# What matters?



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Listening to Enescu's phenomenal third violin sonata, a feeling/thought overwhelmed me: with music like this, what does anything else matter? Why do I bother to care about political nonsense, religion, philosophy, history, math, science, employment, social status, the opinions of others, whatever - why don't I just listen to music like this all the time? 

Then I thought, well, this is good music, but that's losing perspective. That stuff matters. 

But does it? Of course I don't expect an objective answer; I don't believe in an objective answer to that question. It is inherently subjective. But I'm rearranging my mental furniture here, and you can help me do the work if you like. 

I generally feel scorn/pity for people when, in the midst of some kind of tragedy like WWII or living under some horrible totalitarianism, they say something like, "Art is what matters." I feel like I wouldn't contradict them to their face - may I never disturb any myth they need to get through the bombings and purges! - but my own attitude has been that big ideas and ideals matter, and art/entertainment matters primarily in the way it relates to them. In their shoes, I hope I'd have the courage not to settle for art. 

But I may be wrong about that. Perhaps art (including music) really is what matters - right up there with family, friendship, freedom, and so on. 

Just now I feel like that's so obviously true...


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Hey, Science...you're making me feel like I did when I was,...'experimenting', back in the day...honestly, man, it is what ultimately matters. Along with family and love and friendship it is what truly makes life worth living.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I know exactly what you mean, and, lately, I've felt my priorities and grievances shifting all the time. The attribute that I cherish music for most is the renewed and expanded perspectives it gives me, and the way it diminishes the pettiness of other problems.

Having said that, I wouldn't place art on a special pedestal, at least certainly not music (literature perhaps). The very reason that I have these amazing feelings with music is because it sinks into my brain and plays about with all kinds of neurological facets - tickling them and exciting them. It's an aural drug to be abused, and there's nothing intrinsically special about it - it doesn't, and wouldn't, work on any other animal with differently evolved brains.

So, because music is, to me, a visceral pleasure, an emotional cascade, a neurological indulgence, I don't think it can be placed front and centre of human experience and importance. What I care more about is the satisfaction of our curiosity about the world, finding our place in it, explaining how things work, coming to understand the beauty of natural processes - science trumps all else, and, what's more, it doesn't go straight for the amygdala like music, it nourishes the uniquely cerebral aspects of the human brain, as well as satisfying our yearning for beauty. Give me an image taken by the Hubble Telescope, and all politics, all suffering, all entertainment, and all art shrivels pathetically.


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)




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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Oh kv, you've touched my heart!


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Some of God's creations are pretty impressive, eh?





:devil:


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I do believe politics, wars, economic crises, and all the shattered remnants of life are all absolutely important.

Reason being:

They will keep art and music from continuing.

Thus, with that in mind, we should all work for unity and prosperity in the world so that art/music will continue to encourage/refresh us. AND, let's USE music and art, among other things, to help us accomplish that.

As a musician, I take latter role, the encourager/nourisher of those that make the big tangible differences in society.

So all you non-musicians out there, I'm not here for myself and my gratification alone. I'm here for _you_.

I am your servant.  Which I hope you will pay amiably. :tiphat:


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Friedrich Nietzsche - "Life without music would be a mistake ". I heartily agree !


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Having said that, I wouldn't place art on a special pedestal, at least certainly not music (literature perhaps). The very reason that I have these amazing feelings with music is because it sinks into my brain and plays about with all kinds of neurological facets - tickling them and exciting them. It's an aural drug to be abused, and there's nothing intrinsically special about it - it doesn't, and wouldn't, work on any other animal with differently evolved brains.


Poley, I have to say, this rubs me the wrong way. I don't think it should be analyzed and minimized. Its powerful to me, as it is to you, don't think about what it is, who cares? To me its more interesting than nature at the moment, regardless of intrinsic value. No need to put a price label on things after all. But if that's how you personally feel for the time being, that's okay, its just not how I feel.


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## Sofronitsky (Jun 12, 2011)

What matters is making this world a better place for it's future inhabitants to discover love, sincerity, and beautiful things


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Sofronitsky said:


> What matters is making this world a better place for it's future inhabitants to discover love, sincerity, and beautiful things


The problem there is figuring out cockroach esthetics.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

And the hounds are behind--
Gunmen around every tree,
And if it's all in our minds,
Well, where else would it be?

(Mike Scott)


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

Hilltroll72 said:


> The problem there is figuring out cockroach esthetics.


Hmm. I've read (and made) some bleak statements during my time on Earth, but that is surely the most darkly amusing one I've ever seen.

Personally, I've always thought Orwell's 1984 was a tad optimistic. We won't be torturing people with rats in the future. Rats will be torturing us.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

science said:


> ...
> I generally feel scorn/pity for people when, in the midst of some kind of tragedy like WWII or living under some horrible totalitarianism, they say something like, "Art is what matters." I feel like I wouldn't contradict them to their face - may I never disturb any myth they need to get through the bombings and purges! - but my own attitude has been that big ideas and ideals matter, and art/entertainment matters primarily in the way it relates to them. In their shoes, I hope I'd have the courage not to settle for art...


Continuting what you say there, I think art can kind of change the world. Or be one of the driving forces of change, positive or (unfortunately) negative.

I mean there's many examples. Things like Benny Goodman inviting vibes player Lionel Hampton as a guest for one of his concerts in the Carnegie Hall in New York, in the 1930's. Hampton was black, and America was still under segregation system. But New York was more liberal than, say, the Southern USA. However, what Goodman did was still controversial.

Fast forward to 1968 and the morning after the assasination of Dr. Martin Luther King, who was instrumental in ending segregation in USA. James Brown, the legendary R&B singer, was scheduled to give a concert that night in Boston. A live television broadcast of the concert was hastily arranged. Brown appealed to his fellow African Americans in Boston to desist from rioting, looting and burning the town to revenge Dr. King's death. It basically worked, there was less of that stuff going on that night, most people stayed at home to watch his concert, and heeded his wise words of unity and healing. More info HERE.

So these two anecdotes show that both Benny Goodman and James Brown were in tune with their times and they were working to make positive changes for the society through their music.

So what I'm saying is that even in the worst of times like that, of division and the worst side of human nature (eg. politics & other things getting out of hand, prejudice, discrimination, etc.), music can make a difference. Musicians can make a difference, so can composers and listeners of music. I think most if not all musicians are positive people, at least those I've come across over the years. Music is a kind of energy as people above have said, it can be harnessed to do good, history has proven this...


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

clavichorder said:


> Poley, I have to say, this rubs me the wrong way. I don't think it should be analyzed and minimized. Its powerful to me, as it is to you, don't think about what it is, who cares? To me its more interesting than nature at the moment, regardless of intrinsic value. No need to put a price label on things after all. But if that's how you personally feel for the time being, that's okay, its just not how I feel.


Your view rubs me the wrong way too because, to me, that says "I want this blindfold over my eyes, I want the explicable to be mysterious, I want to be kept in the dark because it's more fascinating." It's just like Keats saying the rainbow was reduced to coldness by Newton; well I think reductionism is _more_ beautiful than superficial beauty - it only adds layers upon layers of more beauty at more levels of detail, and if it so happens that reducing music reveals less beauty than reducing the cosmos, then cosmos wins.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

What you sad, Sid, makes me think that music has the power to bring people together, rather than to actually push change as well. That takes rhetoric, politics, and literature. I think this power is actually one to be wary of, because it can make propaganda a thousand times more tasteful than without a soundtrack.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Polednice said:


> Your view rubs me the wrong way too because, to me, that says "I want this blindfold over my eyes, I want the explicable to be mysterious, I want to be kept in the dark because it's more fascinating." It's just like Keats saying the rainbow was reduced to coldness by Newton; well I think reductionism is _more_ beautiful than superficial beauty - it only adds layers upon layers of more beauty at more levels of detail, and if it so happens that reducing music reveals less beauty than reducing the cosmos, then cosmos wins.


You seem like an analyst, like me, but I understand weakness for both arguments. As mediator, I like to analyze music both ways, leaving some to mystery, some to "reductionism" which can be taken to an extreme like anything. It's not always reductionism, but can be "elaborationism" so to speak. Man was meant to discover, and music is an art that exists on discovery and invention. Still, I support Clavichorder for saying music is in many ways too powerful to comprehend fully.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Polednice said:


> What you sad, Sid, makes me think that music has the power to bring people together, rather than to actually push change as well. That takes rhetoric, politics, and literature. I think this power is actually one to be wary of, because it can make propaganda a thousand times more tasteful than without a soundtrack.


Well I do admit it can be misused, this power of music to bring people together. It can bring them together for the wrong purposes & create division and not unity (eg. what various dictators of 20th century did with music and the other arts - we don't even have to name them). However, one can argue that these are like aberrations or manipulations of music and not "real" music, they are the few rotten apples in the big bunch.

When I think of music & musicians producing positive changes for the world at large I think of, for example -

- Raising awareness - eg. of various charitable or humanitarian causes musicians inevitably get involved in, some with a good deal of passion for these causes (a lot of classical musicians here, from Albert Schweitzer in early 20th century, or Pablo Casals, who was advocate for a free Spain during the Franco dictatorship)

- Helping people to heal and reflect after various tragedies - again, we know many of these works in classical music, one most profound one is R. Strauss' _Metamorphosen_, which I think says in music that which was kind of taboo in Germany after the war (eg. head in sand attitude, let's go on as if it never happened), a more recent one is Steve Reich's marking of tenth anniversary of the Twin Towers tragedy of 2001, but I have not heard this work, & I can give you numerous Australian examples, eg. Peter Sculthorpe writing pieces for Aussie victims of Bali bombings and for 2009 bushfires in Victoria, etc.

- Becoming role models for minorities & society at large - eg. obvious one is black musicians in USA, of all musical genres. Same here with Aboriginal Australian musicians. & also with musicians coming from any minority group, be it with a disability, or gay, or various ethnicities...


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Do you think, that my blindfold, as you call it, that prevents me from reducing music to the cold facts of what we _are capable of understanding it to be_, is universally applied? I have things that I am quite critical about sometimes, as well as certain views that I'd often like to remain untampered with. At this time, I would prefer not to be highly critical about music as a concept and phenomena. Its not as though I insist on viewing it as something magical, I don't know what it is, but I often think of it like a oddly affecting abstraction, still I choose to focus on in the way that I do, because its what I'm good at focusing on, and I don't want to mess with that.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

BTW, Huilu and Polednice, we should transplant parts of this discussion to the discussion group.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

clavichorder said:


> Do you think, that my blindfold, as you call it, that prevents me from reducing music to the cold facts of what we _are capable of understanding it to be_, is universally applied? I have things that I am quite critical about sometimes, as well as certain views that I'd often like to remain untampered with. At this time, I would prefer not to be highly critical about music as a concept and phenomena. Its not as though I insist on viewing it as something magical, I don't know what it is, but I often think of it like a oddly affecting abstraction, still I choose to focus on in the way that I do, because its what I'm good at focusing on, and I don't want to mess with that.


Two things:

1) Facts are not cold.
2) I don't know what you meant by the rest.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Nabokov couldn't appreciate any music at all. 

Did his life have meaning?


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Two things:
> 
> 1) Facts are not cold.
> 2) I don't know what you meant by the rest.


That's annoying, you didn't get it and singled out one thing you disagreed with. How nice.

Essentially, I was rubbed wrong at you belittling music and acting all haughty about it, and justifying why its just fine for me to focus on music.

Its also legitimate for me to be insulted at being treated like a "blindfolded", non inquisitive fool for caring about music more than natural phenomena.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I'm with you, Clavi. And so is Einstein. He said imagination is more important than knowledge.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

clavichorder said:


> Essentially, I was rubbed wrong at you belittling music


First of all, this statement is laden with prejudice and a disregard for a substantial amount of my original comments. How on earth was I "belittling" music? If you look back at what I said, I started by complimenting music's ability to shape my perspectives and give me something that I truly value. As witnessed by my continued presence on this forum, music is of great importance to me, and I would never seek to belittle it. _Having said that_ (there's that phrase again!), what I went on to say was that music's effect is a deeply emotional one - one that doesn't stimulate the entirety of a person's cognitive capabilities. This isn't a sleight against the art-form, this is an observation about its limitations and, therefore, why I would place something else, such as scientific inquiry, above it.



clavichorder said:


> acting all haughty about it, and justifying why its just fine for me to focus on music.
> 
> Its also legitimate for me to be insulted at being treated like a "blindfolded", non inquisitive fool for caring about music more than natural phenomena.


I wasn't being haughty, I was speaking with righteous indignation at a line of anti-scientific argument that has been running since the 19th century, and which has no place in 21st century thought. Keats laboured the point, as did Poe, and Whitman, and many others, and they were all fundamentally misguided to call science and rationality "cold" as you similarly indulged in. There is nothing different in your desire to appreciate music for music and not dig for deeper explanations, which is why I called it a kind of wilful blind-folding. And I'm not going to hold back - I'm tired of people who say that superficial mystery is more beautiful than mechanical explanation.

Good ol' Richard Feynman had an argument with an artist friend once. They saw each other every Sunday (or every other Sunday, I can't remember) for eight years, and they alternated between teaching each other their areas of expertise. Feynman was taught to draw (and became a very good draughtsman), and he taught his friend the basics of physics. Of course, his idiot artist friend told him that when Feynman sees a flower, he doesn't properly appreciate it on an aesthetic level. Instead, he sees it in "cold" functional terms. Feynman rightly pointed out that he, just like any other human with these innate aesthetic sensibilities, could perfectly well appreciate the surface beauty of a flower - scientific inquiry only _adds_ to the beauty. You can comprehend the flower on microscopic and macroscopic levels; cells are glorious feats of nature, and ecosystems fascinating things to contemplate.

So when you and others tell me that you don't want to concern yourselves with the fundamental workings of music, you present yourself as a direct analogy to the poet in this anecdote by Feynman's sister!

"There's a poem ... about [a man] watching [a] learn'd astronomer measuring the stars or something, and [the man] goes out and gazes silently up at the sky [purporting to appreciate it more]. Well, when he gazes silently up at the sky, he sees these little points of light in this blackness [beautiful though it is in its mystery]. When a scientist gazes silently up at the sky, he sees these enormous suns, and galaxies, and magnetic fields, and the turbulence and the heat and the cold and the molecules in between them, in space, and endless distances, and great mysteries. And you have a feeling if you're a scientist that you see a lot more."

So when someone tells me that my desire to uncover the underlying mechanisms of music is "analysing" and "minimising", I'll jump up on my high warhorse, brandish my sword, and pull no swipes in stating unequivocally that I see all the beauty you see, and I see more. I try to uncover and unravel layers upon layers of more glory than you seem satisfied with, and I'll continue unrelented by accusations of coldness. It is a fondness for mystery and mysticism and inexplicable wonder that has kept us shrouded in darkness and ignorance; probing and researching and questioning is what furthers both human social _*and*_ aesthetic progress. I mean look at a vast array of art from the past century and you'll see pieces upon pieces inspired by advances in science. Even our colloquialisms are littered with references to the cosmos - it's about time people opened up and realised there is great beauty waiting to be revealed in an application of warm, embracing science to the arts themselves. Science has _*never*_ minimised or detracted; only improved and nourished and emboldened, and it is only turning _away_ from science that is minimising, because it shrivels your horizons.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I think science can help appreciate things, to be sure. But it can also ruin some things. Imagine sex or eating under scientific inquiry! Its not attractive to think about all these things and its not appetizing to ruin your meat by thinking about animal carcasses. Same with music, its more fun just to enjoy it. Mystifying isn't the same as emotional. There is an emotional side of things that is natural, both human and animal and there's nothing wrong with owning it.

I'm not 100% this way. I'm not entirely a hedonist or fufu artist/mystic. Nor are you an antiseptic rational entirely, not even close(you are Polednice, and unless I've been misinterpreting your sense of humor all this time, you are definitely not entirely dominated by literal rational realizations). This is just our position in this argument. And I'm convinced that neither element can be factually proven superior. Fact is so limited, because we can't possibly know a fraction of everything.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

You know that I like both of you very much and agree with almost everything either of you say.

In this discussion, I have to say that I'm unaware of anything that is ruined by scientific knowledge - rather, as far as I'm aware everything is actually enhanced by scientific knowledge. Optics reveals the rainbow as a far more fascinating tapestry than naive poetry ever could, and Keats and Whitman were at least in their anti-scientific moments idiots who ought for their own sakes to have been flogged vigorously by their loved ones. As for sex, I can understand not wanting to conduct it under scientific scrutiny, but one of the very best books I've ever read is _Sex and the Origins of Death_.

On the other hand, I think music may be more than solely emotional: music theory is certainly a rigorously intellectual field.

But even if it were merely emotional, I have for almost a whole day now felt that it might be second to absolutely nothing as a meaningful activity. I didn't think so previously - I would have ranked it highly but below things like politics and family - but I'm probably changing my mind.


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## Guest (Feb 25, 2012)

My words of wisdom : Everything matters but nothing matters more than people.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

What does matter is culture in society. Art music is one. I'm not talking about the individual level (you can enjoy listening to cacophonic random mumbo jumbo industrial noise and or to Beethoven, that's all fine), but I think if the society you live in doesn't have and nurture culture with the arts at its core, it's likely a place I wouldn't want to live in. That is challenging these days of course, as governments are either broke and or pressured to cut back subsidies on the arts.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

At any rate, I'm pleased that my steam has been blown, as I don't get into internet arguments often these days, since they cause a peculiar kind of discomfort.

I don't know though. Maybe nothing is ruined by scientific inquiry. But its certainly not the only approach to have in one's life, its a process that requires brain cells, which are exhausting to consciously exert all the time.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

clavichorder said:


> ... scientific inquiry [is] certainly not the only approach to have in one's life....


That's a good point.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I'm not going to argue any more because it will just make me angry. Everything about my previous post still stands; science makes everything more beautiful to me.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Science vs. art? Just another of those false dichotomies that humans manage to create from the ether.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Polednice said:


> I'm not going to argue any more because it will just make me angry. Everything about my previous post still stands; science makes everything more beautiful to me.


OK, then take off that plastic piggy mask now!


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## Guest (Feb 25, 2012)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> What does matter is culture in society. Art music is one. I'm not talking about the individual level (you can enjoy listening to cacophonic random mumbo jumbo industrial noise and or to Beethoven, that's all fine), but I think if the society you live in doesn't have and nurture culture with the arts at its core, it's likely a place I wouldn't want to live in. That is challenging these days of course, as governments are either broke and or pressured to cut back subsidies on the arts.


Yes art is the ultimate thing we must have


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Science vs. art? Just another of those false dichotomies that humans manage to create from the ether.


Hate to be one of those people, but:

"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom." ~Einstein


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Andante said:


> Yes art is the ultimate thing we must have


I'm not sure whether you agree with my post or not or whatever. Though I wasn't suggesting art is the _ultimate thing we must have_. I haven't bothered with your clip.


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## Guest (Feb 26, 2012)

Well if you are not going to look at it I will remove it !!! it was the wrong one anyway and I can't find the right one.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

SottoVoce said:


> Hate to be one of those people, but:
> 
> "All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom." ~Einstein


Oh dear, I might have a little quibble over the inclusion of religion in that, but that's for another thread!


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Polednice said:


> Oh dear, I might have a little quibble over the inclusion of religion in that, but that's for another thread!


I thought you might. As impetus for aspirations, religion has done well at times. There are, I agree, several available quibbles. This could be a useful subject for _science_'s 'group'.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Einstein's quote sounds like he underestimated the degree to which humanity's activities - including art, religion, and science - are about _power_ (such as status).

Sometimes Nietzsche was right.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

^^^^^^^^^^
I'm certain he was well aware of that aspect and the collective abuses.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

starthrower said:


> ^^^^^^^^^^
> I'm certain he was well aware of that aspect and the collective abuses.


Aware enough to flee the Nazis, eh?


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Yeah, I think Einstein is talking about what Art, Science and Religion are really about in of themselves, not to be confused with our interpretation of them, or how people have abused them to fit power schemes which really have nothing to do with these three things in of themselves.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

It seems we disagree about the ultimate nature of art, science and religion - that is, about human nature.

Of course I admit that the will to power is generally subconscious or at best semi-conscious, and that human behavior is enormously complicated by the interaction between the will to collective power and the will to individual power.

But I would be very surprised if it turns out that there is anything more fundamental to human nature, or if there is _any_ kind of human activity that is _even in principle_ separable from it.

Maybe I'm too cynical; I suspect, however, that none of us are actually capable of being as cynical as we'd need to be to know the truth about ourselves. Edit: I further suspect that knowing the truth about ourselves would be very harmful to our social lives - that is, to our pursuit of power in that arena, which is precisely why we cannot even choose to be very conscious of it!

But now we are very far away from the topic of music, and I'd bring us back: even when music is undeniably bound up with the pursuit of power - as when corporations try to make money selling a recording, or a performer tries to get famous, or whatever - the result can still be undeniably wonderful and beautiful. I am willing, nay, eager to grant such power (i.e. pay/praise/etc....) to those individuals capable of giving me that experience. (Of course I am fortunately not a peasant or a slave living under a regime legitimized in part by its sponsorship of, say, Bach's liturgical music.)


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

tdc said:


> Yeah, I think Einstein is talking about what Art, Science and Religion are really about in of themselves, not to be confused with our interpretation of them, or how people have abused them to fit power schemes which really have nothing to do with these three things in of themselves.


I know you mean well, but I intensely dislike this line of argument. Not one of these cultural phenomena is separable from our interpretation of them. They have no intrinsic substance to them upon which humans build; whatever humans make and interpret them to be is what they are.

Particularly with religion, very often implicit in this thought is that _his_ vile interpretation is not the right one, or _her_ damaging take on it is an abuse - and how do I know? Because _my_ harmless interpretation is the true one. In reality, the vile interpretations are as legitimate as the good ones because no person has the authority to arbitrate, and that's why it is so poisonous because our minds and our societies end up being abused by the powerful memes of a two-thousand year old barbaric society. At least the scientific method has safeguards against human prejudice and irrationality.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Aware enough to flee the Nazis, eh?


He actually renounced his German citizenship and moved to Switzerland decades before the Nazi's 
came to power.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Polednice said:


> At least the scientific method has safeguards against human prejudice and irrationality.


It might be that science manages to harness human prejudice and irrationality; they become the means toward an impartial, rational end.

Maybe...


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

tdc said:


> Yeah, I think Einstein is talking about what Art, Science and Religion are really about in of themselves, not to be confused with our interpretation of them, or how people have abused them to fit power schemes which really have nothing to do with these three things in of themselves.


At the several moments in the dim past when religion became organized, it also became a power scheme. At the several moments when Art became a concept-by-itself, it also became a power scheme, with a somewhat limited scope. Science relies too much on logic, and in recent centuries on experiment, to be a successful power scheme, _except within the ranks of its practitioners_.

Some of us, e.g. _Poley_ and perhaps _science_, choose to ignore the... the Noble Concepts that religious thought has evoked down through the centuries. It ain't all bad, guys.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Polednice said:


> I know you mean well, but I intensely dislike this line of argument. *Not one of these cultural phenomena is separable from our interpretation of them. They have no intrinsic substance to them upon which humans build; whatever humans make and interpret them to be is what they are.*
> 
> Particularly with religion, very often implicit in this thought is that _his_ vile interpretation is not the right one, or _her_ damaging take on it is an abuse - and how do I know? Because _my_ harmless interpretation is the true one. In reality, the vile interpretations are as legitimate as the good ones because no person has the authority to arbitrate, and that's why it is so poisonous because our minds and our societies end up being abused by the powerful memes of a two-thousand year old barbaric society. At least the scientific method has safeguards against human prejudice and irrationality.


I disagree with the statement in bold, I think a lot of things exist beyond human perception, and have definitions beyond what we interpret them as. If this were not true science would have solved all of our problems by now, because everything is already known, or defined by our interpretation. The other extremely dangerous problem your idea presents is that small groups in power (ie - those who control the media) can largely decide what our interpretations are of these things - therefore make up whatever definitions they choose for such things. I think a great way for certain groups to maintain power over large groups of people is to shatter their faith in any higher power (perhaps by starting a bunch of wars and then blaming them on religion? Or molesting young people in the churches? What greater way to shatter someone's idea of religion?). 
People who have no religious beliefs are far easier to control and tell what to believe, as those who are unsure of what to believe will have a tendency to fear the unknown. Fear is the greatest tool of those who desire power. This way the masses only way forward is to believe in this thing called science - unfortunately something also easily manipulated through propaganda and fear tactics.

No. I'm afraid I still do believe in higher ideals, regardless of the deceiving evil times we live in. I also believe that true religion, art and science do not contradict each other and are branches of the same tree.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Some of us, e.g. _Poley_ and perhaps _science_, choose to ignore the... the Noble Concepts that religious thought has evoked down through the centuries. It ain't all bad, guys.


I don't ignore the noble concepts evoked concurrently with religion, but I remain suspicious of claiming that religion was the one true cause of them. When you look back at history, you can take _any_ achievement and any noble concept and try to lay it at religion's door because people were universally religious. It's a meaningless backdrop with no real value. As people have said before, we'd still have an equal of Bach if we didn't have religion. I think religion as a concept is much too fundamentally pernicious for any of its supposed boons to be sufficiently redemptive.



tdc said:


> I disagree with the statement in bold, I think a lot of things exist beyond human perception, and have definitions beyond what we interpret them as. If this were not true science would have solved all of our problems by now, because everything is already known, or defined by our interpretation. The other extremely dangerous problem your idea presents is that small groups in power (ie - those who control the media) can largely decide what our interpretations are of these things - therefore make up whatever definitions they choose for such things. I think a great way for certain groups to maintain power over large groups of people is to shatter their faith in any higher power (perhaps by starting a bunch of wars and then blaming them on religion? Or molesting young people in the churches? What greater way to shatter someone's idea of religion?).
> People who have no religious beliefs are far easier to control and tell what to believe, as those who are unsure of what to believe will have a tendency to fear the unknown. Fear is the greatest tool of those who desire power. This way the masses only way forward is to believe in this thing called science - unfortunately something also easily manipulated through propaganda and fear tactics.
> 
> No. I'm afraid I still do believe in higher ideals, regardless of the deceiving evil times we live in. I also believe that true religion, art and science do not contradict each other and are branches of the same tree.


The logic in this is so messed up that I'm not going to touch it.


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

Well. I think I'll pass on the art-science-religion argument (I have thoughts, but no energy to incur and withstand anybody's wrath or even annoyance) but I will say that I sometimes _decide_ that music is the only thing that matters, at times when it is the only thing that is not frustrating or discouraging. When school or work is overwhelming, and I'm feeling acutely aware of my social awkwardness, and I'm worrying about life after college (etc.) I grope around in my mind for something that makes me happy and doesn't have to be complicated by the uncontrollable element that is _other people_ and I light upon, "Well, I can always sit down at a piano and play Beethoven. To hell with the rest." It's a comfort.

Also, this


science said:


> Listening to Enescu's phenomenal third violin sonata, a feeling/thought overwhelmed me: with music like this, what does anything else matter? Why do I bother to care about political nonsense, religion, philosophy, history, math, science, employment, social status, the opinions of others, whatever - why don't I just listen to music like this all the time?


reminded me of this, from Jonathan Biss' blog:


> with a friend, during a performance of Schubert's 9th (7th?) symphony:
> 
> J: If music this beautiful can exist, the world can't be such a bad place.
> 
> ...


Simplistic and idealistic, perhaps, but endearingly so.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Hilltroll72 said:


> At the several moments in the dim past when religion became organized, it also became a power scheme. At the several moments when Art became a concept-by-itself, it also became a power scheme, with a somewhat limited scope. Science relies too much on logic, and in recent centuries on experiment, to be a successful power scheme, _except within the ranks of its practitioners_.
> 
> Some of us, e.g. _Poley_ and perhaps _science_, choose to ignore the... the Noble Concepts that religious thought has evoked down through the centuries. It ain't all bad, guys.


There is probably very little that is all good or all bad. Even though religion was one of the major tools of oppression from at least Hammurabi's time down to the late 18th century, such organized and systematic oppression was certainly better than the war of all against all would have been. It certainly produced better art!

Of course the main way that religion legitimized that exploitation was by making it psychologically bearable. There is no denying the emotional power of religion. I think some people don't have the temperament to feel it, but I am not one. Give me a candle-lit Greek church with melismatic chant expressing the spirituality of Maximus the Confessor, and I will be tempted to surrender my freedoms.... Just over a decade ago, I wanted to be a monk, after all.

But I thank whatever gods may be that I born in the era of capitalism, science, and republicanism. Even though those institutions have made possible the annihilation of the comforts of my faith, they also available to me not only safe drinking water and vaccines and plenty of food and clothing, but also the Chinese philosophy, Indian theology, Persian poetry, Arabic architecture and European music that - though they were produced in part to elevate someone over someone else - I love so much.


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

Polednice said:


> At least the scientific method has safeguards against human prejudice and irrationality.


I'm sorry, but what? Scientific Racism was the weapon used by many racist intellectuals to support both their prejudice and their irrationality, and provided the ethnoracial response against the Jewish population in Europe that culminated in the Holocaust. By definition, it's using scientific techniques and hypotheses to sanction belief in racial superiority, and a lot of people jumped on board with it. A lot of people talk about how Art is corruptible because the Nazis were using Beethoven's music for their irrational nationalism, but trust me when I say that stupid, evil people will use anything in their favor in order to rationalize their delusions; whether it be through empiricism or emotion.

Maybe Einstein's point wasn't that they're all "pure" in of themselves, but all of them are necessary to know the human spirit; like he said in later writings, *"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."* All exceptionalism is stupid, really; it allows for people to inflate their egos and provide for their confirmation bias. Me, I love them all; I am grateful that life provided us with such overwhelmingly beautiful ways to see the world and our place in it, and overall get in touch with feelings we're not able to in daily life. Having just one would make life unbearably boring.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

That would be a description of _pseudo_science. The fundamental difference is that, given the right critical thinking skills, you can find out whether something is pseudoscience for yourself. Amass all the tools you want, and you've got not way of determining which Bishop is telling you the "truth".


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

This an issue I have been toiling with a lot lately.
For me it boils down to the reconciliation between two separate 'mens':
-My firm belief that the world can be explained through physics, and humanity through the darwinian principles of biology.
-My aspiration for art to hold a higher, metaphysical significance.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I think I used to feel the conflict you describe, but I don't anymore. Not that any new ideas occurred to me in the meantime, but probably just that I've kind of settled into a naturalistic worldview and become content with it. 

One thing I will say - things matter to me because they matter to me, regardless of whether we're biological or spiritual creatures or some mix of that or something entirely different. I am comfortable valuing my values even if the universe or a deity or a whole pantheon of deities are indifferent, in fact, even if they are hostile. I'm not sure that counts as "a higher, metaphysical significance," so I'm not sure that we're talking about the same thing, but it's what I personally need.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Polednice said:


> That would be a description of _pseudo_science. The fundamental difference is that, given the right critical thinking skills, you can find out whether something is pseudoscience for yourself. Amass all the tools you want, and you've got not way of determining which Bishop is telling you the "truth".


Not pseudoscience necessarily, but science combined with vested interest. The 'good' results are kept, the 'bad' results are discarded. Happens more often than we know about; drug companies have achieved some notoriety there. It may have something to do with how much time and money has already been expended.

Bad science is still science.


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

Polednice said:


> That would be a description of _pseudo_science. The fundamental difference is that, given the right critical thinking skills, you can find out whether something is pseudoscience for yourself. Amass all the tools you want, and you've got not way of determining which Bishop is telling you the "truth".


I'm not going to drag this out because I don't want to make it seem like I'm singling you out and I truly respect your opinion, Polednice, but it's dangerous to put science on that kind of "pure" pedestal, because you're using the same line of argument that you said you despised before. If people interpret science as a way to legitimize or give certainity to their often irrational opinions, and this was indeed a cultural phenomenon in the past, then wouldn't this, as you said about religion and art, also be a part of science as well? As you said, science in of itself isn't just the correct application of the scientific method, but also what society did wrong with, similar to what religion art and religion have been. It's not fair to apply this level of reasoning to art and religion, but then not to science in my opinion. I find science to be man's greatest way to acquire knowledge and assure certainity in the world, but to say that it's not corruptible would be a misinterpretation of history.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

People always assume that when one applauds science and knocks religion, that therefore you're a believer in science as a 'deity', as the One Source of Truth. I haven't said any of that. I haven't put science on a pedestal of purity. People just say that as a distraction in order to try to belittle my argument. I acknowledge that science isn't a perfect tool because it's a human tool and we are fallible; my point is only ever that science is a gazillion times better than religion at _everything_ religion claims to do, because religion is a worthless piece of ****. :tiphat:


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Polednice said:


> People always assume that when one applauds science and knocks religion, that therefore you're a believer in science as a 'deity', as the One Source of Truth. I haven't said any of that. I haven't put science on a pedestal of purity.


Sure you have; that is the song you know best. I have been expecting you to post a hymn to the glory of Science. How far along is that?


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Sure you have; that is the song you know best. I have been expecting you to post a hymn to the glory of Science. How far along is that?


Quote me on it. You're reading something between the lines that isn't there because you're determined to find fault.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Polednice said:


> Quote me on it. You're reading something between the lines that isn't there because you're determined to find fault.


Nope. I'm reading the sense of several of your posts, 1) because I enjoy jerking your chain

or 2) because I'm expecting you to admit your prejudice

or 3) for some hilltroll reason that is not apparent.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

science said:


> I generally feel scorn/pity for people when, in the midst of some kind of tragedy like WWII or living under some horrible totalitarianism, they say something like, "Art is what matters." I feel like I wouldn't contradict them to their face - may I never disturb any myth they need to get through the bombings and purges! - but my own attitude has been that big ideas and ideals matter, and art/entertainment matters primarily in the way it relates to them. In their shoes, I hope I'd have the courage not to settle for art.


The problem with these types of utilitarian calculations is that the "practical choice" may seem catastrophic in the long run.

Hypothetically, if Ludwig II's people were starving and he could've used his money to either I. pay off Wagner's debts or II. save 1 million people from starvation, in the short wrong it appears incontrovertibly correct to save the people, but in the very long run the first choice is better.

Imagine another choice in which the Devil will grant you the ability to erase from history all the atrocities in exchange for the disappearance of all art.

The 60 million of Mao, the 30 million of Stalin, the 6 million of Hitler, all the wars and starvations and rape and violence, etc, in exchange for the erasing from reality of the greats. Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plato, etc, Virgil, Horace, all the golden age poets, Dante, Shakespeare, Henry James, etc, the top 150 painters and the top 50 composers. Not ALL art, but only the very best. The best 150 writers in history (as arbitrarily defined by critical consensus, DDD, "greatest ever" lists, etc, and other vague approximations, let's not go down _that road._), the best 150 painters, and the best 50 composers, etc, gone forever.

Let's say Devil throws in the cure for Alzheimer's and AIDs and various other diseases for that, and everyone gets to live to 90, and he'll fix the economy too.

Would you say yes to such a trade with the Devil?

Hey, no King Lear, but most people don't enjoy Lear anyways, so it wouldn't matter to them.

Really, great art only gives pleasure to a small minority. It's quite selfish really.


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## Operadowney (Apr 4, 2012)

There are times where I wonder why people still pay for art. I'm amazed when people will give me a couple of bucks to sing something; where I'm from a lot of people are musicians and artists and it's so common that everybody has a "cousin who can do that," or something. People get outraged that Harper is cutting arts funding. But realistically, great art will happen with or without money. I'm fully prepared to live in poverty to be a singer, and so are a lot of people. This never was a lucrative profession, so why start now?


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## Moira (Apr 1, 2012)

What matters is contextual. I recently attended a jazz concert in South Africa where I live. An almost exclusively white elderly audience listening to four elderly black musicians. I became very angry during the concert at the system of apartheid that robbed us, audience and musicians alike, of this precise sort of experience. This emotional state has stayed with me in the two weeks since attending that concert.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

brianwalker said:


> Hypothetically, if Ludwig II's people were starving and he could've used his money to either I. pay off Wagner's debts or II. save 1 million people from starvation, in the short wrong it appears incontrovertibly correct to save the people, but in the very long run the first choice is better.


You have interesting priorities. Give me any length of time as the long run, I would _always_ choose the one million lives. I don't care how much Wagner's music touches and enriches people's lives, lives themselves are much more valuable and I wouldn't trade a single one for an endless supply of perfect art.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

I don't know Polednice. The more people you save, the more they water down everything in existence and destroy anything good about living. Perhaps I'd rather have Wagner.


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

Your witticisms are profoundly inspired, Cnote.


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

Though they still don't compare to Mr. Walker's fascinating lectures.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

That they do not.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

kv466 said:


>


May Scriabin's Prometheus, poeme de feu, to go along with that image? Here is part 3/3


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

What matters, too, is what helps us get by through both the good, the terrible, births, deaths and all that goes on in between.

Music, famously, helps.

I think there was good reason the Greeks attributed Apollo both with Music AND the healing arts....


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Guys, what's with the avatar thing? Really confusing.



Polednice said:


> You have interesting priorities. Give me any length of time as the long run, I would _always_ choose the one million lives. I don't care how much Wagner's music touches and enriches people's lives, lives themselves are much more valuable and I wouldn't trade a single one for an endless supply of perfect art.


And if were Brahms instead of Wagner? I made it easy for you by using Wagner, but if Brahms had been cash strapped instead?

You didn't answer the second part.

Imagine another choice in which the Devil will grant you the ability to erase from history all the atrocities in exchange for the disappearance of all art.

The 60 million of Mao, the 30 million of Stalin, the 6 million of Hitler, all the wars and starvations and rape and violence, etc, in exchange for the erasing from reality of the greats. Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plato, etc, Virgil, Horace, all the golden age poets, Dante, Shakespeare, Henry James, etc, the top 150 painters and the top 50 composers. Not ALL art, but only the very best. The best 150 writers in history (as arbitrarily defined by critical consensus, DDD, "greatest ever" lists, etc, and other vague approximations, let's not go down that road.), the best 150 painters, and the best 50 composers, etc, gone forever. 


Let's say Devil throws in the cure for Alzheimer's and AIDs and various other diseases for that, and everyone gets to live to 90, and he'll fix the economy too.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Just imagine how crowded the world would be. I would pass and take Brahms.


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

More witticisms from Cnote, and more lectures from Mr. Walker. You guys are such luminaries.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

I was expecting white text.


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

You're in the wrong thread. Check out the other one.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Here I was thinking you were a polymath.


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

I'm already white-texting four seperate threads simultaneously.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Cnote11 said:


> Just imagine how crowded the world would be. I would pass and take Brahms.


In reality you'd take the people?

And how are you sure that the utility of those people alive trumps the joy of the billions who will listen to Brahms forever and ever?


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

brianwalker said:


> And if were Brahms instead of Wagner? I made it easy for you by using Wagner, but if Brahms had been cash strapped instead?


Yep, if it were Brahms I'd still choose the people. I also find it slightly repulsive to consider the "utility" of these people's lives over the enjoyment of many more lives down the line. Let me make my point a little more obvious by changing the numbers slightly - am I to choose Brahms for the rest of our species, or _one_ person who would die through some preventable means? I'd pick the person. And it's not because I think they will be useful, or that the enjoyment of others isn't important, but that life is an extremely precious thing that we all take for granted far too often, and not a single life can ever have a price slapped on it. I certainly value _my_ life greater than the Brahmsian enjoyments of billions of people in the future, and I do my best to value the lives of others as much as I do my own, so to ask me to choose Brahms or a _million_ people only makes the answer to the question that much more obvious.

Tell me, if you had to choose between suicide or seeing your favourite composer's music vanish for the rest of time, would you sacrifice yourself for others seeing as the utility of your one life is so slim compared to the enjoyment of billions?

With regards to your second part:



brianwalker said:


> Imagine another choice in which the Devil will grant you the ability to erase from history all the atrocities in exchange for the disappearance of all art.
> 
> The 60 million of Mao, the 30 million of Stalin, the 6 million of Hitler, all the wars and starvations and rape and violence, etc, in exchange for the erasing from reality of the greats. Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plato, etc, Virgil, Horace, all the golden age poets, Dante, Shakespeare, Henry James, etc, the top 150 painters and the top 50 composers. Not ALL art, but only the very best. The best 150 writers in history (as arbitrarily defined by critical consensus, DDD, "greatest ever" lists, etc, and other vague approximations, let's not go down that road.), the best 150 painters, and the best 50 composers, etc, gone forever.


First, am I to assume that by "erase from history" you mean to make sure that the atrocities never happened rather than that they are erased from memories and textbooks? If the latter, forget it! If the former, I'd choose to save all of those lost lives and see art vanish. We can always satisfy our artistic cravings with new creations, but no consciousness will ever be replaced.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

brianwalker said:


> In reality you'd take the people?
> 
> And how are you sure that the utility of those people alive trumps the joy of the billions who will listen to Brahms forever and ever?


I believe I said I would pass and take Brahms.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

I do find it to be a ridiculous question. I have a better one. A spin off of Polednice's "one person" thing:

Would you sacrifice Brahm's music to save Brahm's life from preventable measures?


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Cnote11 said:


> I do find it to be a ridiculous question. I have a better one. A spin off of Polednice's "one person" thing:
> 
> Would you sacrifice Brahm's music to save Brahm's life from preventable measures?


So what's he going to do with himself once he's saved?


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Tell me, if you had to choose between suicide or seeing your favourite composer's music vanish for the rest of time, would you sacrifice yourself for others seeing as the utility of your one life is so slim compared to the enjoyment of billions?


I don't think in terms of utility, it has no place in my ethics. I reject your hypothetical scenario because my ethics doesn't allow for such choices to exist, while you're a utilitarian of some sort or another.

I think it just that Bill Gates spend all his money on the opera and not give any to Africa. I'm not beholden to these dilemmas because I don't reckon justice through any variations on the theme "greatest happiness of the greatest number".

I don't believe my life is mine to give, my belief system forbid suicide.

*However, *if there were a scenario in which I had the only existing copy of the scores of Wagner's operas, *I would risk my life to save them of course, I'd storm through minefields and storms of bullets and terrorize maidens and risk my limbs and my head.*

If however, someone had the last copy of Wagner's operas and told me to either kill myself or he would burn them, I wouldn't kill myself.



> First, am I to assume that by "erase from history" you mean to make sure that the atrocities never happened rather than that they are erased from memories and textbooks? If the latter, forget it! If the former, I'd choose to save all of those lost lives and see art vanish. We can always satisfy our artistic cravings with new creations, but no consciousness will ever be replaced.


*I mean the former of course. 
*

Well, you gave your answer, and I am satisfied.



Cnote11 said:


> I do find it to be a ridiculous question. I have a better one. A spin off of Polednice's "one person" thing:
> 
> Would you sacrifice Brahm's music to save Brahm's life from preventable measures?


Many artists have sacrificed their livelihood for their art.

*The intellect of man is forced to choose
Perfection of the life, or of the word
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark*


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

brianwalker said:


> I don't think in terms of utility, it has no place in my ethics. I reject your hypothetical scenario because my ethics doesn't allow for such choices to exist, while you're a utilitarian of some sort or another.


Oh yeah, and my ethics totally "allow" for the decision between a million starving people and music to be a real possibility... I was going to complain that you were being rather high-and-mighty claiming that you're not "beholden" to these dilemmas, but I see you offered a back-handed answer to my question by stating that your belief system forbids suicide. Well I assume that's because life is valuable, and if your life is valuable, so are those of a million others.

If you would be willing to sacrifice a million other people but not yourself, you've got to have a pretty damn good reason why you're more important! I don't see that reason forthcoming, other than that it's much, much worse to kill yourself than to stand idle while millions perish. In this hypothetical scenario, however, where we are given a choice, if your life isn't your own to end, I'm pretty sure you're forbidden from trading a million other lives for music.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Oh yeah, and my ethics totally "allow" for the decision between a million starving people and music to be a real possibility... I was going to complain that you were being rather high-and-mighty claiming that you're not "beholden" to these dilemmas, but I see you offered a back-handed answer to my question by stating that your belief system forbids suicide. Well I assume that's because life is valuable, and if your life is valuable, so are those of a million others.
> 
> If you would be willing to sacrifice a million other people but not yourself, you've got to have a pretty damn good reason why you're more important! I don't see that reason forthcoming, other than that it's much, much worse to kill yourself than to stand idle while millions perish. In this hypothetical scenario, however, where we are given a choice, if your life isn't your own to end, I'm pretty sure you're forbidden from trading a million other lives for music.


There's a distinction between not saving someone's life and killing someone. The example I gave was between saving someone and saving someone else; your example was between killing yourself or killing someone else. The two are different, ask your ethics professor. If I spend my money on music and do not donate it to Oxfam I'm not sacrificing African babies for music.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Yes, but in your hypothetical situation you have direct assurance that a million people are saved. Donating doesn't work like that.

I think Polednice is being needlessly cruel by saving those millions of people. Not only will we not have art anymore, but most likely a large number of people will be displaced due to their being save and will face a more slower, crueler death. Most likely some other huge catastrophe will break out from them being saved anyhow. All I know is, if you go around saving everybody, Polednice, you're going to create some major issues. It is nice to be altruistic and all, but it really isn't practical to save billions of people.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Boy, it's a good thing none of us will ever be in a position where we have to make a decision on whether to let Wagner or 3 million other people live.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

violadude said:


> Boy, it's a good thing none of us will ever be in a position where we have to make a decision on whether to let Wagner or 3 million other people live.


We make those decisions everyday, just in a smaller magnitude.

http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/19990905.htm



> The Singer Solution to World Poverty
> Peter Singer
> The New York Times Magazine, September 5, 1999, pp. 60-63
> In the Brazilian film "Central Station," Dora is a retired schoolteacher who makes ends meet by sitting at the station writing letters for illiterate people. Suddenly she has an opportunity to pocket $1,000. All she has to do is persuade a homeless 9-year-old boy to follow her to an address she has been given. (She is told he will be adopted by wealthy foreigners.) She delivers the boy, gets the money, spends some of it on a television set and settles down to enjoy her new acquisition. Her neighbor spoils the fun, however, by telling her that the boy was too old to be adopted -he will be killed and his organs sold for transplantation. Perhaps Dora knew this all along, but after her neighbor's plain speaking, she spends a troubled night. In the morning Dora resolves to take the boy back.
> ...


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

violadude said:


> Boy, it's a good thing none of us will ever be in a position where we have to make a decision on whether to let Wagner or 3 million other people live.


It makes it a bit easier when we're talking about reviving dead people :lol:


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

BTW brianwalker, that is totally NOT the same thing. Also, see the community forum where we discussed why charity isn't the way to go for fighting poverty.

Better yet, just watch this entire video.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Cnote11 said:


> BTW brianwalker, that is totally NOT the same thing. Also, see the community forum where we discussed why charity isn't the way to go for fighting poverty.
> 
> Better yet, just watch this entire video.


"Giving to Oxfam" was shorthand for "producing real changes by making sacrifices" not "perform empty gestures".

For example, when you choose to be a composer and not dedicate your life to ending poverty and civil wars in Africa.

Peter Singer is a philosopher but almost all of it is dedicated towards justifying policy that overrides the interest of Western citizens to help the poor and animals, etc. He'll justify it by saying that his intellect is better used in doing philosophy that has a huge impact on the elite than by doing groundwork, and he would be right, he's had a huge impact on the treatment of animals.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Re the debate of which composer's life to save or whatever, read the play _The Doctor's Dilemma _by G. B. Shaw. A film version was made about it in the 1950's starring Dirk Bogarde. Of course, this must be boring, to think that a playwright of 100 years ago has kind of questioned this kind of dilemma - who's life to save, an artist's or another patient of the doctor who is also working in medicine? I don't think Shaw provides a simple "answer" with this play, just aims to make the viewer/reader think.

Quote from wikipedia article here.



> ...
> In the play a number of dilemmas crop up, of which the main one is that of a doctor who has developed a new cure for tuberculosis, but has only enough of it for one patient. He then has to choose which patient he is going to give it to: a kindly poor medical colleague, or an extremely gifted but also very unpleasant young artist with a young and vivacious wife with whom the doctor is somewhat in love, which makes it even harder for the doctor to separate his motives for the decision...


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

That's because intellect is typically greater than groundwork. Groundwork is redundant and cyclical typically. You need intellect to produce actually productive groundwork. If you try to do groundwork without the system that is causing the ill then it is nearly pointless. 

Also, one person dedicating their life to attempting to end poverty and civil war honestly wouldn't do very much... but if one could be guaranteed that they could end poverty and civil war perhaps it would be different.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

You know Sid, these kind of exercises bore me a bit. I know most people are drawn to this kind of fiction, but I find it a tad outlandish. Same reason why I find Hunger Games to be an absolutely ridiculous book/film. Although I'm quite positive the play you put forth is a billion times better in quality. Perhaps I'll look into it, as it doesn't seem to be a lengthy read.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Cnote11 said:


> You know Sid, these kind of exercises bore me a bit. I know most people are drawn to this kind of fiction, but I find it a tad outlandish. Same reason why I find Hunger Games to be an absolutely ridiculous book/film. Although I'm quite positive the play you put forth is a billion times better in quality. Perhaps I'll look into it, as it doesn't seem to be a lengthy read.


I really liked the film after seeing it on the big screen yesterday, and so have other people and the critics (84% on Rotten Tomatoes).

A billion times better in quality? Really?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Cnote11 said:


> You know Sid, these kind of exercises bore me a bit. I know most people are drawn to this kind of fiction, but I find it a tad outlandish. Same reason why I find Hunger Games to be an absolutely ridiculous book/film. Although I'm quite positive the play you put forth is a billion times better in quality. Perhaps I'll look into it, as it doesn't seem to be a lengthy read.


I think_ Hunger Games _is different, from what I've heard about it. I was not presenting _The Doctor's Dilemma_ as a solution to this debate. It has been years since I read the play and saw that film. But I think Shaw explored exactly these issues very well.

It's also about other things, like medical professionals conflicts of interest, still topical today with pharmaceutical companies doing things for profit. It took a decade or so of lobbying from African governments to get the pharmeceuticals to give them access to cheaper generic versions of antiretroviral drugs to treat the AIDS epidemic there. The most profitable business in Zambia was coffin makers and undertakers. The guys in the pharmaceutical companies in some plush office of a rich Western city had no idea what goes on in Southern Africa, AIDS going rampant, whole communities wiped out. But I understand that now Africans have better/cheaper access to these drugs, they can live longer, AIDS at least in some places there is being treated.

Philosophical arguments are great but in terms of the reality, it's often writers who shed light on it in a pretty direct way. Another such novel is John Le Carre's The Constant Gardener (also made into a film). This isn't a futuristic dystopian novel, it's based on the problems of today. It was dedicated to a French aid worker who died in suspicious circumstances, pointing to a web of intrigue detailed involving pharmaceutical companies in Africa, etc., in the novel.

Art can make a difference, to inform people of the world's realities, as I argued earlier in this thread, & these works by Shaw and le Carre are further examples of this.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

brianwalker said:


> I really liked the film after seeing it on the big screen yesterday, and so have other people and the critics (84% on Rotten Tomatoes).
> 
> A billion times better in quality? Really?


Apparently you're not a literary snob. (Nor a film snob)

Also, RT gave a high score to Bridesmaids. That has to be one of the worst movies ever. It means nothing to me.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

I see Sid. I'm familiar with the Constant Gardener. That post makes the play sound more interesting, as it sounds more relevant instead of just some half-baked dichotomy.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^Like Dickens, who another member ridiculed in another thread today (helping set up public eduation in UK), G.B. Shaw was very much for the rights of simple people, poor people, the working class. Remember there was no public health system in the UK 100 years ago. The issues raised by this play and the broader context of the times eventually led to universal health care system there. The dilemma in the play - eg. to treat a poor patient or rich one, or one you like or one you don't - was not such an issue after 1945, when all UK citizens had right to basic health care. So again, as I'd say people here would agree, writers like Dickens and Shaw - who were connected to reality, not just theory - did make a difference in ordinary people's lives.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Wow, thanks for the historic backdrop, Sid. It helps to know these things when you're going to read something. It really helps you understand the frame of the situation so that the social commentary can be clearer.

Upon further investigation, it really does seem like it had a lot of to say about the prevailing schools of thought at the time. Should have some interesting insights.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

brianwalker said:


> There's a distinction between not saving someone's life and killing someone. The example I gave was between saving someone and saving someone else; your example was between killing yourself or killing someone else. The two are different, ask your ethics professor. If I spend my money on music and do not donate it to Oxfam I'm not sacrificing African babies for music.


Cnote is right in response to this. Saving and killing are different things, but given the choice where you can be _certain_ of people being saved, that is also another thing altogether.



Cnote11 said:


> I think Polednice is being needlessly cruel by saving those millions of people. Not only will we not have art anymore, but most likely a large number of people will be displaced due to their being save and will face a more slower, crueler death. Most likely some other huge catastrophe will break out from them being saved anyhow. All I know is, if you go around saving everybody, Polednice, you're going to create some major issues. It is nice to be altruistic and all, but it really isn't practical to save billions of people.


Well, the full socio-economic circumstances and potential futures of these people were not revealed, so I was not making any assumptions. Even so, I don't think it is my place to judge the value of these lives, so, given the responsibility, it would be my place to ensure that those lives continue. Although many of them might suffer, I presume that a not insubstantial number would very much appreciate being alive.

Speaking of practicality as well, it surely was not very practical when penicillin was introduced into medicine, nor was it practical when sanitation improved, or when health-care was made universal, as all these things extend our lives and make the world a much more crowded place. Do we therefore wish that they never happened and that pestilence and famine regularly kept a check on human numbers? Hell no! I think the numbers part of this question remains interesting - take my earlier reworking of _one_ person instead of a million. If I value my life so highly that I would not sacrifice myself for music, I think it is also my duty to respect the value of another's life and save them. You almost seem to be arguing that adding _more_ lives into the equation makes the saving of _less_ value - I see the opposite; rather than an amorphous mass of a million people who need to be supported, I see a million individuals all with hopes and dreams and feelings similar to mine, and I could not live with myself if I acted in a way that resulted in their lives being extinguished for the sake of "practicality".

I'm sure it's largely selfish, though - I think a good thing to do is imagine yourself as part of the one million to be starved or saved. If you value your life enough that you would want the person with the dilemma to save you, then you owe it to the million to save them when it is you with the dilemma; if, however, you would be willing to perish for the sake of music, then I think you might be clinically depressed.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Cnote is right in response to this. Saving and killing are different things, but given the choice where you can be _certain_ of people being saved, that is also another thing altogether.


Is that all? A matter of *probability?*

I'm a man of great capability; if I stopped and gave my life to humanitarian causes I've sure my life-saved count over my lifetime could wrack up in the thousands or more.

This goes for pretty much anyone who goes to an elite university and chooses not to devote his life to humanitarian causes.

Do you know that during the Iraq war so much bloodshed happened because there were few adequate *translators?*

There is an incredible shortage of intellectually capable in various humanitarian causes throughout the world. All the smart people are too busy pursuing money (Goldman Sachs, Wall Street, Entrepreneurship) or Art (writing, painting, music, etc) when though the former have too much money that they usually don't spend and the latter mostly produce art that nobody appreciates .


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

How on earth did anything I said have anything even remotely to do with that?


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Polednice said:


> How on earth did anything I said have anything even remotely to do with that?


but given the choice where you can be certain of people being saved, that is also another thing altogether.

But point is that I'm certain that with the life decisions I'm making and the life decisions all these fine intelligent folks here are making we're certainly not saving tens of thousands of lives we could've saved over our lifetime, and even if we're not certain the precise number of lives it's a huge number.

Bill Gates doesn't precisely how many people he'll save by donating 40 billion dollars to an African country, just like we're not sure how many lives we'll save if we devote our lives to humanitarian causes.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

brianwalker said:


> But point is that I'm certain that with the life decisions I'm making and the life decisions all these fine intelligent folks here are making we're certainly not saving tens of thousands of lives we could've saved over our lifetime, and even if we're not certain the precise number of lives it's a huge number.
> 
> Bill Gates doesn't precisely how many people he'll save by donating 40 billion dollars to an African country, just like we're not sure how many lives we'll save if we devote our lives to humanitarian causes.


So, you're saying that because we all don't put maximum effort into saving people every day, therefore, given the opportunity to save a million people by saying "yes" to a question, you think it's justifiable to say "no" because, hell, we all suck at this anyway?


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