by..' protocols.

@Thumbs, your alleged information is as usual, totally doolally! and coming from a sad place.
Can you not recognise that 'wishing someone to be a villain, and trying to paint them as a villain',
is just not the same thing as them actually being a villain.
Oh I forgot, of course you don't know the difference.
As you've already said... "there are no facts; everything is just a matter of personal interpretation"
So the fantasy in your head versus reality? - no difference at all for you?

Boy, am I really glad I don't live in your head.

 

Last edited: Jan 18, 2020

Read them and come back to us in the year 2100 and tell us how you feel about the reality or realities.

 

@Lager While one part of me admires your diligence in gathering over 1.000 solid works of reality literature to create a parody on two residents who perpetuate regular mind-numbing, multiple scrolling pages that could be easier to read by using a clickable SPOILER but instead choose to dull the senses; the thread has lost its focus on composition

Spoiler

(and anyone that reads all of those would need at least another twenty years to fully understand exactly how the entire 1,887 books they torturously read can be applied so it can be used practically).

 

I stopped reading the two of your posts eons ago and have come to the conclusion that

 

I gave your medal back. Kidding...

Hey bro, there is actually no ego.

If I'm not wrong there are 2 major approaches in this thread and also the other thread by MMJ:

1. Creativeness-based approach
2. Awareness-based approach

• Creativeness adherents emphasize the role of putting different things together and making sth and letting the inspiration and subconsciousness be their guide.
• Awareness adherents on the other hand reject the first approach and choose the deliberation for making a piece of art.
• The non-hard-shelled tend to choose compromises between the two.

This is the main reason for all disagreements and seems never be resolved.

 

Caution @Lager, you seem to be gradually succumbing to the lure of posting stuff that actually makes sense.
Are you sure you really want to go to the dark side?
There is no turning back. Be afraid

 

Once I shit-posted a thread by posting the entire text of Chapter 1 of Moby Dick but today, Lager, sir, you have bested me. I salute you. BTW, which of those do you recommend starting with?