The first two sentences I agree with. There is no point in either of us getting into a debate about what we think knowledge is. Whether it is acquired, gleaned, passed on or stolen, or felt, cerebrally or spiritually..
If a person's skills advance because of something they have learned, if you look up the definition of the word knowledge, they have gained some.

If you are saying knowledge is not worth anything until you gain the wisdom to know what to do with that knowledge, I'd agree with you.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Mar 9, 2024

I see you're becoming very emotional about this issue, but we need to return to a rational discussion. It is a common understanding that music doesn't communicate messages. Music can't directly convey logical entities, arguments, or specific information. Human reactions to music can vary wildly depending on the listener's background and experiences. However, listening to traditional music of some remote culture can be almost completely incomprehensible and disconnected from your own. You may not use music even as a signal, unless there is a pre-arranged code.
While music can't deliver a clear message, it can create something that resembles a narrative — a development of events akin to those found in nature. It can create a sense of tension and release, suspense and expectation, while we question what's coming next and what will happen in the end, leaving us under the impression that there's a meaningful process, almost alive. But that meaning is immanent, not transcendent.
If we disregard instances of mimicry, such as birds singing or storms, the representative power of music is very small, if any, in brief.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Mar 9, 2024

There's no need to debate. Definitions will suffice. Knowledge is the theoretical understanding of a subject. Skills are the abilities to apply that knowledge in a practical way. Knowledge can often be acquired quickly through reading, instruction, or even intuition. However, skills typically take time and practice to develop.

 

You missed the final statement. Everything you have just mentioned is completely worthless without - WISDOM, and that, is experience by learning what not to do.

 

We should not confuse epistemology and wisdom, nor introduce wisdom as a condition for the value of knowledge. This is a separate issue that pertains to ethics and leads to the expansion of our topic.

 

Your philosophical reading skills are adept but do not confuse the theory of wisdom and knowledge with the practice of it by human beings. Theory is useless without practical use or implementation because it then becomes relegated to only a concept, not a reality.
Discounting the validity of both is foolish.

ON TOPIC:
Like notes, if someone just wrote about them and nobody played a single note on any instrument - ever, nobody would truly know what it was, other than a bunch of words written on a scroll, piece of paper or some literary manuscript. Theory has its place. It is only valid if proven, however, practice does not need theory to validate itself. It is either good or bad. So saying nobody knows what notes are, nearly invalidates the entire world and is a ludicrous statement. It's almost like Existentialism is becoming the foundation of your discussion and while it is an interesting angle, it really is not directly related. Krishna Murti might be the only person who almost managed to live that kind of existential life philosophy and even he admitted that sometimes he failed, as did Jean-Paul Satre, Franz Kafka and others.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Mar 9, 2024

Music cannot directly convey logical entities, arguments, or specific information (...)
But It evokes an enormous range of perceptions, the limit of which is the experiential basis of the cognoscent subject himself. Precisely for this reason, in certain situations, it is more attractive than words. Just think of a composition as a work with the purpose of predicting and providing a certain type of effect on appreciation. This is what every artist should aim for and what has been lost in liquefied postmodernism: poetic thinking and making. It is to think that musical works execute poetic programs: they produce effects of appreciation based on sensory dispositions provoked in the spectator (sensorimotor responses) which in turn will produce emotional responses, which will be seized and combined with cognitive contents (memories, thoughts, reflections and projections) for the production and interpretation of poetic programs that allow interpretative keys.

Human reactions to music can vary wildly depending on the listener's background and experiences (...)
Yes, we have other topics that will shape (or not!) the production of meaning (cognitive activity related to the musical schemata that will be extracted from the world in which we live). The presence of universals in music (according to Samuel Mehr, seeking practical applications through similar contexts, referring to genre and style, several human cultures use similar songs for specific purposes - are these universals in music? maybe almost?). We also have the issue of the insider (who lives and experiences a certain culture) and the outsider (who reads, analyzes and studies from an external point of view) a certain culture. Just think that African talking drums can transmit messages from kilometers away. And those who will understand it are those who are immersed in this symbolic experience and will know how to decode linguistic patterns and their mimesis articulated by those drums (again, the limit is the experiential basis of the cognoscent subject).

When you talk about immanence, who/what are you specifically referring to? to the 'traces' of the poietic process?
If that's the case, it seems to me that it is necessary to go beyond structuralism (especially from Nattiez), for whom "each culture has a unique conception of music". For the Brazilian Guarani Indians or Australian aborigines, as systems of culture and civilization originating from specific communities, probably yes (music in culture!). But, we can think that we are talking about Western music, for example. So, we can abstract and even "propose" that categories of genres and styles, in this large corpus with schemata shared by media such as radio, TV, cinema, games, internet, can have a set of universals in common (again, schema theory - experiences with musical "languages", and with their respective musical schemata that we extract to understand music by recognizing repeated constituent patterns in scales, genres, styles, harmonic progressions, rhythmic patterns, etc.). Hence the importance of approaches based more on cognition than on structuralism.

As for me being "very emotional by the subject", that's your personal impression. I really like this conversation, but perhaps it's not the right place for it, given the nature of this thread.

 

Last edited: Mar 10, 2024

But it actually can...I haven't the energy right now to explain it myself, but composers through history have coded their compositions to convey actual messages. I'm also aware of code written into broadcasts during WW2.
https://thelistenersclub.com/2019/0...ams-five-scores-that-contain-hidden-messages/

 

I agree with you, in certain cases it is possible. The phrase in italics is from Pratyahara, who seems to me to lean towards what Meyer would define as an absolutist current, where music is conceptualized as a totally autonomous and self-sufficient code in relation to any other processes of production of meaning (such as hermeneutics, for example), which would even be considered as unwanted interference for a supposed [and romanticized] “true hearing” of a piece.

The adjective [romanticized] is my comment, it has nothing to do with what Meyer wrote. I say this because, in my music studies, I had contact with strongly structuralist composition teachers who showed us their works and processes. For some of these composers, it's almost as if anything goes if a musical composition has a highly elaborate structure. Possible sensations, emotions and senses (in the condition of interpretative readings of the work) or even things like good orchestration, etc.? none of that matters, just structural cohesion! When I showed some of these works to composers who write popular music, music for films, theater, games, everyone was almost unanimous: what f#ck%ng bad music! And when I explained that there was a very elaborate structuralist process, these people said, more or less like this: "that's just the old structuralist Zeitgeist. This bad music becomes even more pedantic, 'cos who wrote this thing thinks that all these layers of structuralism and mathematical operations will generate some emotional reaction in the listener... wanting to never hear this crap again!"

 

Last edited: Mar 10, 2024

That's really interesting having done a lot of compositional study myself. Many composers say the most effective tool for relaying any idea to people is counterpoint rather than a set structure. I do not think any of the tools we both gained it can be put into a square box anymore. They are all useful for certain needs. I also got some of your humor
You have a really good point that a composer can write a piece of music to evoke a specific emotion or reaction like "Please turn that off" or "How much can I pay you to never play that again?!?" - and of course, the polar opposite.

 

Man, all this composition talk is making me puke. Can't we just, you know, jam? Maybe get high first and not shower for several years? Where are the bongos? We can't jam without a drum circle.

 

That equates (in ethics) to Karl Popper's general idea that improvement in knowledge is possible only through correcting mistakes. Among other things, that's why experiments are used. But one thing is what constitutes knowledge, and the other is how to improve it. And improving knowledge in general is not wisdom. Wisdom is improving ourselves and our self-knowledge by gaining virtues through abstract thinking, processing our experiences, and practicing obedience to the rules of wisdom.

 

Elon Musk > Quotes > Quotable Quote

(?)
“One of the really tough things is figuring out what questions to ask. Once you figure out the question, then the answer is relatively easy.”
― Elon Musk, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

 

Last edited by a moderator: Mar 10, 2024

https://rumble.com/v4iac6c-rubinology.html

 

Of course, music certainly has a considerable impact on our psyche. It can arouse moods, but only in a general way, using some basic techniques. For example, it can do this by employing major or minor keys, fast or slow tempos, dynamic changes, monotonous or intermittent rhythms, certain frequencies and tonalities, or by mixing the timbres of several instruments. In this respect, music can have a great impact. Moods fluctuate over time and can change quickly in response to events or experiences. They are less specific than emotions but, in some cases, can last longer. In general, moods can be caused by the influence of many other factors, and they do not necessarily (re)present any knowledge, but rather an internal experience.

 

Exactly. There are people who feel almost an orgasm in writing things that will end up in the back of the drawer. In the end, may everyone have what they wish!

 

In the case of questions related to music, which are many, I don't think even the all-powerful Musk can answer (in this case, pay to answer).