# Music and the Ineffable



## MarkW

Okay, leaving aside shamanism, maybe it’s worthwhile having a free flowing discussion about music’s ability to cause us to react to things that are unknowable I’ll begin personally, as an example, with the understanding that if this devolves into tomato-throwing, I’m wearing a red shirt. 

I am not conventionally religious. My Universe does not require a God to have set it in motion or to keep the clock ticking But if it turns out one is there, I’m not going to freak out – no harm, no foul. That probably makes me a rationalist. I tend to put stock in what science can “prove” (to the extent it can prove anything), and find attempts to make “sciences” out of studies that depend on human behavior (the so-called social sciences) admirable but misguided. And then there are the arts, which seem to have an ability to tell us things that cannot be systematically codified.

So why, despite my manifold disagreements with the Catholic liturgy, do I find listening to Missa Solemnis cathartic enough that I consider it to be perhaps the greatest piece of music ever written? Why does listening to an intense performance of the Opus 111 piano sonata leave me drained? (In his liner notes, pianist Andrew Rangell says its ends with “a silence unlike any ever heard before.”)

Music clearly has an ability to speak to ineffable things, to leave us in a state that seems unreachable any other way (except perhaps by Eastern meditation). This, I think may have been what the Shamanism discussion was trying to aim for before it was derailed.

Whether it’s worthy of discussion or not, I don’t know.

cheers --


----------



## Enthusiast

A reductionist argument might be to ask what parts of the brain are involved in religious and aesthetic/musical experiences. I don't think they would be the same but there are probably members who actually know the answer!

For the rest, yes: music moves us to an extraordinary degree. Some musical experiences are very intense. I think they are also very varied. But I do not think that they can be mapped directly onto religious experiences (not that I have ever had one). But religious and political leaders have used the power of music to move us ... ideally in the direction they are trying to get us to go.


----------



## Tikoo Tuba

One can hear new music in a midnight dream , yet what is remembered upon awakening ? Something . 

Once I heard a choir , and they stood upon the waters of a mountain lake , and the song went on and on for as long as I cared to listen . The next day I mentioned this to a friend . Of a sudden , she sang the melody I'd heard . When she paused from this - I asked if she would sing more of it . As she tried , and earnestly so , the music was something else and nothing new and more sad . Well , I think it could not have been entirely something else .


----------



## eugeneonagain

MarkW said:


> music's ability to cause us to react to things that are unknowable.


I don't quite know how one can react to 'unknowable' things. Things I don't know I probably haven't encountered and if I have encountered them and don't know about it, I'm not likely to be reacting... I'm starting to feel like Donald Rumsfeld now.

I'm going to put it down to cultural conditioning on top of certain natural reactions according to how our brains and nervous systems are constructed. The accumulation of this with ever more layers of meanings.

Once people know which buttons to push, they push them. If the question is why do the buttons have the effect they have...well I imagine it is a very tedious and complicated series of events, which isn't made any clearer by positing a simplified (and commonly resorted to) answer to save on headaches.


----------



## millionrainbows

I think there is a natural, universal tendency for all humans to strive to reach a state of "essential being." 
This state is 'ineffable' because it is not a product of the mind, or an 'identity' that the mind has fabricated; it is a natural state which lies and operates beyond thought.
People try to reach this state in different ways: drugs, sex, religion, meditation, music; some are successful, others are constantly striving.
I think this state of essential being existed, or was a potential, before any religion or dogma. 
Religion can be used _as a tool_ to prolong or enhance this state, but should not presume itself to be "the only way" to reach it.

As far as music, I feel that any music which 'creates a mood' or moves us is _on the way_ to producing this state of being in us. For different people this is can be different music.


----------



## eugeneonagain

Oh millionrainbows! What is "essential being". Stop holding me in limbo.


----------



## millionrainbows

eugeneonagain said:


> Oh millionrainbows! What is "essential being". Stop holding me in limbo.


I can't explain it, it just "is" and I know when I am there. It might be easier to explain what it is not. But any good tennis player is there when he is "in the zone," or when any of us are doing something that is totally natural and does not depend on thought.


----------



## Tikoo Tuba

I've considered the essence of existence to be Acceptance . What gives ? ...perhaps the essence of a Quest .


----------



## Jacck

millionrainbows said:


> I think there is a natural, universal tendency for all humans to strive to reach a state of "essential being."
> This state is 'ineffable' because it is not a product of the mind, or an 'identity' that the mind has fabricated; it is a natural state which lies and operates beyond thought.
> People try to reach this state in different ways: drugs, sex, religion, meditation, music; some are successful, others are constantly striving.
> I think this state of essential being existed, or was a potential, before any religion or dogma.
> Religion can be used _as a tool_ to prolong or enhance this state, but should not presume itself to be "the only way" to reach it.
> 
> As far as music, I feel that any music which 'creates a mood' or moves us is _on the way_ to producing this state of being in us. For different people this is can be different music.


I have used a similar term to describe my own mystical experiences. I called it "pure being". Of course no one really knows what another person is feeling/experiencing and how real it is. It is easy to mentally conjure some idea of "pure being" and convince myself, that I am living it, while in fact deluding myself. Ultimaly only I alone can tell if I am deceiving myself or not. Essentially, pure being is the intangible state beyond ego, beyond thought. Ego is effort rooted in thought. Pure being is beyond all effort and thought, and cannot be talked about, cannot be captured by thought. It is only when the mind becomes silent (at peace), that it can experience this state. Any effort of the mind to capture silence is disturbing the silence

_"There is a huge silence inside each of us that beckons us into itself, and the recovery of our own silence can begin to teach us the language of heaven."_
- Meister Eckhart

and for this reason, I do not believe that music has any place in spirituality at all. Music is a pleasant escapism, a distraction of the mind. Of course it can have a role in religious rituals, but that is not true spirituality.


----------



## millionrainbows

Jacck said:


> I have used a similar term to describe my own mystical experiences. I called it "pure being". Of course no one really knows what another person is feeling/experiencing and how real it is. It is easy to mentally conjure some idea of "pure being" and convince myself, that I am living it, while in fact deluding myself. Ultimaly only I alone can tell if I am deceiving myself or not. Essentially, pure being is the intangible state beyond ego, beyond thought. Ego is effort rooted in thought. Pure being is beyond all effort and thought, and cannot be talked about, cannot be captured by thought. It is only when the mind becomes silent (at peace), that it can experience this state. Any effort of the mind to capture silence is disturbing the silence
> 
> _"There is a huge silence inside each of us that beckons us into itself, and the recovery of our own silence can begin to teach us the language of heaven."_
> - Meister Eckhart
> 
> and for this reason, I do not believe that music has any place in spirituality at all. Music is a pleasant escapism, a distraction of the mind. Of course it can have a role in religious rituals, but that is not true spirituality.


Yes, and kudos to MarkW for starting this thread and also for calling it "the ineffable."
I think the problem with the (Artist) "Mahler as Shaman" thread and the attempts at derailment (as MarkW noted), is that some hard-line rationalists or 'objectivists' balk at the very hint of religion or spirituality in the idea of a 'shaman.'

As for Jacck's assertion that (he believes) music has no place in spirituality, we have to recognize that composers are people, too, and that music (and art) are attempts to communicate with other people. The composer "maps" his own experience on to our experience, by means of a shared universal language of sounds and emotions that we all can relate to.

In this sense, the 'best' music is an expression of compassion; it is an attempt to 'draw us in' to his/her world of experience, by beautiful inference. No, we cannot actually experience another's experience, but we can infer, and in this way, we can 'be' together, as one.

Mahler, for instance: I just got through listening to his Third Symphony, and I am struck by how selflessly he used his gifts. He obviously had a great desire to communicate, and I consider his message to be a personal gift to me. The symphony is surprisingly "quiet" as symphonies go. There are a lot of almost chamber music areas; only rarely, at the beginning and last ten minutes of the end does he allow the orchestra to really let loose and assert itself. Otherwise, it is a very intimate experience, with many subdued moments. 
Mahler was obviously aware that we are all part of the same 'being' ultimately; he knew this life-force was larger than us, and yet, that we are all a part of it.
Some pop artists are aware of this, as I'm sure The Beatles were. Sting's song "Every Breath You Take,", or any "love" song for that matter, uses the pretext of expressing love to a woman. This is less universal, but we can relate. It's the same thing on a smaller scale.

This is the artist's purpose; to share his experience to varying degrees. Some composers are not as overt or intimate about this; it's like 'tough love' which we are expected to relate to in a similar way as the composer. Milton Babbitt, probably the best example of the "who cares if you listen" approach, nonetheless created a compelling and beautiful work with "Philomel," which features a soprano singing with synthesized interpolations of tone-row permutations. In this case, we are to share, with the composer, his obvious interest and fascination with the permutations of 12 note sets, electronic timbre, and the female voice. If we cannot approach it on this level, we cannot share his experience, and this is understandable in light of the rarified air that Babbitt was breathing. The soprano voice of Bethany Beardslee goes a long way in helping me to reach an empathy with Babbitt's music.

But Babbitt was not the kind of artist, like Mahler, who wanted or saw the need to share emotional experiences as Mahler did, or to that degree. Mahler is after something in the realm of life itself, of extra-musical elements that are emotional, of hyper-expression, and of 'being,' and the experience of being human, with all its pitfalls and tragedies. In this sense, there is an almost philosophical sub-narrative at work, which is what gives Beethoven and the Romantics their appeal. Mozart at his best is like this, in the G minor Symphony K.550. Bach's way of relating this experiential dimension was perhaps his love of God, and the expression of this via music. This nonetheless draws us in, even if we are non-believers, and what MarkW experienced with the Missa Solemnis.


----------



## Woodduck

MarkW said:


> Music clearly has an ability to speak to ineffable things, to leave us in a state that seems unreachable any other way (except perhaps by Eastern meditation).


"Leaving us in a state" is certainly a basic function of art, and not only of music. Changing our feelings/perceptions is also the appeal of other common things we do, from eating to sex to physical exercise to philosophical thinking (as well as more extreme measures such as using drugs). But art has the peculiar power of inducing specific feeling states by means of symbolic representation, and this is what it has in common with religion and is the reason why it has been indispensable to religions in conveying and inducing what are deemed to be desirable "states to leave us in."

The symbolic vocabulary of music and its relation to our psychology is intimidatingly complex and is rendered difficult to describe by its level of abstraction. Music doesn't normally present representations of physical entities as do the visual arts, and it doesn't discourse, argue or narrate in words. The visual and verbal arts (especially poetry) also utilize abstract form, in conjunction with concrete representations and concepts, to evoke feeling, but music's abstract language allies itself with the non-denotative element of sound, which has a direct, primal, visceral effect on us. Music is therefore the art which appeals most directly to the subconscious and the body, involving the conscious mind only to the extent that we choose to let it.

It's because music's effect on us is mostly independent of thought - of the need for conscious identifications and thinking - that it has seemed especially "magical" or "mystical" or "spiritual." I have no problem with the use of terms like this, so long as they don't try to smuggle in assumptions about supernatural entities and religious dogmas. As far as I'm concerned, art and its power to open up to our direct awareness feelings and perceptions otherwise unavailable to us is completely normal and natural to a being whose consciousness must deal with concrete reality in abstract terms. Humans can, and often do, consider the various dimensions of existence - the physical, the emotional, the intellectual - separately, and the interrelations between these realms are often hard to see or obscured by the vicissitudes of life or the simple need to deal with one aspect of reality at a time. Art offers us the incomparable experience of uniting these dimensions in a single flash of consciousness. It gives us a microcosm of a unified reality. And when the reality of an individual artist's peculiar vision strikes a sympathetic chord in an individual viewer, reader, or listener, all's right with the world.


----------



## SONNET CLV

eugeneonagain said:


> I don't quite know how one can react to 'unknowable' things.


Why the universe happened remains a rather unknowable thing, yet I react to that "mystery" by seeking further information, which is, I would argue, a reaction.

I'm not certain if faith/religious belief begins in rationality or irrationality. I do suspect that both states are in evidence. A child latches onto a particular belief because his family foists it upon him -- little thought, little reasoning involved. Perhaps eventually the believer begins to rationalize, a process which can lead one to polar directions, either farther away from the faith or closer towards it. One can be rational about irrational things, of course. If one believes there is a murderous ghost in one's basement, it proves rational to avoid the basement.

Music often starts rationally with the composer, who selects a theme and picks a key and explores harmonies and tone colors and forms in order to express his work. Yet, that initial theme may come about "from no where" or, you might argue, irrationally.

Listeners, on the other hand, tend to encounter the piece of music first from the irrational side. After all, they don't know what to expect. It takes some hearings to rationalize the work. There seems to me a great difference between technically analyzing a work of music and just listening to it for the first time. Two different experiences, emotionally and intellectually. Of course, this idea may be open to debate. Isn't everything?

I can contemplate religion rationally. I could even posit arguments to defend many of its premises. But I contemplate the universe rationally through physics, yet always end in a space where science breaks down and I have only faith (not religious faith, but a secular faith) to lead me the rest of the way, into the first moments of the Big Bang (Nothingness, after all, is unstable!) or outward to the end of the universe expansion. I experience an almost spiritual awe in such contemplation. Not unlike the awe I feel when listening to music.

And I worship at the shrine of the Bach Cantatas and studied German years ago mainly in order to access the texts of Bach's music and that of Wagner. I count the _Missa Solemnis_ as a great work and hear it in a strangely spiritual way; but I hear non-religious based music much the same way. Art is numinous to my sensibilities, and I can hardly explain why. I just like it. It moves me. I seek its solace and its information, its comfort and wisdom. I know I'm a better being for having "a song in my heart" or a poem on my tongue or a great image in my mind's eye. But much remains ineffable, so I can explain no further. Rather, I settle back and ride the wave. That's often enough.


----------



## eugeneonagain

SONNET CLV said:


> Why the universe happened remains a rather unknowable thing, yet I react to that "mystery" by seeking further information, which is, I would argue, a reaction.


The problem itself is a known one and you can react to that, but you are not reacting to unknown solutions or even unknown problems. These things are not the same.


----------



## Enthusiast

millionrainbows said:


> I think there is a natural, universal tendency for all humans to strive to reach a state of "essential being."
> This state is 'ineffable' _*because it is not a product of the mind*_, or an 'identity' that the mind has fabricated; it is a natural state which lies and operates beyond thought.
> People try to reach this state in different ways: drugs, sex, religion, meditation, music; some are successful, others are constantly striving.
> I think this state of essential being existed, or was a potential, before any religion or dogma.
> Religion can be used _as a tool_ to prolong or enhance this state, but should not presume itself to be "the only way" to reach it.
> 
> As far as music, I feel that any music which 'creates a mood' or moves us is _on the way_ to producing this state of being in us. For different people this is can be different music.


Interesting and easy to relate to. But ... why is it necessary to believe that the ineffable state is not a product of mind? Why not? If it is something "out there" (like a teacup) then our perception of it still involves quite complicated processing (including "construction" of the perceived entity) and if the item perceived is ambiguous - for example, because of poor light - we may misperceive it and think (perhaps even feel certain that) we are seeing, for example, a human face. But why do we need to believe there is something "ineffable" out there in the real, objective world? Isn't it much easier to see it as a product of our consciousness (or even our consciousness and its interface with our unconscious)? Do we lose something by seeing it that way?


----------



## Enthusiast

Woodduck said:


> "Leaving us in a state" is certainly a basic function of art, and not only of music. Changing our feelings/perceptions is also the appeal of other common things we do, from eating to sex to physical exercise to philosophical thinking (as well as more extreme measures such as using drugs). But art has the peculiar power of inducing specific feeling states by means of symbolic representation, and this is what it has in common with religion and is the reason why it has been indispensable to religions in conveying and inducing what are deemed to be desirable "states to leave us in."
> 
> The symbolic vocabulary of music and its relation to our psychology is intimidatingly complex and is rendered difficult to describe by its level of abstraction. Music doesn't normally present representations of physical entities as do the visual arts, and it doesn't discourse, argue or narrate in words. The visual and verbal arts (especially poetry) also utilize abstract form, in conjunction with concrete representations and concepts, to evoke feeling, but music's abstract language allies itself with the non-denotative element of sound, which has a direct, primal, visceral effect on us. Music is therefore the art which appeals most directly to the subconscious and the body, involving the conscious mind only to the extent that we choose to let it.


The first para is absolutely right, I think. But I am less convinced that you have nailed what is special about music compared to other art forms. What you say is certainly interesting and stimulating and I do think music can do things to us and with us that other art forms cannot do. And I do agree that the difference is bound up in music's ability to engage us _physically_. But I do not see why we should believe that this stems from a _privileged _access to "the subconscious and the body" or that music is unique among the arts in its ability to bypass our conscious mind. Certainly, literature and drama might need conscious intervention to get to the ideas within it. But visual arts? And, anyway, how sure are we that the route that literature and drama take to reach us is a linear _I-understand-the-words --> I-feel-the-meaning_? Quite a lot probably "leaks around the edges" having an effect upon us without our being consciously aware it was there (at least until we know the work well). Even our processing of single words is not very simple and involves us in having (for a millisecond or two) multiple candidates for what the word was - a question that is resolved by context and other extraneous factors. But, yes, music can get to us in a very different (and apparently much more immediate) way.



Woodduck said:


> It's because music's effect on us is mostly independent of thought - of the need for conscious identifications and thinking - that it has seemed especially "magical" or "mystical" or "spiritual." I have no problem with the use of terms like this, so long as they don't try to smuggle in assumptions about supernatural entities and religious dogmas. As far as I'm concerned, art and its power to open up to our direct awareness feelings and perceptions otherwise unavailable to us is completely normal and natural to a being whose consciousness must deal with concrete reality in abstract terms. *Humans can, and often do, consider the various dimensions of existence - the physical, the emotional, the intellectual - separately, and the interrelations between these realms are often hard to see or obscured by the vicissitudes of life or the simple need to deal with one aspect of reality at a time. *Art offers us the incomparable experience of uniting these dimensions in a single flash of consciousness. It gives us a microcosm of a unified reality. And when the reality of an individual artist's peculiar vision strikes a sympathetic chord in an individual viewer, reader, or listener, all's right with the world.


I have a small problem with the sentence I have highlighted in bold - I think it refers to "consciousness" rather than "humans". I do not think it is true of humans. But I don't think that makes a difference with your argument.

The statement that "music's effect upon us is mostly independent of thought" is interesting in the light of the many discussions here about avant garde, atonal or contemporary music. If some of us don't need to think about it or be conscious of it but it works on us (and I do think that is broadly true for me these days for much of it) while others don't need to think about it but it still repels them or bores them ... then it seems we can never agree (well, we know _that_!).

But, surely, just because a process is unconscious that does not make it something other than "thought". It is still processing in our brains. And it probably is possible to say - even if we can't do so yet - what happens in our brains when we listen to music that is very very different to music we know? The same may be true of our first encounters with classical music (for me it was Mozart and then Beethoven): we listen again and again before we really get it and the more we have heard the easier it becomes to listen and "understand" on first hearing.

What does that process mean for your "single flash of consciousness"? That single flash, perhaps, is the thing I am merely calling understanding. For truly very great music (and great art of all types) that understanding can be earth shattering for us. But lots more music (and art) that is very good can be really enjoyable once we understand it without making the earth move so amazingly. What is this difference?

I'm not disagreeing but perhaps going off in different directions. I may also be demystifying or at least skirting around the subject of the ineffable. There is something about how we come to perceive and understand and enjoy art - how we "get it" - that can be described as mental processing. And maybe there is something more when the effect on us is very great? I wonder, also, whether it makes a difference that the actual effect that great music has on us differs between pieces and, most particularly, between eras - Baroque music and Romantic music move us in very different ways - and I wonder whether the development of music is really a story of exploring the many different things our minds can do in response to ... art?


----------



## Jacck

Enthusiast said:


> Interesting and easy to relate to. But ... why is it necessary to believe that the ineffable state is not a product of mind? Why not? If it is something "out there" (like a teacup) then our perception of it still involves quite complicated processing (including "construction" of the perceived entity) and if the item perceived is ambiguous - for example, because of poor light - we may misperceive it and think (perhaps even feel certain that) we are seeing, for example, a human face. But why do we need to believe there is something "ineffable" out there in the real, objective world? Isn't it much easier to see it as a product of our consciousness (or even our consciousness and its interface with our unconscious)? Do we lose something by seeing it that way?


it is not necessary to believe in anything. All that is required is to peal off the illusions and what stays is the ineffeble truth. But if it does not make sense to you, then it is better not to worry about it.


----------



## Triplets

MarkW said:


> Okay, leaving aside shamanism, maybe it's worthwhile having a free flowing discussion about music's ability to cause us to react to things that are unknowable I'll begin personally, as an example, with the understanding that if this devolves into tomato-throwing, I'm wearing a red shirt.
> 
> I am not conventionally religious. My Universe does not require a God to have set it in motion or to keep the clock ticking But if it turns out one is there, I'm not going to freak out - no harm, no foul. That probably makes me a rationalist. I tend to put stock in what science can "prove" (to the extent it can prove anything), and find attempts to make "sciences" out of studies that depend on human behavior (the so-called social sciences) admirable but misguided. And then there are the arts, which seem to have an ability to tell us things that cannot be systematically codified.
> 
> So why, despite my manifold disagreements with the Catholic liturgy, do I find listening to Missa Solemnis cathartic enough that I consider it to be perhaps the greatest piece of music ever written? Why does listening to an intense performance of the Opus 111 piano sonata leave me drained? (In his liner notes, pianist Andrew Rangell says its ends with "a silence unlike any ever heard before.")
> 
> Music clearly has an ability to speak to ineffable things, to leave us in a state that seems unreachable any other way (except perhaps by Eastern meditation). This, I think may have been what the Shamanism discussion was trying to aim for before it was derailed.
> 
> Whether it's worthy of discussion or not, I don't know.
> 
> cheers --


Nice post. I am not a believer but Op 111 has always struck me as someone who is angry and challenging God in I, and then being allowed through a door and being shown the vistas if the Universe in II.
Music stops the internal dialogue, that conversation in our head that keeps us thinking about the larger issues, and either replaces it with another topic, or leaves us in a contemplative state. I would reject the idea that all Great Art does this equally, be cause visually related Art tends to deal less in the abstract


----------



## Enthusiast

Jacck said:


> it is not necessary to believe in anything. All that is required is to peal off the illusions and what stays is the ineffeble truth. But if it does not make sense to you, then it is better not to worry about it.


Of course it makes sense! But why do we need to believe it is outside of us? Or, if you prefer, given Occam's razor, how do we know there is something in the ineffable that is not a product of our own minds? Your answer, perhaps, is that it comes down to faith but I find that very unsatisfactory!


----------



## Jacck

Enthusiast said:


> Of course it makes sense! But why do we need to believe it is outside of us? Or, if you prefer, given Occam's razor, how do we know there is something in the ineffable that is not a product of our own minds? Your answer, perhaps, is that it comes down to faith but I find that very unsatisfactory!


It is not outside of us. You can think about it as a state, that comes into being, if you conquer yourself. And the motivational force, that is propelling you to conquer yourself is your own suffering and confusion. Or course most people never go that deep into themselves, they learn how to escape from the suffering and how to cover it up, so they never really find out. It is pointless to speculate about some state outside of yourself (that would be an illusion, a mere belief). But when you find harmony witin yourself, you will know. If you want to cast it into more scientific/psychological terms, then the word is self-actualization


----------



## Enthusiast

^^^ I agree 100%.


----------



## millionrainbows

Enthusiast said:


> Interesting and easy to relate to. But ... why is it necessary to believe that the ineffable state is not a product of mind? Why not? If it is something "out there" (like a teacup) then our perception of it still involves quite complicated processing (including "construction" of the perceived entity) and if the item perceived is ambiguous - for example, because of poor light - we may misperceive it and think (perhaps even feel certain that) we are seeing, for example, a human face. *But why do we need to believe there is something "ineffable" out there in the real, objective world?* Isn't it much easier to see it as a product of our consciousness (or even our consciousness and its interface with our unconscious)? Do we lose something by seeing it that way?


You sound confused. I will not attempt to untangle this.


----------



## Enthusiast

^^^ Sorry if my post was unclear. But I don't think I am confused: I believe that what we are calling the ineffable is a state of mind rather than a spirit or life force that is independent of us. It may be that others here feel that I am wrong? A few posts seem to leave the question open - so maybe they are confused, too?


----------



## Strange Magic

Enthusiast said:


> ^^^ Sorry if my post was unclear. But I don't think I am confused: I believe that what we are calling the ineffable is a state of mind rather than a spirit or life force that is independent of us. It may be that others here feel that I am wrong? A few posts seem to leave the question open - so maybe they are confused, too?


I get lost when others begin to speak of self-conquest, "suffering and confusion" as if such is the very matrix in which we are always embedded, "self-actualization", etc.


----------



## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> "Leaving us in a state" is certainly a basic function of art, and not only of music. Changing our feelings/perceptions is also the appeal of other common things we do, from eating to sex to physical exercise to philosophical thinking (as well as more extreme measures such as using drugs). But art has the peculiar power of inducing specific feeling states by means of symbolic representation, and this is what it has in common with religion and is the reason why it has been indispensable to religions in conveying and inducing what are deemed to be desirable "states to leave us in."


We should delve further into this "state" which music can induce, and try to pinpoint the nature of this as opposed to more mundane tasks such as eating or sex; the connection to religion, especially.



> The symbolic vocabulary of music and its relation to our psychology is intimidatingly complex and is rendered difficult to describe by its level of abstraction. Music doesn't normally present representations of physical entities as do the visual arts, and it doesn't discourse, argue or narrate in words. The visual and verbal arts (especially poetry) also utilize abstract form, in conjunction with concrete representations and concepts, to evoke feeling, but music's abstract language allies itself with the non-denotative element of sound, which has a direct, primal, visceral effect on us. Music is therefore the art which appeals most directly to the subconscious and the body, involving the conscious mind only to the extent that we choose to let it.


What is this 'abstract' nature of music, and why should this necessarily be associated with religion?

"Abstract" means "the theoretical way of looking at things; *something that exists only in idealized form,"* according to Wiktionary.

The inference here, and as you state above, is that music refers to or evokes something which is "not physical" as in visual arts (bowls of fruit, etc.), although I would watch the use of the term "abstract" as inadvertently referring to either a mind-construct, or as referring to the metaphysical, which is verboten to rationalists.



> It's because music's effect on us is mostly independent of thought - of the need for conscious identifications and thinking - that it has seemed especially "magical" or "mystical" or "spiritual." I have no problem with the use of terms like this, so long as they don't try to smuggle in assumptions about supernatural entities and religious dogmas.


Is the "independence from thought" the reason why music seems "spiritual?" Could it be that consciousness, identity, and "being" are ultimately non-physical?



> "...music's abstract language allies itself with the non-denotative element of sound, which has a direct, primal, visceral effect on us. Music is therefore the art which appeals most directly to the subconscious and the body, involving the conscious mind only to the extent that we choose to let it.


Yes, the "subconscious" could be conceived as a product of the brain/body, some level of being that does not involve a product of conscious thought, and music does affect us in our bodies, which involves the emotions, which seem to reside in the body.

The question then needs to be considered: what is the "essential meaning" or "essential nature" of consciousness? Even though our "consciousness" and "being" are essentially and ultimately a product of our physical existence, "consciousness" and "being" might just as well be considered as "metaphysical" in that they lie beyond the grasp of the rational mind, as either illusory or as beyond thought.

This is where rationalists will begin to dispute the notion of the "metaphysical" as impossible...but the caveat here for rationalists is that consciousness and identity, as well as being, are "functionally metaphysical" and illusory, in that rational thought processes can have no bearing or effect on these states, except in the realm of thought; so this makes consciousness "metaphysical" for all intents and purposes. 
Whether or not the "metaphysical" exists (yes, a rational contradiction) becomes a moot point. There seems to be a contradiction at work here.

Moiré patterns do not "exist," yet we can see them as waves, lines, circles, etc. The "existence" of moiré patterns depends on the interaction, and perception of interference patterns which are created by the physical interaction of two different patterns which exist independently; but the resulting pattern itself exists only as experienced by us.

This leads one to see thought and consciousness as like moiré patterns. Consciousness and identity exist in a realm beyond rational thought, in a state of pure being. "Being" is dependent on our having a physical body, and a physical existence, but for all intents and purposes, it is "metaphysical" and lies beyond the grasp of rational thought.



> As far as I'm concerned, art and its power to open up to our direct awareness feelings and perceptions otherwise unavailable to us is completely normal and natural to a being whose consciousness must deal with concrete reality in abstract terms.


Yes, but problems and contradictions arise when this "direct awareness" and perception is not acknowledged, is passed-by, is invalidated, is mistakenly attributed to some aspect of the rational mind, or is avoided completely for reasons of association with religious dogma or other attempts at containing it.



> Humans can, and often do, consider the various dimensions of existence - the physical, the emotional, the intellectual - separately, and the interrelations between these realms are often hard to see or obscured by the vicissitudes of life or the simple need to deal with one aspect of reality at a time. *Art offers us the incomparable experience of uniting these dimensions in a single flash of consciousness.* It gives us a microcosm of a unified reality. And when the reality of an individual artist's peculiar vision strikes a sympathetic chord in an individual viewer, reader, or listener, all's right with the world.


Yes, art can do this if we can "submit" our rationality and allow it to happen; if we "believe" in the magical and irrational aspects of existence; if we do not allow rationality to define our entire existence.


----------



## Jacck

Strange Magic said:


> I get lost when others begin to speak of self-conquest, "suffering and confusion" as if such is the very matrix in which we are always embedded, "self-actualization", etc.


I actually do believe, that this is the matrix, in which all people are imbedded. It is the first out of four truths of Buddhism. You might of course be one of those lucky people, who has managed to secure a good position in life for yourself - find a good life partner, have good children, securing a good and fullfilling job, having accumulated enough property and be respected by other people, and feel momentarily happy, but none of that might last and will not last. And most people are not that lucky. There is suffering through ilness and bad health, through old age, through death, through loss, through fear, through loneliness, through frustration, through the lack of fullfilment, through lack of clarity. And most people develop various more or less neurotic ways to avoid this suffering. Religion is just one of these escapes from suffering (Marx called it the opium of mankind). Many of these escapes and avoidance tactics became habits, in which we are caught.


----------



## Woodduck

Enthusiast said:


> The first para is absolutely right, I think. But I am less convinced that you have nailed what is special about music compared to other art forms. What you say is certainly interesting and stimulating and I do think music can do things to us and with us that other art forms cannot do. And I do agree that the difference is bound up in music's ability to engage us _physically_. *But I do not see why we should believe that this stems from a privileged access to "the subconscious and the body" or that music is unique among the arts in its ability to bypass our conscious mind.* Certainly, literature and drama might need conscious intervention to get to the ideas within it. But visual arts? And, anyway, how sure are we that the route that literature and drama take to reach us is a linear _I-understand-the-words --> I-feel-the-meaning_? Quite a lot probably "leaks around the edges" having an effect upon us without our being consciously aware it was there (at least until we know the work well). Even our processing of single words is not very simple and involves us in having (for a millisecond or two) multiple candidates for what the word was - a question that is resolved by context and other extraneous factors. But, yes, music can get to us in a very different (and apparently much more immediate) way.


I didn't say that music was the only art that can "bypass the conscious mind." What I said was that "music is the art which appeals most directly to the subconscious and the body, involving the conscious mind only to the extent that we choose to let it." Visual art, if representational, has subject matter, a grasp of which is essential to a full comprehension of the work. Abstract painting and sculpture, which may be intended to affect us through pure shape and color (but may nevertheless suggest objects in the world), may seem akin to music but lack the peculiar power of sound to affect the body and emotions.

You present your own thoughts, which don't necessarily contradict mine, in a tone of disagreement. This is confusing, and so I'll desist from further comment.


----------



## DeepR

It doesn't matter whether there is actually something real, or tue, behind the ineffable, behind the mystery and spirituality that might be felt when listening to music. Music can put you in such a state; it conjures up an illusion, one that feels true at the moment of listening. This is why religious music can be enjoyed equally by both religious and non religious listeners. 
Let me put it in another way: I don't have to believe in anything related to religion, spirituality, paranormal, the extra-physical etc. in order to enjoy the feeling of wonder, mystery, oneness, the state of "essential being" etc. that are associated with those things. I love the mysterious.


----------



## Jacck

Music And The Brain
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/music-and-the-brain-2006-09/
it is somewhat of a mystery, why humans evolved music, because it seems to offer no clear survival advantage. Was it an accident of evolution?


----------



## millionrainbows

DeepR said:


> Let me put it in another way: I don't have to believe in anything related to religion, spirituality, paranormal, the extra-physical etc. in order to enjoy the feeling of wonder, mystery, oneness, the state of "essential being" etc. that are associated with those things. I love the mysterious.


Wow, if you could put that in a bottle and sell it, you'd be rich. :lol:


----------



## millionrainbows

Jacck said:


> Music And The Brain
> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/music-and-the-brain-2006-09/
> it is somewhat of a mystery, why humans evolved music, because it seems to offer no clear survival advantage. Was it an accident of evolution?


No; the drummers and naked dancers exuded such confidence in their music that this confidence was transmitted to the other tribe members, and the resulting hunt was extremely successful.


----------



## sharkeysnight

I've always liked Bernstein's comment on music that there's no way to communicate, via (wordless) music, a sentence like "Bob went to the store to buy grapes". And yet, music can suggest Bob going to the store to buy grapes in a way that's much more expressive than simply saying that Bob went to the store to buy grapes, or might take a great deal of verbiage to communicate. It might still have to be titled "Bob goes to the store to buy grapes", but the essential ineffability of music is that, by titling a piece "Bob goes to the store to buy grapes", the listener filters everything in the music, every detail and shift of mood, through that tiny word prism, and it gives us access to a shifting, living world that would (theoretically) be very difficult to capture as succinctly in almost any other medium.

I find that very exciting.


----------



## millionrainbows

DeepR said:


> It doesn't matter whether there is actually something real, or true, behind the ineffable, behind the mystery and spirituality that might be felt when listening to music. Music can put you in such a state; it conjures up an illusion, one that feels true at the moment of listening. This is why religious music can be enjoyed equally by both religious and non religious listeners.


So, is music a lie?

If it doesn't matter whether there is actually something real, or true, behind the ineffable, behind the mystery and spirituality that might be felt when listening to music, then there is no essential truth there?

It sounds as if you are missing something.


----------



## Jacck

sharkeysnight said:


> I've always liked Bernstein's comment on music that there's no way to communicate, via (wordless) music, a sentence like "Bob went to the store to buy grapes". And yet, music can suggest Bob going to the store to buy grapes in a way that's much more expressive than simply saying that Bob went to the store to buy grapes, or might take a great deal of verbiage to communicate. It might still have to be titled "Bob goes to the store to buy grapes", but the essential ineffability of music is that, by titling a piece "Bob goes to the store to buy grapes", the listener filters everything in the music, every detail and shift of mood, through that tiny word prism, and it gives us access to a shifting, living world that would (theoretically) be very difficult to capture as succinctly in almost any other medium.
> 
> I find that very exciting.


how much of what music is able to communicate is culturally dependent? Music can try to immitate sounds or melodies from the environment/culture we live in, but is it universally valid? The chinese have developped different kinds of music. I believe that music is incapable of communicating anything. All it does is stimulate our brains and bodies with pleasurable sensations


----------



## Enthusiast

Woodduck said:


> I didn't say that music was the only art that can "bypass the conscious mind." What I said was that "music is the art which appeals most directly to the subconscious and the body, involving the conscious mind only to the extent that we choose to let it." Visual art, if representational, has subject matter, a grasp of which is essential to a full comprehension of the work. Abstract painting and sculpture, which may be intended to affect us through pure shape and color (but may nevertheless suggest objects in the world), may seem akin to music but lack the peculiar power of sound to affect the body and emotions.
> 
> You present your own thoughts, which don't necessarily contradict mine, in a tone of disagreement. This is confusing, and so I'll desist from further comment.


Interesting in that for most of my post (not quoted by you) I was very conscious that I was *not *disagreeing with you. I can't see why you feel I was. Towards the end I said explicitly that I was not (


> I'm not disagreeing but perhaps going off in different directions


). As you say they were my own thoughts. They represented where my thoughts took me after reading yours. Conversations often progress like that but they do need two people who are in tune with each other to work. That may not be us - but you are, of course, welcome to disagree, take my thoughts in a different direction or simply ignore them!

There was one point where I did express a small disagreement and this was signalled clearly - I felt that a statement you made was true for our conscious selves but not for the whole of us as people or as a species (which was what you were saying, I think). It was not a point of much consequence so I have no worry that you choose not to respond to it. I suspect it is not a distinction that interests you.

And, yes, you didn't say precisely that music was *the only *art that can "bypass the conscious mind." So I did misrepresent your position slightly while paraphrasing it. What you actually said (and it was quoted before as well) was (with my emphasis)



> Music doesn't normally present representations of physical entities as do the visual arts, and it doesn't discourse, argue or narrate in words. The visual and verbal arts (especially poetry) also utilize abstract form, in conjunction with concrete representations and concepts, to evoke feeling, but music's abstract language allies itself with the non-denotative element of sound, which has a direct, primal, visceral effect on us. *Music is therefore the art which appeals most directly to the subconscious and the body, involving the conscious mind only to the extent that we choose to let it.*


I continue to think this overstates the matter.


----------



## EdwardBast

Jacck said:


> Music And The Brain
> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/music-and-the-brain-2006-09/
> it is somewhat of a mystery, why humans evolved music, because it seems to offer no clear survival advantage. Was it an accident of evolution?


I don't find it mysterious. Big brains and verbal capacities have enormous survival advantages and all of that capacity likes to keep busy and amused once the mastodon has been butchered, the berries gathered and one has rutted oneself to exhaustion. Music is fun, builds group solidarity, and is an easy stretch for beasts who already employ pitch and rhythm for communication.


----------



## millionrainbows

sharkeysnight said:


> I've always liked Bernstein's comment on music that there's no way to communicate, via (wordless) music, a sentence like "Bob went to the store to buy grapes". And yet, music can suggest Bob going to the store to buy grapes in a way that's much more expressive than simply saying that Bob went to the store to buy grapes, or might take a great deal of verbiage to communicate. It might still have to be titled "Bob goes to the store to buy grapes", but the essential ineffability of music is that, by titling a piece "Bob goes to the store to buy grapes", the listener filters everything in the music, every detail and shift of mood, through that tiny word prism, and it gives us access to a shifting, living world that would (theoretically) be very difficult to capture as succinctly in almost any other medium.
> 
> I find that very exciting.


Which also suggests to us that music's purpose is used for much more important things than simply to show that "Bob went to the store to buy grapes" (although some opera is the exception).

Namely, music & art's purpose is for the composer to make consciousness-to-consciousness empathic contact with the audience.


----------



## sharkeysnight

Jacck said:


> how much of what music is able to communicate is culturally dependent? Music can try to immitate sounds or melodies from the environment/culture we live in, but is it universally valid? The chinese have developped different kinds of music. I believe that music is incapable of communicating anything. All it does is stimulate our brains and bodies with pleasurable sensations


I mean, it could be argued that any reaction we have to anything is just our brains and bodies being stimulated in various ways that are always, to some degree, culturally dependent. My point is that music has an extraordinary power to suggest due to its inherent ineffability. One person listening to a song called "Bob goes to the store to buy grapes" might formulate a thoroughly different impression from another person listening to the same piece of music, but both have found their own landscape in their reaction to and internal dialogue with the music (that is, if they like it enough to be impressed upon by it).


----------



## EdwardBast

Jacck said:


> how much of what music is able to communicate is culturally dependent? Music can try to immitate sounds or melodies from the environment/culture we live in, but is it universally valid? The chinese have developped different kinds of music. I believe that music is incapable of communicating anything. All it does is stimulate our brains and bodies with pleasurable sensations


Culturally dependent. In the common practice period we settled on a major-minor mode system (or rather, the old modal system converged on and was adapted to or devolved into the major-minor system) because humans like to think and build structures on binary oppositions. Because of its historical ties to language, composers needed modal and other oppositions to reflect textual and expressive oppositions.

Music has a great capacity for communication through learned conventions, isomorphism with human expressive behaviors including gesture, posture and utterance, and patterns of systematic binary opposition.


----------



## millionrainbows

sharkeysnight said:


> I mean, it could be argued that any reaction we have to anything is just our brains and bodies being stimulated in various ways that are always, to some degree, culturally dependent. My point is that music has an extraordinary power to suggest due to its inherent ineffability. One person listening to a song called "Bob goes to the store to buy grapes" might formulate a thoroughly different impression from another person listening to the same piece of music, but both have found their own landscape in their reaction to and internal dialogue with the music (that is, if they like it enough to be impressed upon by it).


In other words, the most universally effective qualities in music relate to us in ways that are humanly similar, and which lie beyond cultural differences.

Heh, heh, that effectively excludes Classical music from all those non-Western savages! :lol:


----------



## Jacck

EdwardBast said:


> I don't find it mysterious. Big brains and verbal capacities have enormous survival advantages and all of that capacity likes to keep busy and amused once the mastodon has been butchered, the berries gathered and one has rutted oneself to exhaustion. Music is fun, builds group solidarity, and is an easy stretch for beasts who already employ pitch and rhythm for communication.


possibly, though I do not see it as self-obvious that music offered evolutionary advantage. It could have served as a bonding mechanism in the early tribes, and tribes with better bonding among the members could have a survival advantage?



sharkeysnight said:


> I mean, it could be argued that any reaction we have to anything is just our brains and bodies being stimulated in various ways that are always, to some degree, culturally dependent. My point is that music has an extraordinary power to suggest due to its inherent ineffability. One person listening to a song called "Bob goes to the store to buy grapes" might formulate a thoroughly different impression from another person listening to the same piece of music, but both have found their own landscape in their reaction to and internal dialogue with the music (that is, if they like it enough to be impressed upon by it).


nicely said. If we take music as a message sent from the composer to the listener, then not much information gets transmitted. Composer composed music through his conditioning, the listener interprets the music according to his conditioning. Is the brain reaction/interpretation of the listener the same as that of the composer? Hardly. Though if they both come from the same culture, they might be some overlaps. The programmatic titles for music are already cheating, because they try to apply verbal suggestion how we should interpret the music. And language is a much more efficient means of communication than music.


----------



## millionrainbows

Jacck said:


> ...If we take music as a message sent from the composer to the listener, then not much information gets transmitted. *Composer composed music through his conditioning, the listener interprets the music according to his conditioning. *Is the brain reaction/interpretation of the listener the same as that of the composer? Hardly. Though if they both come from the same culture, they might be some overlaps. The programmatic titles for music are already cheating, because they try to apply verbal suggestion how we should interpret the music. And language is a much more efficient means of communication than music.


Ewww, this sounds like "musical behaviorism," and effectively eliminates the "dirty human aspects." Got any data on that yet?


----------



## Tikoo Tuba

millionrainbows said:


> make consciousness-to-consciousness empathic contact


Everyone deserves a relationship .


----------



## Jacck

millionrainbows said:


> Ewww, this sounds like "musical behaviorism," and effectively eliminates the "dirty human aspects." Got any data on that yet?


I see that you have been conditioned to react to some trigger words such as rationalism and behaviorism with negative emotional response, not unlike a Pavlov dog


----------



## millionrainbows

sharkeysnight said:


> I mean, it could be argued that any reaction we have to anything is just our brains and bodies being stimulated in various ways that are always, to some degree, culturally dependent. My point is that music has an extraordinary power to suggest due to its inherent ineffability. *One person listening to a song called "Bob goes to the store to buy grapes" might formulate a thoroughly different impression from another person listening to the same piece of music, but both have found their own landscape in their reaction to and internal dialogue with the music* (that is, if they like it enough to be impressed upon by it).


This sounds antiseptic and sterile. This scheme effectively eliminates any assumed or intended universally shared "humanly-directed" reactions to music, and posits the effects (and hence the purposes) of music as essentially one-way isolated experiences.

I don't think this is what most artists are intending, except for maybe Milton Babbitt or Iannis Xenakis. Or is human-to-human empathy out of vogue now?


----------



## millionrainbows

Jacck said:


> I see that you have been conditioned to react to some trigger words such as rationalism and behaviorism with negative emotional response, not unlike a Pavlov dog


I see that your responses reveal you to be a somewhat detached, rational type. How's that working for you? :lol:


----------



## millionrainbows

Tikoo Tuba said:


> Everyone deserves a relationship .


Everyone except you, Tikoo. Bye bye! :lol:


----------



## millionrainbows

Let's put the "human" aspect back in music! What do you say? Gosh, I'm so excited to communicate with you!


----------



## sharkeysnight

millionrainbows said:


> This sounds antiseptic and sterile. This scheme effectively eliminates any assumed or intended universally shared "humanly-directed" reactions to music, and posits the effects (and hence the purposes) of music as essentially one-way isolated experiences.
> 
> I don't think this is what most artists are intending, except for maybe Milton Babbitt or Iannis Xenakis. Or is human-to-human empathy out of vogue now?


Well, no, because I'm specifically talking about the impact of personal experience on the experience provided by music. The sharing of music is an entirely different thing unto itself - you and I may be feeling different things when the orchestra plays the opening notes of Eugene Onegin, but we are sitting in the same audience and hearing, functionally, the same notes. We might not experience the exact same thing, it might provoke in you one thing while it puts me in mind of something else, but the shared experience is a powerful effect in its own right. I don't think it's necessarily antiseptic to observe that part of what makes music so beautiful and powerful is that a major part of its effect on us is our internal relationship to what we hear. Being able to share the experience with others only makes it more wonderful!


----------



## Strange Magic

Jacck said:


> I actually do believe, that this is the matrix, in which all people are imbedded. It is the first out of four truths of Buddhism. You might of course be one of those lucky people, who has managed to secure a good position in life for yourself - find a good life partner, have good children, securing a good and fullfilling job, having accumulated enough property and be respected by other people, and feel momentarily happy, but none of that might last and will not last. And most people are not that lucky. There is suffering through ilness and bad health, through old age, through death, through loss, through fear, through loneliness, through frustration, through the lack of fullfilment, through lack of clarity. And most people develop various more or less neurotic ways to avoid this suffering. Religion is just one of these escapes from suffering (Marx called it the opium of mankind). Many of these escapes and avoidance tactics became habits, in which we are caught.


Note to self: Avoid (Jacck's version of) Buddhism. Jacck, are you in a state of suffering and confusion when you post? Suffering and confusion, like any of the gifts and the troubles of humankind, tends to be unevenly distributed both among populations and within one's own personal experience--it comes and goes--but I do not think it is the matrix within which human experience is universally grounded. There is often contentment and even, sometimes, joy.


----------



## SONNET CLV

eugeneonagain said:


> I don't quite know how one can react to 'unknowable' things.





SONNET CLV said:


> Why the universe happened remains a rather unknowable thing, yet I react to that "mystery" by seeking further information, which is, I would argue, a reaction.





eugeneonagain said:


> The problem itself is a known one and you can react to that, but you are not reacting to unknown solutions or even unknown problems. These things are not the same.


I would argue that you've done just that with this post -- by writing about an "unknown" you are reacting. I suspect that folks with certain mental conditions (some forms of paranoia, for instance) constantly react to "the unknown", whether it be a problem or a solution.

That idea of reacting to a solution rather confounds me. How does one react to a solution? If my problem is I am hungry and the solution is that I get food, is by eating the food a reaction to the solution? If so, if my problem is unknown and the solution is unknown, then my reaction to this is also unknown. Yet note: I can talk about having a reaction. Still, I find this rather a banal proposition, this idea of "unknown problems v. unknown solutions v. unknown reactions." It's all rather nonsensical, isn't it?

And when you say "The problem itself is a known one and you can react to that," do you intend that the problem of the Big Bang is a known problem? And what are you meaning when you suggest "you can react to that"?

And when you add "but you are not reacting to unknown solutions or even unknown problems. These things are not the same." What is not the same? The unknown problem and unknown solution? That seems reasonable (except for the notion that they _are_ the same in being unknown!) Or do you mean that reacting to a known problem is not the same as _reacting to an unknown solution or unknown problem_, or not the same as _unknown solutions and unknown problems_? Or do you mean that unknown solutions are not the same as unknown problems.

Quite frankly, what I'm understanding here is that this post presents problems (moreso though, frustrations via its inanity) and the solution is for me to exit the screen, and perhaps solve all by listening to some music.


----------



## eugeneonagain

SONNET CLV said:


> I would argue that you've done just that with this post -- by writing about an "unknown" you are reacting. I suspect that folks with certain mental conditions (some forms of paranoia, for instance) constantly react to "the unknown", whether it be a problem or a solution.


Then you'd be arguing for no reason. I am talking about other people's suggestions of 'unknowns', not something I suggested. I don't know what 'unknown' things are. The clue is in the name.



SONNET CLV said:


> That idea of reacting to a solution rather confounds me. How does one react to a solution? If my problem is I am hungry and the solution is that I get food, is by eating the food a reaction to the solution? If so, if my problem is unknown and the solution is unknown, then my reaction to this is also unknown. Yet note: I can talk about having a reaction. Still, I find this rather a banal proposition, this idea of "unknown problems v. unknown solutions v. unknown reactions." It's all rather nonsensical, isn't it?


Wait a moment though... I was the one saying they _can't_ be reacted to, because neither you nor I nor anyone knows about them. So yes, they are nonsensical because if they are able to be mentioned they are no longer unknown.



SONNET CLV said:


> And when you say "The problem itself is a known one and you can react to that," do you intend that the problem of the Big Bang is a known problem? And what are you meaning when you suggest "you can react to that"?


Obviously that the theory has been posited and set out and explained for anyone to consider and react to. It isn't something no-one has yet thought about. No-one reacts to the latter because no-one knows about them.



SONNET CLV said:


> And when you add "but you are not reacting to unknown solutions or even unknown problems. These things are not the same." What is not the same? The unknown problem and unknown solution? That seems reasonable (except for the notion that they _are_ the same in being unknown!) Or do you mean that reacting to a known problem is not the same as _reacting to an unknown solution or unknown problem_, or not the same as _unknown solutions and unknown problems_? Or do you mean that unknown solutions are not the same as unknown problems.


No, unknown things and things about which something is known, or a theory proposed to explain it, because the problem is known.

Such unnecessary complication.


----------



## millionrainbows

sharkeysnight said:


> Well, no, because I'm specifically talking about the impact of personal experience on the experience provided by music.


But the "experience provided by music" is the composer's, or performer's experience, which is shared by you; so the direct experience of music is always a shared _inter_personal experience in this regard, unless you have depersonalized it and removed the composer's experience as a consideration, and now see music as just "an object" which you consume, like food.



> The sharing of music is an entirely different thing unto itself - you and I may be feeling different things when the orchestra plays the opening notes of Eugene Onegin, but we are sitting in the same audience and hearing, functionally, the same notes. We might not experience the exact same thing, it might provoke in you one thing while it puts me in mind of something else, but *the shared experience* is a powerful effect in its own right.


It's unclear what you mean by "shared experience." I'm referring to the creator, the composer or performer who communicates with us, who shares his experience with us via the music, albeit conveyed by performers, or through a recording. This is still "conveyed experience" to us, even though a CD is an object, or it wouldn't have any relevance to us as art; it would just be sound.

(Uh-oh, John Cage comes to mind)



> I don't think it's necessarily antiseptic to observe that part of what makes music so beautiful and powerful is that a major part of its effect on us is our internal relationship to what we hear. Being able to share the experience with others only makes it more wonderful!


Well, that's what we are doing on this forum, sharing our _after-the fact_ experiences of music; but again, I'm not talking about the shared experience of being in an audience, or on a forum, but rather the _direct experience of music,_ as the shared experience of the composer's experience, which he/she conveys to us directly via music.

In other words, the "meaning" of music, and all art, is in its interpersonal aspect, as a way of communication and empathy. Otherwise, it is just something we consume.


----------



## millionrainbows

Strange Magic said:


> Note to self: Avoid (Jacck's version of) Buddhism. Jacck, are you in a state of suffering and confusion when you post? Suffering and confusion, like any of the gifts and the troubles of humankind, tends to be unevenly distributed both among populations and within one's own personal experience--it comes and goes--but I do not think it is the matrix within which human experience is universally grounded. There is often contentment and even, sometimes, joy.


Obviously, he's been reading too much Schopenhauer. :lol:


----------



## millionrainbows

eugeneonagain said:


> I don't quite know how one can react to 'unknowable' things.


That's okay; just keep thinking about it. :lol:



> Things I don't know I probably haven't encountered and if I have encountered them and don't know about it, I'm not likely to be reacting... I'm starting to feel like Donald Rumsfeld now.


Just keep thinking, "I am Donald Rumsfeld, I am Donald Rumsfeld..."



> I'm going to put it down to cultural conditioning on top of certain natural reactions according to how our brains and nervous systems are constructed. The accumulation of this with ever more layers of meanings.


There you have it! Your solution!


----------



## Jacck

Strange Magic said:


> Note to self: Avoid (Jacck's version of) Buddhism. Jacck, are you in a state of suffering and confusion when you post? Suffering and confusion, like any of the gifts and the troubles of humankind, tends to be unevenly distributed both among populations and within one's own personal experience--it comes and goes--but I do not think it is the matrix within which human experience is universally grounded. There is often contentment and even, sometimes, joy.


Yes, there is the occasional joy, occasional feeling of satistaction or contentment, occasional falling in love and feeling happy and fullfilled, but overall, life is everyday struggle full of incessant problems, conflicts within and without, a monotonous drudgery of going to work each day for 40 years etc. So yes, suffering is a fundamental aspect of human existence
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-second-noble-truth/201609/existence-is-suffering
https://philosophynow.org/issues/114/Nietzsche_and_the_Problem_of_Suffering


----------



## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> "Leaving us in a state" is certainly a basic function of art, and not only of music. Changing our feelings/perceptions is also the appeal of other common things we do, from eating to sex to physical exercise to philosophical thinking (as well as more extreme measures such as using drugs).


But this robs music and art of their "special"properties, putting them on the same level as eating, sex, and physical exercise, and turns them into just a thing to be consumed. Art is not utilitarian, but is for "divine contemplation."



> But art has the peculiar power of inducing specific feeling states by means of symbolic representation, and this is what it has in common with religion and is the reason why it has been indispensable to religions in conveying and inducing what are deemed to be desirable "states to leave us in."


Art and religion (ideally) are similar because they induce feeling states by symbolic representation, but more importantly, are similar because we engage with them as a sacred way of "communion" with being, whatever that turns out to be.



> The symbolic vocabulary of music and its relation to our psychology is intimidatingly complex and is rendered difficult to describe by its level of abstraction. Music doesn't normally present representations of physical entities as do the visual arts, and it doesn't discourse, argue or narrate in words. The visual and verbal arts (especially poetry) also utilize abstract form, in conjunction with concrete representations and concepts, to evoke feeling, but music's abstract language allies itself with the non-denotative element of sound, which has a direct, primal, visceral effect on us. Music is therefore the art which appeals most directly to the subconscious and the body, involving the conscious mind only to the extent that we choose to let it.


We do not really have that much control over our conscious mind. Music has this effect on us because it is "abstract" and because it has "a direct, primal, visceral effect" on us, but there is more.



> It's because music's effect on us is mostly independent of thought - of the need for conscious identifications and thinking - that it has seemed especially "magical" or "mystical" or "spiritual."


The terms "magical," "mystical," and "spiritual" have meaning _not only_ because they are independent of conscious thought, but because they are for all intents and purposes, 'non-material' or 'metaphysical.'



> I have no problem with the use of terms like this, so long as they don't try to smuggle in assumptions about supernatural entities and religious dogmas.


Our bodies and consciousness might just as well be "supernatural entities" if they lie beyond thought and identification.


----------



## Tikoo Tuba

_Everyone deserves a relationship ._



millionrainbows said:


> Everyone except you, Tikoo. Bye bye! :lol:


I am not amused . Why be schizoid ? Oh , I see you have already progressed your expressiveness ... very nice . Words can be as music , in motion . Life is motion , too .


----------



## Strange Magic

Jacck said:


> Yes, there is the occasional joy, occasional feeling of satistaction or contentment, occasional falling in love and feeling happy and fullfilled, but overall, life is everyday struggle full of incessant problems, conflicts within and without, a monotonous drudgery of going to work each day for 40 years etc. So yes, suffering is a fundamental aspect of human existence
> https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-second-noble-truth/201609/existence-is-suffering
> https://philosophynow.org/issues/114/Nietzsche_and_the_Problem_of_Suffering


This might be clinical depression masquerading as inescapable universal angst. There are both medical/pharmaceutical means and also "philosophical"/attitudinal means of ameliorating such depression (as well as correcting gross sources of suffering--imprisonment without cause, torture, etc.) After both approaches have been tried and have failed, then we can entertain the notion of profound suffering and confusion as an aspect of human life surpassing all other attributes. I have no opposition to the idea of well-earned suffering, but I again post a brief excerpt from Ralph Waldo Emerson on The Tragic:

"A low, haggard sprite sits by our side, "casting the fashion of uncertain evils"-a sinister presentiment, a power of the imagination to dislocate things orderly and cheerful and show them in startling array. Hark! what sounds on the night wind, the cry of Murder in that friendly house; see these marks of stamping feet, of hidden riot. The whisper overheard, the detected glance, the glare of malignity, ungrounded fears, suspicions, half-knowledge and mistakes, darken the brow and chill the heart of men. And accordingly it is natures not clear, not of quick and steady perceptions, but imperfect characters from which somewhat is hidden that all others see, who suffer most from these causes. In those persons who move the profoundest pity, tragedy seems to consist in temperament, not in events. There are people who have an appetite for grief, pleasure is not strong enough and they crave pain, mithridatic stomachs which must be fed on poisoned bread, natures so doomed that no prosperity can soothe their ragged and dishevelled desolation. They mis-hear and mis-behold, they suspect and dread. They handle every nettle and ivy in the hedge, and tread on every snake in the meadow."


----------



## DeepR

millionrainbows said:


> So, is music a lie?
> 
> If it doesn't matter whether there is actually something real, or true, behind the ineffable, behind the mystery and spirituality that might be felt when listening to music, then there is no essential truth there?
> 
> It sounds as if you are missing something.


I think you misunderstood my post. Music is music. How can music be a lie? Maybe "illusion" isn't the best word for what I meant to say. What I mean is that music creates its own independent world. And all the wonders of that world - the beauty, the mystery, the ineffable - can be experienced to its full extent while listening to the music, regardless of anything that may or may not (be believed to) be true outside of the music.
I'm not religious or very spiritual, I'm more of a rationalist, like the OP describes, but when I want to experience "the ineffable", I turn to music and that is all I need.


----------



## millionrainbows

Strange Magic said:


> This might be clinical depression masquerading as inescapable universal angst. There are both medical/pharmaceutical means and also "philosophical"/attitudinal means of ameliorating such depression (as well as correcting gross sources of suffering--imprisonment without cause, torture, etc.)


So it looks like you have two choices: Psychiatry or Scientology. :lol:


----------



## millionrainbows

DeepR said:


> I think you misunderstood my post. Music is music. How can music be a lie? Maybe "illusion" isn't the best word for what I meant to say. What I mean is that music creates its own independent world. And all the wonders of that world - the beauty, the mystery, the ineffable - can be experienced to its full extent while listening to the music, regardless of anything that may or may not (be believed to) be true outside of the music.
> I'm not religious or very spiritual, I'm more of a rationalist, like the OP describes, but when I want to experience "the ineffable", I turn to music and that is all I need.


That's nice, but it sounds like fantasy, or imagination. Music can be a powerful tool, which brings us to reality.


----------



## Strange Magic

millionrainbows said:


> So it looks like you have two choices: Psychiatry or Scientology. :lol:


Scientology? Please, No! How about est: remember that? Then there was the Baghwan, the Maharishi.......


----------



## KenOC

Strange Magic said:


> Scientology? Please, No! How about est: remember that? Then there was the Baghwan, the Maharishi.......


Est figures in _The Americans_, which I'm currently watching. Anyway, I'm a big fan of primal scream therapy. Invite me over sometime and I'll demonstrate.


----------



## DaveM

KenOC said:


> Est figures in _The Americans_, which I'm currently watching...


Funny, when I saw EST mentioned above, The Americans was also my first thought. I'm bingeing on it right now. Well into Season 5.


----------



## Woodduck

Jacck said:


> how much of what music is able to communicate is culturally dependent? Music can try to immitate sounds or melodies from the environment/culture we live in, but is it universally valid? The chinese have developped different kinds of music. _*I believe that music is incapable of communicating anything. All it does is stimulate our brains and bodies with pleasurable sensations*_


If music cannot communicate anything, what explains the widespread perception and belief - held by composers, among other people - that it does? What explains not merely that, but indeed the widespread agreement about the particular meanings communicated by particular music?

Meaning is not confined to propositions stated in words, and most communication between living beings (human and otherwise) is nonverbal.

I think music may be the greatest communicator of things which words are not adequate to describe.


----------



## KenOC

Woodduck said:


> If music cannot communicate anything, what explains the widespread perception and belief - held by composers, among other people - that it does?


It's an obvious case of mass hysteria.


----------



## Woodduck

KenOC said:


> It's an obvious case of mass hysteria.


Yeah. A witch hunt. No collusion.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> I can't explain it, it just "is" and I know when I am there. It might be easier to explain what it is not. But any good tennis player is there when he is "in the zone," or when any of us are doing something that is totally natural and does not depend on thought.


No thought is required for many natural things that the human body does - but that are not in anyway ineffable. You'll need to elaborate further.


----------



## Larkenfield

_"maybe it's worthwhile having a free flowing discussion about music's ability to cause us to react to things that are unknowable"_

Spirituality is not incompatible with rational thought and is based on direct experience rather than theory, beliefs, or dogma. It merely suggests that there are invisible, hidden or "unknown" forces at play in the material universe that cannot be seen or explained but can be felt or sensed. Eckhart Tolle's _The Power of Now_ goes into this in great detail. Incredible book. Music can be the great awakener because there's a way of seeing one's deeper self reflected in our deeper reactions to the music-where the inner and outer worlds meet. It's like seeing one's own reflection in a pool of water until one becomes aware that there's more to our essential nature than our surface emotions or compulsive thinking that never seems to turn off. It's a great journey and music can be a great connection with those invisible, seemingly unknowable energies.


----------



## eugeneonagain

Larkenfield said:


> _maybe it's worthwhile having a free flowing discussion about music's ability to cause us to react to things that are unknowable_
> 
> Spirituality (or religion for some) is not incompatible with rational thought. It merely suggests that there are invisible, hidden or "unknown" forces at play in the material universe that cannot be seen or explained but can be felt.


The problem arises when one jumps from a mere 'feeling' to a judgement that this is 'forces at play' and so very often identifying those forces predicated upon zero.

Completely incompatible with rational thought, reason, good sense, or even experiential habit.


----------



## Guest

Larkenfield said:


> It merely suggests that there are invisible, hidden or "unknown" forces at play in the material universe that cannot be seen or explained but can be felt.


Some are more susceptible to such suggestions than others, because they alreay posit the spiritual and ineffable in the first place. I'm not immune, but I'd prefer to rule out the rational explanation first.

The problem with the ineffable is just that. It's ineffable.


----------



## Jacck

Woodduck said:


> If music cannot communicate anything, what explains the widespread perception and belief - held by composers, among other people - that it does?* What explains not merely that, but indeed the widespread agreement about the particular meanings communicated by particular music? *Meaning is not confined to propositions stated in words, and most communication between living beings (human and otherwise) is nonverbal. I think music may be the greatest communicator of things which words are not adequate to describe.


is there any such agreement? Most of these interpretations come through verbal suggestions by the composers themselves. Mahler writes the names of the individual movements, which suggests to us, how we should interpret the music. But if these verbal hints and programs given by the composer were not known, would we be able to guess, what the music is about? I don't think so. We could probably try to guess - this music is a dance, this music is sad, this music is joyful, but would there be any universal agreement even about this? Bulldog organized one of his games about "sad music". I was honestly surprised, what some people consider to be sad music. Music does induce feelings in us. These feelings are the result of the music and our internal structure (conditioning). But there is no message being sent


----------



## Jacck

Strange Magic said:


> This might be clinical depression masquerading as inescapable universal angst. There are both medical/pharmaceutical means and also "philosophical"/attitudinal means of ameliorating such depression (as well as correcting gross sources of suffering--imprisonment without cause, torture, etc.) After both approaches have been tried and have failed, then we can entertain the notion of profound suffering and confusion as an aspect of human life surpassing all other attributes. I have no opposition to the idea of well-earned suffering, but I again post a brief excerpt from Ralph Waldo Emerson on The Tragic:
> 
> "A low, haggard sprite sits by our side, "casting the fashion of uncertain evils"-a sinister presentiment, a power of the imagination to dislocate things orderly and cheerful and show them in startling array. Hark! what sounds on the night wind, the cry of Murder in that friendly house; see these marks of stamping feet, of hidden riot. The whisper overheard, the detected glance, the glare of malignity, ungrounded fears, suspicions, half-knowledge and mistakes, darken the brow and chill the heart of men. And accordingly it is natures not clear, not of quick and steady perceptions, but imperfect characters from which somewhat is hidden that all others see, who suffer most from these causes. In those persons who move the profoundest pity, tragedy seems to consist in temperament, not in events. There are people who have an appetite for grief, pleasure is not strong enough and they crave pain, mithridatic stomachs which must be fed on poisoned bread, natures so doomed that no prosperity can soothe their ragged and dishevelled desolation. They mis-hear and mis-behold, they suspect and dread. They handle every nettle and ivy in the hedge, and tread on every snake in the meadow."


I (and buddhism) do not claim that there is constant suffering all the time and that people are all the time in pain. I claim that suffering is a fundamental and inevitable part of human life. One of the fundamental causes of suffering is impermanence
https://www.servicespace.org/blog/view.php?id=23507
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impermanence
we try to cling to people, relationships, properties, achievements, ideas and beliefs. We are attached and try to find security in all of that. But none of that is permanent. And the decay and losing of these things causes suffering.

The essence of buddhism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_marks_of_existence
_"In Buddhism, the three marks of existence are three characteristics of all existence and beings, namely impermanence (anicca), unsatisfactoriness or suffering (dukkha), and non-self (anattā). That humans are subject to delusion about the three marks, that this delusion results in suffering, and that removal of that delusion results in the end of suffering, is a central theme in the Buddhist Four Noble Truths and Noble Eightfold Path."_

one of the central themes of buddhism is, that ignorance (Avidya) are the cause of suffering. So while you might not be aware of suffering (dukha) and you might cover it up, it is a fact nevertheless. I am not familiar with Emerson to pass any judgements about his philosophy.


----------



## eugeneonagain

I used to be part of a Buddhist group (yes, who'd have thought it) in the early 1990s. What Jacck writes above about the three 'marks' of existence had a fairly profound effect upon me until I decided that they were actually themselves in ignorance of what could really been done to alleviate suffering on earth and are themselves really just a form of earthly stoicism with a belief in a great nothing behind it with a lot of clever names.

I think the part that pulled me in the most was the idea of suffering through impermanence, change. There is a lot to be said for this idea, but I don't believe Buddhism's final analysis is any better than a reasoned understanding of the pull between secure comfort (of one's emotional and physical circumstances) and the change that comes in relationships and other results of action in the world, deliberate and natural.

Learning to accept them without recourse to phantasms, and curious resignation wrapped up in even more curious metaphysics, is probably more difficult and requires more strength (of mind and body).

Music offers temporary relief, in the general way Schopenhauer's philosophy is thought to consider its role. It is momentary security, with flashes of impermanence that resolve back to security. It may even explain why music without permanence of key and resolution is so unpopular in general.


----------



## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> No thought is required for many natural things that the human body does - but that are not in anyway ineffable. You'll need to elaborate further.


Why? So you can_ know_ that they are ineffable? Things which lie beyond rationality might as well be ineffable.


----------



## Strange Magic

millionrainbows said:


> Why? So you can_ know_ that they are ineffable? Things which lie beyond rationality might as well be ineffable.


They also just might not exist (even though we want them to.)


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> Why? So you can_ know_ that they are ineffable? Things which lie beyond rationality might as well be ineffable.


No, I mean elaborate on what it means for the tennis player to be in the zone and in what sense she is in some way experiencing or touching with the ineffable.


----------



## Jacck

eugeneonagain said:


> I used to be part of a Buddhist group (yes, who'd have thought it) in the early 1990s. What Jacck writes above about the three 'marks' of existence had a fairly profound effect upon me until I decided that they were actually themselves in ignorance of what could really been done to alleviate suffering on earth and are themselves really just a form of earthly stoicism with a belief in a great nothing behind it with a lot of clever names.
> 
> I think the part that pulled me in the most was the idea of suffering through impermanence, change. There is a lot to be said for this idea, but I don't believe Buddhism's final analysis is any better than a reasoned understanding of the pull between secure comfort (of one's emotional and physical circumstances) and the change that comes in relationships and other results of action in the world, deliberate and natural.
> 
> Learning to accept them without recourse to phantasms, and curious resignation wrapped up in even more curious metaphysics, is probably more difficult and requires more strength (of mind and body).
> 
> Music offers temporary relief, in the general way Schopenhauer's philosophy is thought to consider its role. It is momentary security, with flashes of impermanence that resolve back to security. It may even explain why music without permanence of key and resolution is so unpopular in general.


I was never a buddhist and do not consider myself to be a buddhist. Much of buddhism has degenerated into a mere philosophy or fruitless meditation practices (which are mere navel-gazing done to gain an illusiory result) or belief in karma and reincarnation. Out of the 3 marks existence, I consider the anatta (non-self) to be the most fundamental, but also the most difficult to get (an actual, not theoretical) insight into. Out of all the spiritual teachers and religions, I was influenced most by Krishnamurti. His teaching has overlaps with buddhism, but he is also more subtle in many ways. The main difference is, that for Krishnamurti "Truth is pathless land", while the buddhist believe in the "Noble Eightfold Path". I find some zen more profound than the typical buddhism (Huang Po, Hui Hai, Dogen), especially their concept of a non-abiding mind. But these things have to be experienced. They cannot be made into theories and specualted upon.


----------



## eugeneonagain

Of course. Isn't it always the case that 'things have degenerated from what they used to be'? That there was once a profound truth in whatever is under fire, which has since gone to seed, explaining its current lack.

The argument from 'experience' has always struck me as a rather weak foundation for an argument. (Experience of things incapable of even being defined).


----------



## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> No, I mean elaborate on what it means for the tennis player to be in the zone and in what sense she is in some way experiencing or touching with the ineffable.


Why, so you can bottle it and sell it?:lol:


----------



## eugeneonagain

Who wants to buy empty bottles?


----------



## DaveM

My understanding is that, back in the day, a certain inhaled substance in a dimly lit room with blacklight posters made even popular music plus snacks ineffable.


----------



## Tikoo Tuba

Why should any experience be ineffable , beyond words to describe ? Because such words can be socially , cruelly rejected . But they don't cease to exist . They become as a little book hidden away in a safe place when the language for the experience itself had become ineffable . It's ok for it to emerge as music sublime . And music is able to exist for a future time better than the literal meanings of words anyway . Music is conservative .


----------



## Jacck

eugeneonagain said:


> Of course. Isn't it always the case that 'things have degenerated from what they used to be'? That there was once a profound truth in whatever is under fire, which has since gone to seed, explaining its current lack.
> 
> The argument from 'experience' has always struck me as a rather weak foundation for an argument. (Experience of things incapable of even being defined).


I understand that a lot of these spiritual teachers can sound like snake oil salesman. A lot of them indeed are - Osho, Eckhart Tolle (who has made a very successful business model out of his "enlightenment"). But my own experiences and study of various mystics have convinced me, that there is something real - especially since the accounts from very different culture are principially the same. The problem with this "spiritual truth" is that it is not a positive state, nothing positive can be said about it, it cannot be actively captured by the mind, it is not an achievement, it is not an end result of some spiritual practice, it is not some "insight" that you gain. It cannot be bought, gained. But again, Krishnamurti can say it better (a randomly googled talk). Now, compare him with Meister Eckhart, and you will notice, that despite very different cultural background and no knowledge of each other, they talk about exactly the same stuff. Another one is Rumi. Take a very talented poet, combine him with the spiritual insight of Krishnamurti, and you get Rumi


----------



## Strange Magic

^^^^What we have here is assertion, pure and simple. Nothing wrong with that, except that it is not susceptible to any sort of validation. One may feel better believing such; it may have therefore therapeutic value. But it bears no observable relationship to reality.


----------



## Strange Magic

Jacck, you might want to explore another variety of mysticism, distinct from the introvertive mysticism that someone like Walter Stace of Princeton University described so well in his book _The Teachings of the Mystics_. Introvertive mysticism, the sort practiced by Meister Eckhart et al comprises 99% of "mystic" experience and testimony, and Stace devotes 99% of his book to it. But he notes that there is another path, extrovertive mysticism, which locates The One entirely outside and beyond the physical boundaries of existence, rather than centrally deep within, and it is not experienced by going within. The late American poet Robinson Jeffers came closest to describing/explaining extrovertive mysticism (and its difference with introvertive mysticism) in his poem _Credo_. Please note that Jeffers as poet was not necessarily a close student of mysticism--though he developed his own _sui generis_ philosophical structure of Inhumanism somewhat paralleling extrovertive mysticism. Here is Credo....

My friend from Asia has powers and magic, he plucks a blue leaf from the young blue-gum
And gazing upon it, gathering and quieting
The God in his mind, creates an ocean more real than the ocean, the salt, the actual
Appalling presence, the power of the waters.
He believes that nothing is real except as we make it. I humbler have found in my blood
Bred west of Caucasus a harder mysticism.
Multitude stands in my mind but I think that the ocean in the bone vault is only
The bone vault's ocean: out there is the ocean's;
The water is the water, the cliff is the rock, come shocks and flashes of reality. The mind
Passes, the eye closes, the spirit is a passage;
The beauty of things was born before eyes and sufficient to itself; the heartbreaking beauty
Will remain when there is no heart to break for it.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> Why, so you can bottle it and sell it?:lol:


Why don't you just take my request for elaboration at face value?


----------



## Strange Magic

MacLeod said:


> No, I mean elaborate on what it means for the tennis player to be in the zone and in what sense she is in some way experiencing or touching with the ineffable.


An interesting concept--that of being "in the zone". I've heard surgeons describe being in the zone when/as they operate (on a good day presumably), and it's often credited with being some sort of higher, more "advanced" state of mind, achieved in brief moments of hyperlucidity, etc. Yet the thought struck me, that rather than being this unique "higher" state attained now and again by fortunate people feeling as one with their inmost selves, it is the state normally experienced by animals as they live their lives--the wildebeest grazing on the Serengeti, the circling vultures, the lioness creeping toward her prey. They may truly live "within the moment", "in the zone" for most if not all of their waking hours.


----------



## Tikoo Tuba

Well , sure , I've casually seen water more real than water . I think the visions could be from my love for drinking from a mountain stream and without a worry . Without a worry . There is too much social worry, and for so long , and it has been civilized . We have been educated in it until beyond words , as in language diminished . This is is not arguable . The social language of argument has become insufficient . Paradox .


----------



## eugeneonagain

I now suspect one of those AI essay machines. There can be no other explanation.


----------



## Strange Magic

eugeneonagain said:


> I now suspect one of those AI essay machines. There can be no other explanation.


We once had a similar entity on a kayaking website posting behind others, like Gollum silently padding along behind The Nine through Moria and beyond. It was attributed to a computer algorithm of some sort.


----------



## eugeneonagain

Well it's either that or someone here is having a laugh. It's pretty difficult to consistently read like a fortune cookie.


----------



## EdwardBast

Jacck said:


> possibly, though I do not see it as self-obvious that music offered evolutionary advantage. It could have served as a bonding mechanism in the early tribes, and tribes with better bonding among the members could have a survival advantage?


Sorry. Just to be clear. I don't think music likely had much if any survival value. It is just a happy consequence of capacities that do.


----------



## eugeneonagain

I wouldn't be able to fathom the evolutionary value of something like Herb Alpert.


----------



## DaveM

eugeneonagain said:


> Well it's either that or someone here is having a laugh. It's pretty difficult to consistently read like a fortune cookie.


Considering what sometimes appears to be a low bar for art here, perhaps it would be considered high art on a poetry forum.


----------



## Tikoo Tuba

_
Everyone deserves a relationship ._



millionrainbows said:


> Everyone except you, Tikoo. Bye bye! :lol:


The reality of the relationship shall not be programmable .


----------



## MarkW

I was never an athelete, but once in college I, a mediocre card player, was recruited to be a bridge fourth. In the space of four hands I bid and successfully played two small slams and a grand slam, Yes, I had the cards and the distribution, but my mind was totally focused, I played at lightning (sort of) speed, I somehow "knew" where all the cards were, and drew them out and played perfectly. Never happened again, but for those fifteen minutes I was "in the zone." That help?


----------



## Larkenfield

Jacck said:


> I understand that a lot of these spiritual teachers can sound like snake oil salesman. A lot of them indeed are - Osho, Eckhart Tolle (who has made a very successful business model out of his "enlightenment"). But my own experiences and study of various mystics have convinced me, that there is something real - especially since the accounts from very different culture are principially the same. The problem with this "spiritual truth" is that it is not a positive state, nothing positive can be said about it, it cannot be actively captured by the mind, it is not an achievement, it is not an end result of some spiritual practice, it is not some "insight" that you gain. It cannot be bought, gained. But again, Krishnamurti can say it better (a randomly googled talk). Now, compare him with Meister Eckhart, and you will notice, that despite very different cultural background and no knowledge of each other, they talk about exactly the same stuff. Another one is Rumi. Take a very talented poet, combine him with the spiritual insight of Krishnamurti, and you get Rumi


Jacck, I know you've been hurting lately but your statements are completely false about Tolle. There are hundreds of testimonials on Amazon.com about the benefits of his teachings. He doesn't need the money. He's simply trying to reach as many people as possible on a suffering planet, and the media costs, or haven't you noticed what a mess it is out there? He's the same now as when he was sleeping on park benches because he didn't have a dime. You need to be aware of that and there's no indication that you're familiar with his teachings and are mischaracterizing him just like you have with Gustav Mahler. Both his books are clear explanations of why people suffer, how the ego can sabotage spiritual understanding, how to alleviate it and stop completely identifying with the mind as if that's who you are. He's teaching that there's something deeper, a deeper intelligence. He and Krishnamurti are very close in their teachings. What these teachers are trying to do is reveal what's already inside you. They don't teach beliefs and they don't teach dogma... In any event, good luck to you. I hope you feel better. Sometimes it helps just to do a simple act of kindness for somebody else without expecting a return and that can create an instant sense of well-being rather than living a life of waiting-and that can change a person's life.


----------



## Guest

MarkW said:


> I was never an athelete, but once in college I, a mediocre card player, was recruited to be a bridge fourth. In the space of four hands I bid and successfully played two small slams and a grand slam, Yes, I had the cards and the distribution, but my mind was totally focused, I played at lightning (sort of) speed, I somehow "knew" where all the cards were, and drew them out and played perfectly. Never happened again, but for those fifteen minutes I was "in the zone." That help?


Well, thanks for the example Mark. Being "in the zone" is not an unfamiliar expression to me - it's used often enough to describe all kinds of...what sahll we say?...super-sense phenomena (not supra-sense, note).

It's the instant reaching for "the ineffable" that puzzles me. Once our experiences touch on something that seems inexplicable, the answer alwasy seems to be "magic" of some kind, rather than a complex, but entirely material set of interrelating conditions and operations bringing about an incredible outcome.

Think, if you will, about all the material factors that go into bringing about a victory for the Red Sox, or Man Utd, or the Packers, or Roger Federer: the physical and metal state of the players, the condition of the surface on which they play, the weather, the technology of the equipment. And that's before you get to the precise physics of the speed of the ball and the effect of air on velocity and direction.

For a small example of what I mean. 20 goalkeepers in the zone? Or just the right place at the right time?


----------



## Jacck

Larkenfield said:


> Jacck, I know you've been hurting lately but your statements are completely false about Tolle. There's hundreds of testimonials on Amazon.com about the benefits of this teachings. He doesn't need the money. He's simply trying to reach as many people as possible on a suffering planet, and the media costs, or haven't you noticed what a mess there is out there? He's the same now as when he was sleeping on park benches because he didn't have a dime. You need to be aware of that and there's no indication that you're familiar with his teachings and are mischaracterizing him just like you have with Gustav Mahler. Both his books are clear explanations of why people suffer, how the ego can sabotage spiritual understanding, how to alleviate it and stop completely identifying with the mind as if that's who you are. He's teaching that there's something deeper, a deeper intelligence. He and Kristnamurti are very close in their teachings. What these teachers are trying to do is reveal what's already inside you. They don't teach beliefs and they don't teach dogma. In any event, good luck to you. I hope you feel better. Sometimes it helps just to do a simple act of kindness for somebody else without expecting a return and that can create an instant sense of well-being rather than living a life of waiting-and that can change a person's life.


I will just state my opinion. It is not my desire to attack your favorite spiritual teacher. I read the Power of the Now because I wanted to know what all the hype was about. The book and the teaching were not that bad compared to much of the self-help and spiritual stuff on the market, but I felt, that it is an exctract and a compilation of Krishnamurti (and other sources that Tolle has read). Tolle was a philosophy student in Germany, he is intelligent, he digested all this spiritual literature and regurgitated it and wrote a book about it, but I doubt that he had an original insight himself. If you know Krishnamurti and then read Tolle, you will notice at first, how much Tolle took from Krishnamurti, but you start noticing certain differences, that I attribute to Tolles misunderstanding. Tolle is right, that dysfunctional thought patterns cause a lot of problems for people - even the CBT believes the same. But there are certain aspects of Tolles teachings, that I think are wrong. But let me quote you for an example "_stop completely identifying with the mind as if that's who you are. He's teaching that there's something deeper, a deeper intelligence_". This goes against the Buddhist doctrine of the anatta and goes against Krishnamurti too and if you believe it, you will not doubt fall into error and delusion. You are your ego, period. Ie you believe that there is some ego, and underneath the ego there is some intelligence and that if you remove the ego, you will find this intelligence, your true self etc, you are in illlusion. You thus create a duality and will make effort to get rid of the ego to reach some state beyond, like a dog chasing his own tail. What is beyond the ego is the "unknown". Tolles teaching that you should "stay in the now" is similarly wrong and will never work for long. You can concentrate to "be in the now", but that will require your mind to make conscious effort to be in the now. What is required according to Krishnamurti is understanding what is. Ie forget all spirituality, just understand your own life, your own mind. And the business that Tolle has made out of his enligtenment does not convince me either. I hope you understand that Tolle is not beyond critique. I personally don't mind if you criticize Krishnamurti or anyone else for that matter. I even welcome it.


----------



## Jacck

Strange Magic said:


> Jacck, you might want to explore another variety of mysticism, distinct from the introvertive mysticism that someone like Walter Stace of Princeton University described so well in his book _The Teachings of the Mystics_. Introvertive mysticism, the sort practiced by Meister Eckhart et al comprises 99% of "mystic" experience and testimony, and Stace devotes 99% of his book to it. But he notes that there is another path, extrovertive mysticism, which locates The One entirely outside and beyond the physical boundaries of existence, rather than centrally deep within, and it is not experienced by going within. The late American poet Robinson Jeffers came closest to describing/explaining extrovertive mysticism (and its difference with introvertive mysticism) in his poem _Credo_. Please note that Jeffers as poet was not necessarily a close student of mysticism--though he developed his own _sui generis_ philosophical structure of Inhumanism somewhat paralleling extrovertive mysticism. Here is Credo....
> 
> My friend from Asia has powers and magic, he plucks a blue leaf from the young blue-gum
> And gazing upon it, gathering and quieting
> The God in his mind, creates an ocean more real than the ocean, the salt, the actual
> Appalling presence, the power of the waters.
> He believes that nothing is real except as we make it. I humbler have found in my blood
> Bred west of Caucasus a harder mysticism.
> Multitude stands in my mind but I think that the ocean in the bone vault is only
> The bone vault's ocean: out there is the ocean's;
> The water is the water, the cliff is the rock, come shocks and flashes of reality. The mind
> Passes, the eye closes, the spirit is a passage;
> The beauty of things was born before eyes and sufficient to itself; the heartbreaking beauty
> Will remain when there is no heart to break for it.


I am not sure I entirely follow what the difference between the external and internal mysticism is. The One has a paradoxical nature, even Aristotle called him "the Unmoved Mover", because he creates the ever changing world of phenomena in his heart, yet remains also completely uncreated beyond time and space. The Absolute is immesuarable, all words are like dust. The absolute is beyond existence and non-existence, beyond being and not-being, beyond finity and infinity, because all these concept are valid only within space and time. And as already Kant found out, our mind is incapable of thinking outside the space-time categories. The One is both without and within, but to become one with the One, you first have to conquer the bounderies in you own mind, that separate you from the One. Or rather empty your own mind of the self, because the self is obstructing the One.


----------



## eugeneonagain

Jacck said:


> And as already Kant found out, our mind is incapable of thinking outside the space-time categories.


And yet there is this persistence in claiming to be able to posit something of which we supposedly can't possibly conceive? Some key (enlightenment, transcendence...etc) to exit the prison of space-time because of guesswork supposing that something outside of space-time reveals an 'ultimate truth'.

Aristotle's 'unmoved mover' is just the germ of the now well-known 'cosmological argument' for the existence of gods, which has been pretty much dismantled.


----------



## Guest

Jacck said:


> he creates the ever changing world of phenomena in his heart, yet remains also completely uncreated beyond time and space. The Absolute is immesuarable, all words are like dust. The absolute is beyond existence and non-existence, beyond being and not-being, beyond finity and infinity, because all these concept are valid only within space and time. And as already Kant found out, our mind is incapable of thinking outside the space-time categories. The One is both without and within, but to become one with the One, you first have to conquer the bounderies in you own mind, that separate you from the One. Or rather empty your own mind of the self, because the self is obstructing the One.


I'm not sure I can make any sense of any of these words. What it seems to boil down to is that the only way to understand the non-rational is to let go of the rational. But maybe even "understand" is the wrong word here - "embrace" or "be embraced by" might be more suitable.

My preference is to trust in the rational, no matter how much pain and suffering I know it can involve.


----------



## Jacck

eugeneonagain said:


> And yet there is this persistence in claiming to be able to posit something of which we supposedly can't possibly conceive? Some key (enlightenment, transcendence...etc) to exit the prison of space-time because of guesswork supposing that something outside of space-time reveals an 'ultimate truth'.
> 
> Aristotle's 'unmoved mover' is just the germ of the now well-known 'cosmological argument' for the existence of gods, which has been pretty much dismantled.


I don't think that it is possible to argue from reason and logic, that there is anything beyond time and space. All such thinking is speculation based on self-delusion and Nietzsche spend a lot of his effort to fight against these metaphysical concepts. He was right. So you have to take the mysticim as a leap of faith and be aware, that you might be deluding yourself

of of the best sermons of Eckhart is the Sanctification (I am not sure how good a translation of the word "Abgeschiedenheit" it is)

_ "Although God is Almighty, He can only work in a heart when He finds readiness or makes it.He works differently in men than in stones. For this we may take the following illustration: if webake in one oven three loaves of barley-bread, of rye-bread, and of wheat, we shall find the sameheat of the oven affects them differently; when one is well-baked, another will be still raw, andanother yet more raw. That is not due to the heat, but to the variety of the materials. Similarly Godworks in all hearts not alike but in proportion as He finds them prepared and susceptible. If theheart is to be ready for the highest, it must he vacant of all other things. If I wish to write on a whitetablet, whatever else is written on the tablet, however noble its purport, is a hindrance to me. If Iam to write, I must wipe the tablet clean of everything, and the tablet is most suitable for my purposewhen it is blank. Similarly, if God is to write on my heart, everything else must come out of it tillit is really sanctified. Only so can God work His highest will, and so the sanctified heart has nooutward object at all.
The question arises: But what then does the sanctified heart pray for? I answer that when trulysanctified, it prays for nothing, for whosoever prays asks God to give him some good, or to takesome evil from him. But the sanctified heart desires nothing, and contains nothing that it wishes tobe freed from. Therefore it is free of all want except that it wants to be like God. St Dionysiuscommenting on the text, "Know ye not that all run, but one receiveth the prize?" says "this runningis nothing else than a turning away from all creatures and being united to the Uncreated." Whenthe soul gets to this point, it loses its own distinctiveness, and vanishes in God as the crimson ofsunrise disappears in the sun. To this goal only pure sanctification can arrive."_

so can either believe it or disbelieve it. Both are perfectly fine.


----------



## eugeneonagain

See, I don't think they are both perfectly fine at all. A wild "leap of faith" predicated upon nothing but a shared and transmitted tradition of delusions and uninformed guesswork and desire for the supernatural is not a fine thing at all.

By means of this general argument where it is stated that ordinary thought can never access this great reality outside of mere appearances, everything is shut off from genuine discussion. It attempts to protect this nebulous reality from criticism.

The people propounding it say they don't know of what 'reality' consists, but that it is something beyond what is known and they are certain the ordinary human mind cannot access it. Curiously it does not stop them from also insisting upon this reality; something which has no reason to be even considered, and with an astonishing certainty.

I have no need of a Pascal's Wager.


----------



## Jacck

eugeneonagain said:


> See, I don't think they are both perfectly fine at all. A wild "leap of faith" predicated upon nothing but a shared and transmitted tradition of delusions and uninformed guesswork and desire for the supernatural is not a fine thing at all.
> 
> By means of this general argument where it is stated that ordinary thought can never access this great reality outside of mere appearances, everything is shut off from genuine discussion. It attempts to protect this nebulous reality from criticism.
> 
> The people propounding it say they don't know of what 'reality' consists, but that it is something beyond what is known and they are certain the ordinary human mind cannot access it. Curiously it does not stop them from also insisting upon this reality; something which has no reason to be even considered, and with an astonishing certainty.
> 
> I have no need of a Pascal's Wager.


I agree with you and I am against mixing religion with science. Science researches objectively existing facts and all its knowledge is based on repeatable experiments. Mysticism is not this kind of knowledge. It is a subjective experience, not repeatable in experiment, and not objectifiable. That is why I am against creationism and similar stuff. I view it rather as art, as poetry etc. It can inspire you, or it does not inspire you, then leave it alone.


----------



## Strange Magic

Jacck, I also am not sure that there is any essential difference between extrovertive and introvertive mysticism, as I am impervious to any sort of mysticism. I see from afar how an uncertain belief in the "reality" of mysticism, of whatever sort but leaning toward the extrovertive, can trigger excellent poetry, certainly by Jeffers--in one of his poems where he prefigures his death, he has a daemon behind the "screen of things" tap his staff and summon him, saying, "Come, Jeffers". And Captain Ahab said that if Man would strike, he should "strike through the mask". As poets, neither Jeffers nor Melville were committed mystics; rather, they used some of the pre-existing notions of mystics and mysticism to help frame poetic/artistic/philosophical statements they were intent on making. Emerson did the same thing, in his essay _Nature_. Artists first and foremost, amateur dabblers in mysticism second, perhaps we can say.


----------



## Jacck

Strange Magic said:


> Jacck, I also am not sure that there is any essential difference between extrovertive and introvertive mysticism, as I am impervious to any sort of mysticism. I see from afar how an uncertain belief in the "reality" of mysticism, of whatever sort but leaning toward the extrovertive, can trigger excellent poetry, certainly by Jeffers--in one of his poems where he prefigures his death, he has a daemon behind the "screen of things" tap his staff and summon him, saying, "Come, Jeffers". And Captain Ahab said that if Man would strike, he should "strike through the mask". As poets, neither Jeffers nor Melville were committed mystics; rather, they used some of the pre-existing notions of mystics and mysticism to help frame poetic/artistic/philosophical statements they were intent on making. Emerson did the same thing, in his essay _Nature_. Artists first and foremost, amateur dabblers in mysticism second, perhaps we can say.


this seems to go more into the direction of pantheism. 
https://www.pantheism.net/ 
These poets perceive the beauty of the world, of nature, and throught this beauty get some vague hint of the creating principle behind nature. Goethe or Einstein were pantheists too. The distinction between pantheism and mysticism might be what you call the external and internal mysticism. The pantheists perceive God in nature/in the natural laws, while the mystics are more concerned with their own mind. But it is really both the same. Let me quote Krishnamurti again
_"There is only one movement in life, the outer and the inner; this movement is indivisible, though it is divided. Being divided, most follow the outer movement of knowledge, ideas, beliefs, authority, security, prosperity and so on. In reaction to this, one follows the so-called inner life, with its visions, aspirations, secrecies, conflicts, despairs. As this movement is a reaction, it is in conflict with the outer. So there is contradiction, with its aches, anxieties and escapes. There is only one movement, which is the outer and the inner. With the understanding of the outer, then the inner movement begins, not in opposition or in contradiction. As conflict is eliminated, the brain, though highly sensitive and alert, becomes quiet. Then only the inner movement has validity and significance. Out of this movement there is a generosity and compassion which is not the outcome of reason and purposeful self-denial."_
I am personally not much concerned in these philosophical distinctions. For me, spirituality = peace of mind. And it does not matter if you arrive at it through pantheism, mysticism or psychotherapy. But I suspect, that it is impossible without self-knowledge


----------



## Guest

Jacck said:


> this seems to go more into the direction of pantheism.
> https://www.pantheism.net/


Grrr. Atheism and agnosticism are not worldviews, so to dismiss them for not being what they are not undermines the credibility of the website you've linked to. I'd copy and paste, but they don't function on their webpages.

Setting that aside, I'm not sure whether Pantheism is about God _residing in _nature, or that God _is _nature, or that we can reach God through connecting with nature.


----------



## Strange Magic

I have problems with "spirituality" of any stripe or flavor. The proponents of scientific World pantheism seem to embrace spirituality without believing in spirits or the supernatural. Why not forget the whole thing? There's no "there" there.


----------



## Red Terror

Strange Magic said:


> There's no "there" there.


According to you.


----------



## Tikoo Tuba

When a music honestly supposes to embrace the ineffable , it may well be the music won't pretend to be organized . Oh , isn't organized sound one of our definitions of music ? The expressive ineffable seems content to be artfully spontaneous . You can't possess it . For those people who would rule the world this is a schizoid condition . The best they can do is master and promote the schiz - and miserably fail the One . Music of the Effable ? positively in the balance oops! sings the wonder-joke


----------



## millionrainbows

Strange Magic said:


> I have problems with "spirituality" of any stripe or flavor. The proponents of scientific World pantheism seem to embrace spirituality without believing in spirits or the supernatural. Why not forget the whole thing? There's no "there" there.


Well, why can't you look at "spirituality" as a deeper "body awareness" of our being, in which emotions and feelings reside, and which is not the product of thought? I never said it was non-physical, did I? That seems easy enough, and fits right in with science, doesn't it? I mean, why is everybody so picky and touchy about this subject?


----------



## Strange Magic

OK, we'll call spirituality "a deeper (than what?) 'body awareness' of our being (like being hit on the head by a Zen master, or a thrown rock), in which emotions and feelings reside (like being awake and conscious)". All is now clear.


----------



## Woodduck

Efferyone's working effully hard to make the ineffable effable. It's effing defficult.


----------



## Jacck

Woodduck said:


> Efferyone's working effully hard to make the ineffable effable. It's effing defficult.


yes, the mystic and philosopher Wittgenstein said, that 'That whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent'
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/was-wittgenstein-a-mystic/


----------



## eugeneonagain

Jacck said:


> yes, the mystic and philosopher Wittgenstein said, that 'That whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent'
> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/was-wittgenstein-a-mystic/


Mystic?! My word this thread is getting worse.

By the way that quote is from his extremely logical positivist period, not his later period...when he also _wasn't_ a mystic.


----------



## Strange Magic

Jacck said:


> yes, the mystic and philosopher Wittgenstein said, that 'That whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent'
> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/was-wittgenstein-a-mystic/


I always liked Ludwig's brother Paul better. At least he gave us Ravel's _Concerto for the Left Hand_.


----------



## janxharris

Woodduck said:


> Efferyone's working effully hard to make the ineffable effable. It's effing defficult.


Fferbal effluvia?


----------



## eugeneonagain

Strange Magic said:


> I always liked Ludwig's brother Paul better. At least he gave us Ravel's _Concerto for the Left Hand_.


Don't knock Ludwig, he was a virtuoso whistler and could whistle entire symphonies from memory.


----------



## DaveM

Tikoo Tuba said:


> When a music honestly supposes to embrace the ineffable , it may well be the music won't pretend to be organized . Oh , isn't organized sound one of our definitions of music ? The expressive ineffable seems content to be artfully spontaneous . You can't possess it . For those people who would rule the world this is a schizoid condition . The best they can do is master and promote the schiz - and miserably fail the One . Music of the Effable ? positively in the balance oops! sings the wonder-joke


Is there any particular reason why you're putting spaces before punctuation marks? Of course, you're free to do it, but it does look rather strange.


----------



## eugeneonagain

It still doesn't make much sense of the content.


----------



## Woodduck

janxharris said:


> Fferbal effluvia?


Eff you say so.


----------



## Guest

DaveM said:


> Is there any particular reason why you're putting spaces before punctuation marks? Of course, you're free to do it, but it does look rather strange.


Punctuation? It's the syntax I struggle with.


----------



## Jacck

eugeneonagain said:


> Mystic?! My word this thread is getting worse.
> 
> By the way that quote is from his extremely logical positivist period, not his later period...when he also _wasn't_ a mystic.


http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/142133/9/09_chapter2.pdf
_"My work consists of two parts: one presented here and all that I have not written. And it is precisely this second part that is the important one. My book draws limits to the sphere of the ethical form the inside as it were, and I am convinced that this is the ONLY rigorous way of drawing those limits. In short, I believe that where many others today are just gassing, I have managed in my book to put everything firmly into place by being silent about it"_


----------



## DaveM

MacLeod said:


> Punctuation? It's the syntax I struggle with.


One challenge at a time.  Let's get the punctuation in line, then..


----------



## eugeneonagain

Jacck said:


> http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/142133/9/09_chapter2.pdf
> _"My work consists of two parts: one presented here and all that I have not written. And it is precisely this second part that is the important one. My book draws limits to the sphere of the ethical form the inside as it were, and I am convinced that this is the ONLY rigorous way of drawing those limits. In short, I believe that where many others today are just gassing, I have managed in my book to put everything firmly into place by being silent about it"_


And what is this meant to show? Wittgenstein (at that time, remember he changed his tack considerably later on) is telling people to avoid trying to talk about the "ineffable" because it is unknown. I've been pushing that line for nine pages now and all I see are mini essays doing the opposite.


----------



## Woodduck

DaveM said:


> One challenge at a time.  Let's get the punctuation in line, then..


Don't work too hard at it. It's ineffable.


----------



## Jacck

eugeneonagain said:


> And what is this meant to show? Wittgenstein (at that time, remember he changed his tack considerably later on) is telling people to avoid trying to talk about the "ineffable" because it is unknown. I've been pushing that line for nine pages now and all I see are mini essays doing the opposite.


then read the whole thesis. Wittgen was a mystic, though more of the pantheistic sort than of the Meister Eckhart sort. Logical positivism and the language of science (mathematics) have their limits. Wittgenstein was trying to show these limits. It is impossible to talk about metaphysics, but it is equally impossible to be without metaphysics. The whole fundations of logic and mathematics are shaky - Goedels incompletness theorems and the paradoxes of set theory (and the need to axiomatize it) and the paradoxes with infinity (poor Georg Cantor went mad thinking about different classes of infinities). Wittgenstein, unlike his less brilliant logical positivist collegues, was aware of the limits. Frege, Carnap etc. were not. But a true mystic is always superior to a pure logician in terms of understaning. It is like the famous rivalry between Laozi (a mystic) and Konfucius (a practical philosopher of the logical positivist type)


----------



## Strange Magic

One of my favorite songs while reading Wittgenstein:


----------



## janxharris

Strange Magic said:


> One of my favorite songs while reading Wittgenstein:
> 
> https://www.google.com/search?q=The+woo+woo+train&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari


Nearly as good as the seminal - ineffable...'whatever'........


----------



## DaveM

Hmm, ‘ineffable’ might mean that dropping an f-bomb is inappropriate.


----------



## Woodduck

DaveM said:


> Hmm, 'ineffable' might mean that dropping an f-bomb is inappropriate.


Inappropriate, perhaps, but probably ineffitable.


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> One of my favorite songs while reading Wittgenstein:


With music this good, who needs philosophy?


----------



## eugeneonagain

Jacck said:


> then read the whole thesis. Wittgen was a mystic, though more of the pantheistic sort than of the Meister Eckhart sort. Logical positivism and the language of science (mathematics) have their limits. Wittgenstein was trying to show these limits. It is impossible to talk about metaphysics, but it is equally impossible to be without metaphysics. The whole fundations of logic and mathematics are shaky - Goedels incompletness theorems and the paradoxes of set theory (and the need to axiomatize it) and the paradoxes with infinity (poor Georg Cantor went mad thinking about different classes of infinities). Wittgenstein, unlike his less brilliant logical positivist collegues, was aware of the limits. Frege, Carnap etc. were not. But a true mystic is always superior to a pure logician in terms of understaning. It is like the famous rivalry between Laozi (a mystic) and Konfucius (a practical philosopher of the logical positivist type)


True about those limits. Russell was aware and onto those foundational limits while Wittgenstein was still an aeronautics students in Manchester. It is he who undermined Frege and Carnap, not Wittgenstein. At this time (the _Tractatus_ period) he is not far from the thinking of Russell, who was no mystic. Their diverging paths later on are well known. Wittgenstein's later language philosophy has also been claimed (I want to say _hijacked_) by any number of mystical quacks, but none of it is esoterica.

Your contention that he was a 'mystic' is complete falsehood. The language is loaded to make it appear that he trades in the sort of drivel that comes from Eckhart and that other quack purveyor of empty truisms Krishnamurti.


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> One of my favorite songs while reading Wittgenstein:


I think he bought a ticket for a train and then at the last minute decided to go with a colleague in his car. He died in the car accident.

Is this why you chose that song? I only read this page of the thread, I should go back and read more posts.


----------



## Tikoo Tuba

_Is there any particular reason why you're putting spaces before punctuation marks? Of course, you're free to do it, but it does look rather strange.

It still doesn't make much sense of the content.

Punctuation? It's the syntax I struggle with.

One challenge at a time. Let's get the punctuation in line, then..

Don't work too hard at it. It's ineffable. _

Thanks for playing 
.
.
.


----------



## millionrainbows

All that "ineffable" means is "Beyond expression in words; unspeakable." 
Synonyms: indescribable, inexpressible, unspeakable.

That doesn't seem too mysterious.

Marlon Brando perhaps said it best: "The horror..."


----------



## DaveM

Tikoo Tuba said:


> _Is there any particular reason why you're putting spaces before punctuation marks? Of course, you're free to do it, but it does look rather strange.
> 
> It still doesn't make much sense of the content.
> 
> Punctuation? It's the syntax I struggle with.
> 
> One challenge at a time. Let's get the punctuation in line, then..
> 
> Don't work too hard at it. It's ineffable. _
> 
> Thanks for playing
> .
> .
> .


Playing a role . Playing a game . Like a deck of cards . Throw it in the air . Fluttering cards in the air. Will the Joker turn up ? The ineffability of it . Can we not speak the words ? Do we speak them or do they control us ? Set the words free . Like a sky imprisoned by clouds set free by the wind.


----------



## Larkenfield

Music’s ability to convey what words cannot is part of its enduring ineffability and can open one up to a non-material spiritual dimension. The mind does not have to compulsively think when it’s listening, and then marvelous things can result in creativity and as a healing influence. It’s a miracle and it comes from another dimension, not the strictly material dimension where only what you see is what you get. The dimension that music comes from can be sensed and felt but it cannot exactly be put into words or it would be just as limited and literal as objectified words... It has a vibrational power that can be inspiring, uplifting to the soul, and transcend the limitations of the personal self.


----------



## JosefinaHW

eugeneonagain said:


> True about those limits. Russell was aware and onto those foundational limits while Wittgenstein was still an aeronautics students in Manchester. It is he who undermined Frege and Carnap, not Wittgenstein. At this time (the _Tractatus_ period) he is not far from the thinking of Russell, who was no mystic. Their diverging paths later on are well known. Wittgenstein's later language philosophy has also been claimed (I want to say _hijacked_) by any number of mystical quacks, but none of it is esoterica.
> 
> *Your contention that he was a 'mystic' is complete falsehood. The language is loaded to make it appear that he trades in the sort of drivel that comes from Eckhart and that other quack purveyor of empty truisms Krishnamurti.*


You people know where this conversation belongs. It's sad that it has gone on this long without someone else saying something. You want to break the TofS, start your own forum.


----------



## Woodduck

JosefinaHW said:


> You people know where this conversation belongs. It's sad that it has gone on this long without someone else saying something. You want to break the TofS, start your own forum.


Talk of "the ineffable" inevitably brings up philosophical and religious ideas. They will be touched and then let go. Reality all flows together. Go with the flow.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> All that "ineffable" means is "Beyond expression in words; unspeakable."
> Synonyms: indescribable, inexpressible, unspeakable.
> 
> That doesn't seem too mysterious.
> 
> Marlon Brando perhaps said it best: "The horror..."


If Marlon Brando said it, it was hardly ineffable then, was it? (Anyway, "Mr Brando, he dead", so he'll know for himself whether he was right.)

The dictionary definition is one thing. The use to which the terms is often put is another. I think it has been used in this thread to refer to that which can't be spoken because it's a thing too vast and incomprehensible to be explained (hence all that beyond understanding bit) to the extent that it is in effect hidden, unknowable. In short, we don't know...can't know...whether it even exists (except, allegedly, by non-conventional means of communication with it).


----------



## JosefinaHW

******* ******* ******. *** *** ******** **** ****. **


----------



## janxharris

JosefinaHW said:


> ******* ******* ******. *** *** ******** **** ****. **


Ineffable?...................


----------



## Guest

janxharris said:


> Ineffable?...................


Maybe just a lot of effing?

[joke]


----------



## Jacck

Larkenfield said:


> Music's ability to convey what words cannot is part of its enduring ineffability and can open one up to a non-material spiritual dimension. The mind does not have to compulsively think when it's listening, and then marvelous things can result in creativity and as a healing influence. It's a miracle and it comes from another dimension, not the strictly material dimension where only what you see is what you get. The dimension that music comes from can be sensed and felt but it cannot exactly be put into words or it would be just as limited and literal as objectified words... It has a vibrational power that can be inspiring, uplifting to the soul, and transcend the limitations of the ego.


I don't believe in any hidden spiritual dimensions, but yes, the experience that music has upon us is ineffable. But the same can be said about any other sensiory modality. How would you use language to convey to someone else, how salt tastes, if he himself had no experience of salty taste? How would you convey the experience of the blueness of the sky to someone who is color blind? All experiences are fundamentally ineffable, not just music.


----------



## Guest

Jacck said:


> I don't believe in any hidden spiritual dimensions, but yes, the experience that music has upon us is ineffable. But the same can be said about any other sensiory modality. How would you use language to convey to someone else, how salt tastes, if he himself had no experience of salty taste? How would you convey the experience of the blueness of the sky to someone who is color blind? All experiences are fundamentally ineffable, not just music.


I disagree. I can certainly use words to convey what I experience when listening to music, and many people here would know exactly what I meant. The fact that there are specific circumstances when words may be insufficient does not rule out all circumstances.


----------



## Jacck

MacLeod said:


> I disagree. I can certainly use words to convey what I experience when listening to music, and many people here would know exactly what I meant. The fact that there are specific circumstances when words may be insufficient does not rule out all circumstances.


but the people would know what you mean only because of the shared humanity and shared experience, ie they have a similar nervous system and the music affects them in a similar manner. And even then, the only common thing might be the language, but the experiences might differ. How do you know that my experience of green does not look like your experience of red? How would you explain a Beethoven symphony to a deaf (from birth) person?


----------



## Jacck

eugeneonagain said:


> True about those limits. Russell was aware and onto those foundational limits while Wittgenstein was still an aeronautics students in Manchester. It is he who undermined Frege and Carnap, not Wittgenstein. At this time (the _Tractatus_ period) he is not far from the thinking of Russell, who was no mystic. Their diverging paths later on are well known. Wittgenstein's later language philosophy has also been claimed (I want to say _hijacked_) by any number of mystical quacks, but none of it is esoterica.
> 
> Your contention that he was a 'mystic' is complete falsehood. The language is loaded to make it appear that he trades in the sort of drivel that comes from Eckhart and that other quack purveyor of empty truisms Krishnamurti.


The whole goal of the analytical philosophy is pretty silly from my point of view. The logical atomism of Russell and the picture theory of language of Wittgenstein, are self-obviously shaky. I never managed to read the whole Tractatus, but even reading the first chapter leaves me disagreeing. These guys suppose that different words of our language correspond to some objectively existing entities in the outside world (the correspondence theory of language). From a perspective of a neuroscientist, this is obviously wrong. My own position in this matter (not surprisingly) is much closer to constructivism, ie the brain constructs words, meanings and even logics. Of course, ultimately there has to be some correspondence of our language and logic to the outer world, but we are incapable of knowing, what that correspondence is, because we are incapable of knowing the "Ding an sich" outside of our language. So my epistemiology is rooted in cognitive neuroscience, for example Maturana and Varela
https://www.amazon.com/Tree-Knowledge-Biological-Roots-Understanding/dp/0877736421
This language thing becomes even more obvious, if we approach realms outside of the usual human experience, for example the microscopic world of quantum mechanics. The whole language and meaning and common sense logic just explodes there.


----------



## Guest

Jacck said:


> but the people would know what you mean only because of the shared humanity and shared experience, ie they have a similar nervous system and the music affects them in a similar manner. And even then, the only common thing might be the language, but the experiences might differ. How do you know that my experience of green does not look like your experience of red? How would you explain a Beethoven symphony to a deaf (from birth) person?


If the meaning of ineffable is "Too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words"*, it doesn't apply to the experience of music which isn't 'too great to be described in words'. Plainly, it can - we do it all the time here at TC, even if we have different experiences when listening to the same music.

*https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ineffable


----------



## Larkenfield

Ineffable: "incapable of being expressed or described in words; inexpressible."

If music cannot be expressed in words then only one's _reactions_ to it can be expressed in words and not the thing itself.

_"Where words fail, music speaks." -Hans Christian Andersen
"When words leave off, music begins." -Heinrich Heine
"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." ―Aldous Huxley 
"How is it that music can, without words, evoke our laughter, our fears, our highest aspirations?" ―Jane Swan
"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent." ―Victor Hugo
"Music is to the soul what words are to the mind." ―Modest Mouse 
"Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can't." ―Johnny Depp
"Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends." ―Alphonse de Lamartine
"Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife." ―Kahlil Gibran _

Poof! Ineffable.


----------



## millionrainbows

If some music sounds real good to me, I'll say "Wow! That sounds in-****ing- effable!!"


----------



## Guest

Larkenfield said:


> Ineffable: "incapable of being expressed or described in words; inexpressible."
> 
> If music cannot be expressed in words, then only one's _reactions_ to it can be expressed in words and not the thing itself.
> 
> _"Where words fail, music speaks." -Hans Christian Andersen
> "When words leave off, music begins." -Heinrich Heine
> "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." ―Aldous Huxley
> "How is it that music can, without words, evoke our laughter, our fears, our highest aspirations?" ―Jane Swan
> "Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent." ―Victor Hugo
> "Music is to the soul what words are to the mind." ―Modest Mouse
> "Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can't." ―Johnny Depp
> "Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends." ―Alphonse de Lamartine
> "Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife." ―Kahlil Gibran _
> 
> Poof!


Well obviously music can't be _expressed in _words - then it wouldn't be music, would it? But it can be _described in _words. Did anyone really think we were talking about anything else?


----------



## millionrainbows

Larkenfield said:


> If music cannot be expressed in words, then only one's _reactions_ to it can be expressed in words and not the thing itself.


But what is music except our experience of it? Maybe I'm splitting hairs.



MacLeod said:


> Well obviously music can't be _expressed in _words - then it wouldn't be music, would it? But it can be _described in _words. Did anyone really think we were talking about anything else?


We can describe our _experience_ of music in words, or not, but what is music other than our experience of it? Does music exist _"out there"_ as an idea, or object? 
_How can music exist "outside our experience of it," unless it's just an idea?_


----------



## Tikoo Tuba

An ineffable mystery inspires a quest . This follows acceptance . 

I hear crows who have gathered as a great flock in a tree and talk with words as men do . Then in that direction I walk . The closer I get , the more I hear their sound as music . Yet , of course , it's not my place to climb the tree and be among them .


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> But what is music except our experience of it? Maybe I'm splitting hairs.
> 
> We can describe our _experience_ of music in words, or not, but what is music other than our experience of it? Does music exist _"out there"_ as an idea, or object?
> _How can music exist "outside our experience of it," unless it's just an idea?_


Yes, you're splitting hairs.


----------



## DaveM

Tikoo Tuba said:


> An ineffable mystery inspires a quest . This follows acceptance .
> 
> I hear crows who have gathered as a great flock in a tree and talk with words as men do . Then in that direction I walk . The closer I get , the more I hear their sound as music . Yet , of course , it's not my place to climb the tree and be among them .


Walk on the wild side. Be at one with the crows.


----------



## Tikoo Tuba

DaveM said:


> Is there any particular reason why you're putting spaces before punctuation marks? Of course, you're free to do it, but it does look rather strange.


I think sentence punctuation gets the same respect as a meaningful word .

Comma : _pause and associate_
Period : _inwardness , now continue , or obviously *p!* it's the end_
Question mark :_ consider again what you've just read , clarity needs focus_
Exclamation :_ exactly so , existence within_

I don't like quotation marks . They say nothing .


----------



## Woodduck

Tikoo Tuba said:


> I don't like quotation marks . They say nothing .


They can enclose a quotation (hence their name). They can say "this is so called, but may not be in fact." They can indicate a title. Do you know a more efficient way to convey these things?


----------



## Larkenfield

If music weren't beyond words, people would be reading poetry and novels instead of listening to it. The best performances can render someone speechless into stillness and silence because it's something ineffable that may have never been experienced before. It can only be felt and one's reactions perhaps later described. But it's a reaction _to_ something whose basic nature is ineffable and beyond words. That's its power in the invisible dimension that it comes from. It's the ineffable invisible made audible.


----------



## Strange Magic

Great literature, great pictorial art, vast and stunning vistas of great natural beauty--just the same as music--can bring forth feelings of "ineffable?" ecstasy. And one's reactions can indeed be later described. The common factor is often that these are cusp experiences when we feel turned powerfully in a new direction. And the neurophysiology/brain chemistry of such experience is being teased out. But knowing even exactly how and why we have these experiences will not in any way diminish their power.


----------



## millionrainbows

Strange Magic said:


> Great literature, great pictorial art, vast and stunning vistas of great natural beauty--just the same as music--can bring forth feelings of "ineffable?" ecstasy. And one's reactions can indeed be later described. The common factor is often that these are cusp experiences when we feel turned powerfully in a new direction. And the neurophysiology/brain chemistry of such experience is being teased out. But knowing even exactly how and why we have these experiences will not in any way diminish their power.


\

This is a nice, neat rationalization of "the ineffable," but most of the mystery has been drained out of it; not unlike making love to an inflatable doll. It's now a 'psychological response,' studied by neurophysiologists, with a condescending nod to "its power" at the end.

...but I don't think this is a useful answer for exploration of these unknown areas. Rationality ruins it. You have to "believe it" for it to have any power; or at least be prepared to "commit" to it, and "live it." There really is a "darkness" out there, waiting for us. But you have to be _serious_ about it. It doesn't work to be detached and rational.


----------



## Guest

The OP asks if the experience of listening to music can put us in touch with the ineffable. He doesn't ask if music is itself ineffable (plainly it is - though more than one of us has felt compelled to state the obvious that music is not words) nor does he ask whether the experience of listening to music is ineffable (plainly it isn't - here we all are, talking about our experiences of listening to music).

By all means have your connection with the ineffable, the contact with something-greater-than-me-that-we-cannot-perceive-through-our-material-existence. But let's not start saying that the whole [email protected] thing is ineffable!


----------



## eugeneonagain

Tikoo Tuba said:


> I think sentence punctuation gets the same respect as a meaningful word .
> 
> Comma : _pause and associate_
> Period : _inwardness , now continue , or obviously *p!* it's the end_
> Question mark :_ consider again what you've just read , clarity needs focus_
> Exclamation :_ exactly so , existence within_
> 
> *I don't like quotation marks . They say nothing* .


Then you are maintaining this philosophy 100% throughout.


----------



## Strange Magic

millionrainbows said:


> \
> 
> This is a nice, neat rationalization of "the ineffable," but most of the mystery has been drained out of it; not unlike making love to an inflatable doll. It's now a 'psychological response,' studied by neurophysiologists, with a condescending nod to "its power" at the end.
> 
> ...but I don't think this is a useful answer for exploration of these unknown areas. Rationality ruins it. You have to "believe it" for it to have any power; or at least be prepared to "commit" to it, and "live it." There really is a "darkness" out there, waiting for us. But you have to be _serious_ about it. It doesn't work to be detached and rational.


I regard the fact that the "mystery" has been drained out as a Good Thing. Knowledge is always superior to its absence, or to its replacement by the inflatable doll (inflated with what bizarre gas, one might ask) of mysticism. Were more of the writings of scientists read--those writings where scientists wish to share their experiences with their non-scientist neighbors via essays, autobiography, etc.--one would then see the gross error of assertions such as those above quoted. Scientists routinely affirm their own depth of feelings at the awesomeness, the beauty, the grandeur of the material universe, for they are small and it is large. Try some Feynman, or Richard Dawkins......


----------



## eugeneonagain

No use recommending Dawkins. A public scientist like Dawkins is routinely pilloried by the 'mystical' fraternity for destroying mystery and ignoring enlightenment just around the corner. 

These wizards of woo would have you believe that Dawkins types listen to Beethoven or Mahler and only get noises and already-understood technique and structure. Not the feeling of being moved, or emotionally invigorated or sated or even chastened for a moment.

There are two general ways of trying to understand things the first is a journey guided by reason and reasonable evidence and informed experimentation. The other is like taking a journey and only turning your car endlessly into a cul-de-sac on the basis of guesswork, 'intuition', desires, while claiming to be 'getting somewhere'. This is supposed to be part of the journey, but after a lifetime wasted all that is transmitted to the next generation of 'seekers' is the history of turning into cul-de-sacs. By this time honoured by tradition and treated as something magical.


----------



## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> The OP asks if the experience of listening to music can put us in touch with the ineffable. He doesn't ask if music is itself ineffable (plainly it is - though more than one of us has felt compelled to state the obvious that music is not words) nor does he ask whether the experience of listening to music is ineffable (plainly it isn't - here we all are, talking about our experiences of listening to music).
> 
> By all means have your connection with the ineffable, the contact with something-greater-than-me-that-we-cannot-perceive-through-our-material-existence. But let's not start saying that the whole [email protected] thing is ineffable!


The OP is really a rational "replacement thread" for "Mahler as Shaman," isn't it? It begins with _"__Okay, leaving aside shamanism,"_ and goes on to say _"__I am not conventionally religious. My Universe does not require a God to have set it in motion or to keep the clock ticking But if it turns out one is there, I'm not going to freak out - no harm, no foul. That probably makes me a rationalist. I tend to put stock in what science can "prove" (to the extent it can prove anything), and find attempts to make "sciences" out of studies that depend on human behavior (the so-called social sciences) admirable but misguided. And then there are the arts, which seem to have an ability to tell us things that cannot be systematically codified."_

But it's OK to say that the whole [email protected] thing is rational? That doesn't work for me, it takes away all the mystery, and is coming from a hubris-based standpoint, that "everything is within Man's purview."

"Systematically codified?" That doesn't sound mysterious or evocative of anything other than "the arts, which can have all the leftovers."

I am not conviced by this rational approach.

Man may end up destroying himself, along with the planet. Where will your precious rationality be, then?


----------



## Bourdon

millionrainbows said:


> The OP is really a rational "replacement thread" for "Mahler as Shaman," isn't it? It begins with "Okay, leaving aside shamanism," and goes on to say "
> 
> But it's OK to say that the whole [email protected] thing is
> rational? That doesn't work for me, it takes away all the mystery, and is coming from a hubris-based standpoint, that "everything is within Man's purview." I don't believe this, and Man may end up destroying himself, along with the planet. Where will your precious rationality be, then?


All hope is gone ......?


----------



## millionrainbows

Bourdon said:


> All hope is gone ......?


...then "save us" with your rationality.

In the documentary "What the Universe Tells Me," end of part one:

*"What's very important for Mahler was Nietzsche's view that Greek art had had a heroic period in which religion and art were fused."

*This goes against what everyone here is saying. Apparently everyone is completely missing the intentions of Mahler, and completely misinterpreting his art!


----------



## Bourdon

millionrainbows said:


> ...then "save us" with your rationality.


 I can not,its hopeless.


----------



## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> You have to "believe it" for it to have any power; or at least be prepared to "commit" to it, and "live it." There really is a "darkness" out there, waiting for us.
> 
> Man may end up destroying himself, along with the planet. Where will your precious rationality be, then?


Where will your precious irrationality be? Working to preserve the planet, or droning to a drone?

The final answer of the anti-rational is a threat, and their fondest yearning is for an apocalypse. Confronted with the practical problems of existence, their answer is the "darkness," and they have proven only too eager to bring it on.


----------



## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> Where will your precious irrationality be? Working to preserve the planet, or droning to a drone?
> 
> The final answer of the anti-rational is a threat, and their fondest yearning is for an apocalypse. Confronted with the practical problems of existence, their answer is the "darkness," and they have proven only too eager to bring it on.


Apparently, these kinds of quasi-religious notions seem to bring out your dark side. :lol:


----------



## millionrainbows

Bourdon said:


> I can not, it's hopeless.


Then we'll all go down together, singing a drone version of "Kumbaya."


----------



## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> Apparently, these kinds of quasi-religious notions seem to bring out your dark side. :lol:


"Apparent" to you only. You're the one invoking darkness and total destruction. It's too reminiscent of that Christian I went to college with who, backed into a logical corner, could only throw the quote at me, "The wages of sin is death."


----------



## eugeneonagain

millionrainbows said:


> But it's OK to say that the whole [email protected] thing is rational? That doesn't work for me, it takes away all the mystery, and is coming from a hubris-based standpoint, that "everything is within Man's purview."


No it isn't. It is a modest system that 'hopes' to understand things, but doesn't claim to know things about what is yet unknown. The 'hubris' is behaviour carried on by individuals and groups who make use of rational knowledge and any destruction comes from the fact that such knowledge is so powerful and evidently works.

Sorry, it's not a private show where your desires get catered to.



millionrainbows said:


> "Systematically codified?" That doesn't sound mysterious or evocative of anything other than "the arts, which can have all the leftovers."


Who cares whether it's mysterious? Mysteries are to be solved, not bathed-in and caressed.



millionrainbows said:


> I am not conviced by this rational approach.
> 
> Man may end up destroying himself, along with the planet. Where will your precious rationality be, then?


Rationality is the only thing trying to save the planet and fights every day against meddlesome, unthinking 'mysterialists' who don't know one end of something from the other. You are looking through the wrong end of the telescope.


----------



## Strange Magic

> millionrainbows: "I am not conviced by this rational approach.
> 
> Man may end up destroying himself, along with the planet. Where will your precious rationality be, then?"


This is priceless. It is only the rationalists today who see the dangers confronting us and our irreplaceable planet, and who cry out Danger, Danger. This is a great place to put in a plug for the Talk Science Group, where we've been gnawing on this bone for many, many days and posts. The irrationalists tell us instead: Don't Worry! Be Happy!


----------



## isorhythm

I've been trying to gather my thoughts on this, and haven't really succeeded, but I'm going to make an attempt...

It seems to me that "ineffable" is being used in at least two different ways in this thread, both of which I think have some relationship to music.

The first is to say that music can convey "ineffable" sensations or emotions to the listener. I think this is clearly true. A particular piece of music can make a listener have inner experiences that can't be conveyed in words, beyond just saying, "the way I feel when I listen to the _Kreutzer_ Sonata," or whatever. These feelings may or may not be experienced as having some relationship to "real" feelings like sadness, joy, anxiety, etc. They are ineffable to the same extent that real feelings are ineffable - they can sometimes be described roughly by language, never exactly.

That comes with two caveats. First, that the feelings evoked by music aren't the same as real feelings; they have some kind of relationship to them, and may allow us to experience an emotional catharsis, but they are always distinguishable from the feelings we have in the course of our ordinary lives. At least, that's my experience. Second, that there's no direct communication of information from composer or performer to listener, as there is with language; it's a more complex interaction shaped by the innate predispositions, individual experiences, and cultural backgrounds of everyone involved.

The second way people have been using "ineffable" is to refer to the experience of what millionrainbows and Jacck have been calling "pure being." Jacck said early in the thread that music has no role in this. If I understand him correctly, what he meant is that making or listening to music is always, in part, a mental process, so it's not pure being.

That's true, but I don't agree that they have nothing to do with each other. The prominent role of music in religious and spiritual traditions all over the world certainly suggests they're related. Music can quiet the mind, so as to make it more receptive to the experience of what we're calling pure being. There are also mystical experiences that stop short of pure being, in which the bonds of the self are loosened without altogether disappearing, and I think music can have a lot to do with those. I don't claim to be able to explain how it works, but I suspect the way it involves the mind and body as one has a lot to do with it.


----------



## starthrower

eugeneonagain said:


> Oh millionrainbows! What is "essential being". Stop holding me in limbo.


We've all experienced it as a new born child, but we've forgotten. We can't get back to that pure sense of being one with creation because we've been educated out of it. Music moves us for the simple reality that at it's core it is nothing more that vibrations. Can vibrations be religious or secular? Of course not. Waves are waves.


----------



## eugeneonagain

starthrower said:


> We've all experienced it as a new born child, but we've forgotten. We can't get back to that pure sense of being one with creation because we've been educated out of it. Music moves us for the simple reality that at it's core it is nothing more that vibrations. Can vibrations be religious or secular? Of course not. Waves are waves.


I'm not convinced. I don't think 'wonder' ever deserts us, it is just tempered by experience. As a child everything is wondrous because you don't know how anything works. If we supposedly forget it and it is educated out of us, how do we ever know to refer to it?


----------



## starthrower

Education as understanding is good. But we are taught many other things that destroy the wonder and joy of living. The objectification of others, conformity, the delusion of allowing the ego to create a caricature of who we are. We allow ourselves to be convinced by religious teaching that we are wretched beings destined for eternal damnation, and so on. An infant doesn't have any of these hang ups until it is convinced otherwise.


----------



## Jacck

eugeneonagain said:


> I'm not convinced. I don't think 'wonder' ever deserts us, it is just tempered by experience. As a child everything is wondrous because you don't know how anything works. If we supposedly forget it and it is educated out of us, how do we ever know to refer to it?


you have not experience of the freedom that comes into being by letting go of yourself - ie your knowledge, you effort to achieve, your opinions and the need to win and be right. It is by dying to all knowledge, all conclusions etc. that the mind becomes innocent and refreshed and can receive the unknown. Science and rationality have their place in life, but they are not the whole life. Knowledge is a prison and a burden and it makes the mind heavy and old. (of course you can misunderstand this, if you want to)

"A frog in a well cannot discuss the ocean, because he is limited by the size of his well. A summer insect cannot discuss ice, because it knows only its own season. A narrow-minded scholar cannot discuss the Tao, because he is constrained by his teachings. Now you have come out of your banks and seen the Great Ocean. You now know your own inferiority, so it is now possible to discuss great principles with you."
Zhuangzi


----------



## Strange Magic

^^^^I want to misunderstand this, because if I understood it, I would have to regard knowledge as a prison and a burden making my mind heavy and old. I have a fairly good understanding of my mind--we are close and on speaking terms--and it tells me that it is fresh and vigorous.


----------



## Jacck

Strange Magic said:


> ^^^^I want to misunderstand this, because if I understood it, I would have to regard knowledge as a prison and a burden making my mind heavy and old. I have a fairly good understanding of my mind--we are close and on speaking terms--and it tells me that it is fresh and vigorous.


worldviews can work as cages. So many people are trapped in some ideology, political, religious, spiritual etc. Once you get trapped in it, you create a mental bubble around yourself, where only information confirming you views will be let inside and all the rest kept outside (confirmation bias). Ego gets invested in this worldviews and it is then really difficult to disentangle yourself from it. And this woks for scientist too. They can be rational within the narrow field of their particular expertize, but they are irrational in so many other areas of their lifes. 
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds


----------



## eugeneonagain

Jacck said:


> you have not experience of the freedom that comes into being by letting go of yourself - ie your knowledge, you effort to achieve, your opinions and the need to win and be right. It is by dying to all knowledge, all conclusions etc. that the mind becomes innocent and refreshed and can receive the unknown. Science and rationality have their place in life, but they are not the whole life. Knowledge is a prison and a burden and it makes the mind heavy and old. (of course you can misunderstand this, if you want to)


I suppose the same doesn't apply to those opposing my sort of opinion? Being free and enlightened and all that. Do you think I live my daily life according to an abacus? Don't be silly. Everyone daydreams and considers possibilities and flights of fancy. That's all they are unless they can somehow function for life. I don't see any useful methodology for making them useful to life coming from your quarter other than wishy-washy pseudo-philosophy. 
Don't for a second imagine that because people are not willing to yield to mystical claptrap, that they are a walking slide-rule.



Jacck said:


> "A frog in a well cannot discuss the ocean, because he is limited by the size of his well. A summer insect cannot discuss ice, because it knows only its own season. A narrow-minded scholar cannot discuss the Tao, because he is constrained by his teachings. Now you have come out of your banks and seen the Great Ocean. You now know your own inferiority, so it is now possible to discuss great principles with you."
> Zhuangzi


I'm getting bored of these koans and cut-n-pasted proverbs. There's always one proverb to counter the wisdom of another. I'm pretty well-read in Taoist works myself; Chuang Tzu (or Zhuangzi you rendered it) being my particular favourite. He has his limits. I recall the section of his book called 'Broken Suitcases' which discusses ina roundabout way the problems of knowing and of enforcing a good society. His conclusions are not far away from the silliness of modern 'Libertarianism' and his root of all evil is 'the search for knowledge' and 'false wisdom'. Even though he is writing a book imparting what he thinks is the right kind of knowledge and 'correct wisdom'.

Chuang Tzu is not the last word, even though he is a great read. You'll do well to remember this.


----------



## millionrainbows

Strange Magic said:


> This is priceless. It is only the rationalists today who see the dangers confronting us and our irreplaceable planet, and who cry out Danger, Danger. This is a great place to put in a plug for the Talk Science Group, where we've been gnawing on this bone for many, many days and posts. The irrationalists tell us instead: Don't Worry! Be Happy!


Remember, it was "rational" people who created the hydrogen bomb!


----------



## Jacck

eugeneonagain said:


> I'm getting bored of these koans and cut-n-pasted proverbs. There's always one proverb to counter the wisdom of another. I'm pretty well-read in Taoist works myself; Chuang Tzu (or Zhuangzi you rendered it) being my particular favourite. He has his limits. I recall the section of his book called 'Broken Suitcases' which discusses ina roundabout way the problems of knowing and of enforcing a good society. His conclusions are not far away from the silliness of modern 'Libertarianism' and his root of all evil is 'the search for knowledge' and 'false wisdom'. Even though he is writing a book imparting what he thinks is the right kind of knowledge and 'correct wisdom'.
> Chuang Tzu is not the last word, even though he is a great read. You'll do well to remember this.


I have the Chuang Tzu book at home, though not in a particularly good Czech translation. The basic principle of taoism is "wu wei", which means no effort and letting things take their course. So yes, they were proto-libertarians, because they applied this principle to human society too and believed that government does more harm than good. It is a good principle, if all people observed it. Unfortunately, some 5 % of the population are psychopaths, and these people crave power above all else (to fill their emotional vacuum), which means they become rulers. And if you apply the principle of "wu wei" with respect to them, they will exploit you or massacre you. It is similar with Christ and "love your enemies". Psychopats are impossible to reason with and every act of kindness will be seen as weakness and exploited


----------



## Strange Magic

Jacck said:


> worldviews can work as cages. So many people are trapped in some ideology, political, religious, spiritual etc. Once you get trapped in it, you create a mental bubble around yourself, where only information confirming you views will be let inside and all the rest kept outside (confirmation bias). Ego gets invested in this worldviews and it is then really difficult to disentangle yourself from it. And this woks for scientist too. They can be rational within the narrow field of their particular expertize, but they are irrational in so many other areas of their lifes.
> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds


Aren't we all? Is your above thesis being put forward as new material, new insight? It remains a fact that we can understand--to one degree or another--the world around us, and ourselves--and formulate reasonable, viable solutions to perceived problems. There is no benefit--and often grave danger--in retreating from rationality into......Woo-Woo.


----------



## millionrainbows

If you will carefully watch the documentary "What the Universe Tells Me," you will see that Mahler's ultimate conclusion was to arrive at a "state of being" which is attuned to the universe, in the finale. 
He comments on religion in the fourth movement, but seems to think this is naive, but never does he discard it or talk it down ("It's too reminiscent of that Christian I went to college with who, backed into a logical corner, could only throw the quote at me, _The wages of sin is death._").


----------



## Strange Magic

millionrainbows said:


> Remember, it was "rational" people who created the hydrogen bomb!


Were rational people responsible for the Rwanda massacres? The thrust of these adolescent attacks on rationality is to foster further retreat from analysis of important problems and thinking of their amelioration. To attack reason, education, knowledge is to endorse The Darkness.


----------



## millionrainbows

Strange Magic said:


> Aren't we all? Is your above thesis being put forward as new material, new insight? It remains a fact that we can understand--to one degree or another--the world around us, and ourselves--and formulate reasonable, viable solutions to perceived problems. *There is no benefit--and often grave danger--in retreating from rationality into......Woo-Woo.*


You think like George W. Bush, when he said "You're either for us or against us." That's called "black and white thinking," and is identical to the way fundamentalist Christians posit their case.

"There is only rationality...All else is woo woo."


----------



## Tikoo Tuba

_I don't like quotation marks . They say nothing ._



Woodduck said:


> They can say "this is so called, but may not be in fact."


I think the usage you describe is disrespectful . It is employed in argument as a weapon of misdirection . I shall be devoted to peace , and I must do so as an artist in words as music or music as words . This is a coherent philosophy for me . I value a philosophy of the arts that is like space , ever so as far as I can see . When I get the notion to walk about such a world , I am not taking the measure of distance - rather of time - and the vibrations of that may be simple and elemental revelations of music . For any consideration of the effable , I am patient . Occasionally arriving at the edge of my world , this doesn't mean I expect to see beyond it . And I won't stand there to blindly shoot arrows at what I do not know .


----------



## Strange Magic

^^^^millionrainbows: Pot, call another kettle black. Now you suddenly are into 50 shades of grey. :lol:


----------



## millionrainbows

Strange Magic said:


> Were rational people responsible for the Rwanda massacres? The thrust of these adolescent attacks on rationality is to foster further retreat from analysis of important problems and thinking of their amelioration. To attack reason, education, knowledge is to endorse The Darkness.


What about the "rational" decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hirishima and Nagasaki? In this case, we, and Harry Truman, were the "bringers of darkness," wrapped in a light brighter than the sun. To endorse reason blindly is to endorse The Darkness.


----------



## eugeneonagain

millionrainbows said:


> You think like George W. Bush, when he said "You're either for us or against us." That's called "black and white thinking," and is identical to the way fundamentalist Christians posit their case.
> 
> "There is only rationality...All else is woo woo."


I'm compelled to say that your own approach seems to be: 'There is only woo-woo, all else is rationality'. Jacck at least is aware of the value of reason and science, but sees a limit and fills it up with either ancient wisdom or woo-woo.


----------



## millionrainbows

eugeneonagain said:


> I'm compelled to say that your own approach seems to be: 'There is only woo-woo, all else is rationality'. Jacck at least is aware of the value of reason and science, but sees a limit and fills it up with either ancient wisdom or woo-woo.


No, I'm more flexible than that. I never posited the existence of a metaphysical realm, or an afterlife, or any religious dogma; you should know by now that all I have posited was the state of "being," as isorhythm so graciously pointed out in his post #178:



> The second way people have been using "ineffable" is to refer to the experience of what millionrainbows and Jacck have been calling "pure being."


----------



## isorhythm

eugeneonagain said:


> I'm compelled to say that your own approach seems to be: 'There is only woo-woo, all else is rationality'. Jacck at least is aware of the value of reason and science, but sees a limit and fills it up with either ancient wisdom or woo-woo.


I haven't seen Jacck endorse any woo-woo in this thread.

"Rationality" doesn't tell us to drop bombs - it doesn't tell us to save the planet either.


----------



## Strange Magic

millionrainbows said:


> What about the "rational" decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hirishima and Nagasaki? In this case, we, and Harry Truman, were the "bringers of darkness," wrapped in a light brighter than the sun. To endorse reason blindly is to endorse The Darkness.


Was it a rational decision? There were powerful counterarguments, as you know, or should know. Perhaps it was a profoundly irrational, emotional, "intuitive" decision. What is the nature of your antipathy to rationality? Are your decisions made by consulting the _I Ching_? Should decisions involving public health and safety be so governed?


----------



## eugeneonagain

isorhythm said:


> I haven't seen Jacck endorse any woo-woo in this thread.


Then you must have been reading another thread.



isorhythm said:


> "Rationality" doesn't tell us to drop bombs - it doesn't tell us to save the planet either.


It enables us to do both.


----------



## Jacck

eugeneonagain said:


> I'm compelled to say that your own approach seems to be: 'There is only woo-woo, all else is rationality'. Jacck at least is aware of the value of reason and science, but sees a limit and fills it up with either ancient wisdom or woo-woo.


ultimately, science is incapable to supply a meaning to your life. All it can do it to produce an ever-expanding body of knowledge about the objective world aroud us. Only a fool would argue with the efficiency of science or its ability to generate knowledge about the world, but that is not the whole life. Wittgenstein says in his tractatus, that the logical positivist method is incapable to deal with beauty, spirituality, ethics, metaphysics, subjective meaning etc. It can be argued that these are the most important things for the majority of people. And science has its frontiers too. I doubt we will ever know what caused the Big Bang or why the universe is so fine tuned to support life (anthropic principle is seriously discussed in physics). I am no creationist and dislike most of them (exactly because they refuse science and rationality to support their views). But knowledge is very limited. For me, spirituality is more about finding harmony and the art of living, than about metaphysical speculations about God.


----------



## Strange Magic

isorhythm said:


> I haven't seen Jacck endorse any woo-woo in this thread.
> 
> "Rationality" doesn't tell us to drop bombs - *it doesn't tell us to save the planet either.*


I think today that the defenders of reason are at the forefront of warning us about the dangers facing the planet. I would put The National Academy of Sciences, The Royal Society, NASA, and a host of other scientific organizations into that vanguard.


----------



## starthrower

We can use science to chip away at the woo woo, but we've still got ourselves to deal with, and we're not doing a very good job of it. Millions are still starving to death in the 21st century.


----------



## eugeneonagain

millionrainbows said:


> No, I'm more flexible than that. I never posited the existence of a metaphysical realm, or an afterlife, or any religious dogma; you should know by now that all I have posited was the state of "being," as isorhythm so graciously pointed out in his post #178:


It has become a neat little hanger upon which to hang all those other things implicitly, without specifically naming them. Until you have laid-out what your view of 'pure being' is, it just sits there doing nothing, saying nothing, imparting nothing at all.


----------



## SONNET CLV

All these heavy philosophical musings ….

Maybe it's time we get back to something we can all pretty much agree on:






A merging of the original and the new. Much to contemplate. Or not.

One can listen with one's rational side, or one's emotional side. Or somewhere in between. Or outside the bounds completely.

And, if that happens to be too taxing for the moment, how about a bit of comic relief. Though, equally contemplative, I would argue.


----------



## millionrainbows

isorhythm said:


> I haven't seen Jacck endorse any woo-woo in this thread.


That's correct, iso, as you pointed out in your post #178. Now that you've supported Jack, who seems to have contained his metaphysical tendencies within a neatly prescribed area, complete with a dog-walk lane, then next you will be ready to move on to me, and fully embrace the darkness.



> "Rationality" doesn't tell us to drop bombs - it doesn't tell us to save the planet either.


And therein lies the danger of blindly subscribing to rationalism, at the expense of all spiritually-derived moral precepts or compassion. Beware, Man.


----------



## eugeneonagain

starthrower said:


> We can use science to chip away at the woo woo, but we've still got ourselves to deal with, and we're not doing a very good job of it. Millions are still starving to death in the 21st century.


True. Though much misery is caused by adhering to the view that woo-woo must be respected; whether that is in the form of thought-quackery or 'cultural beliefs'. Political and economic woo still seems to be trumping economic reality at every turn.


----------



## Jacck

eugeneonagain said:


> It has become a neat little hanger upon which to hang all those other things implicitly, without specifically naming them. Until you have laid-out what your view of 'pure being' is, it just sits there doing nothing, saying nothing, imparting nothing at all.


It is a silent mind, that by silencing the conflict within itself, enters into a harmony with the world.


----------



## isorhythm

eugeneonagain said:


> It enables us to do both.


Yes, of course.



Strange Magic said:


> I think today that the defenders of reason are at the forefront of warning us about the dangers facing the planet. I would put The National Academy of Sciences, The Royal Society, NASA, and a host of other scientific organizations into that vanguard.


That's right. I'm not at all trying to minimize the importance of reason, which allows us to understand the dangers we face and how to avert them. What it doesn't do is tell us that humanity or the planet are worth saving. That's all I meant.


----------



## Strange Magic

Jacck said:


> ultimately, science is incapable to supply a meaning to your life. All it can do it to produce an ever-expanding body of knowledge about the objective world aroud us. Only a fool would argue with the efficiency of science or its ability to generate knowledge about the world, but that is not the whole life. Wittgenstein says in his tractatus, that the logical positivist method is incapable to deal with beauty, spirituality, ethics, metaphysics, subjective meaning etc. It can be argued that these are the most important things for the majority of people. And science has its frontiers too. I doubt we will ever know what caused the Big Bang or why the universe is so fine tuned to support life (anthropic principle is seriously discussed in physics). I am no creationist and dislike most of them (exactly because they refuse science and rationality to support their views). But knowledge is very limited. For me, spirituality is more about finding harmony and the art of living, than about metaphysical speculations about God.


Everyone must craft their own life's meaning from the materials their senses and minds provide. Science/rationality offer a pretty reliable set of first conditions within which we find ourselves; we inhabit a world where most things make sense if examined carefully and without externally imposed preconditions. A wonderful attempt to explain the workings of the world was the Roman poet Lucretius' amazing _de rerum natura_, wherein he showed that we lived in an understandable world--a world we could grasp with the power of careful observation and thought. Two thousand years ago, a light shining in the darkness.


----------



## millionrainbows

eugeneonagain said:


> It has become a neat little hanger upon which to hang all those other things implicitly, without specifically naming them. Until you have laid-out what your view of 'pure being' is, it just sits there doing nothing, saying nothing, imparting nothing at all.


Kinda like yours & Woodduck's 'philosophy,' which denies, denies, denies, without positing anything? You guys (and KenOC as well, come to think of it) seem to assume that you have no obligation to explain your position, either; you're like martial artists, who always wait for the opponent to make the first move, then just lay back and take pot-shots at whatever is said. That's the 'easy internet way' out.


----------



## isorhythm

millionrainbows said:


> That's correct, iso, as you pointed out in your post #178. Now that you've supported Jack, who seems to have contained his metaphysical tendencies within a neatly prescribed area, complete with a dog-walk lane, then next you will be ready to move on to me, and fully embrace the darkness.


Well, no, because reason is also an integral part of what we are.

I believe we're all talking about the same thing, which by its nature is everywhere all the time - there is no danger of its ever being "contained" in any way, by anyone.


----------



## eugeneonagain

millionrainbows said:


> Kinda like yours & Woodduck's 'philosophy,' which denies, denies, denies, without positing anything? You guys (and KenOC as well, come to think of it) seem to assume that you have no obligation to explain your position, either; you're like martial artists, who always wait for the opponent to make the first move, then just lay back and take pot-shots at whatever is said. That's the 'easy internet way' out.


This is just false. What I refer to are either known methodologies and ideas, with proven track records, which need no special explanation from me; or they are expressed with examples and suggestions and other ideas.

What specifically have I spoken about that hasn't been defined for you?

I don't 'deny' what you write, because there is nothing to affirm or deny. It's just babble.


----------



## starthrower

eugeneonagain said:


> True. Though much misery is caused by adhering to the view that woo-woo must be respected; whether that is in the form of thought-quackery or 'cultural beliefs'.


This is a tough one, and there doesn't seem to be a solution. I suppose we'll just have to evolve over time if that's possible? But Sam Harris has made the argument against respecting the woo-woo, or so called religious moderates.


----------



## Tikoo Tuba

Strange Magic said:


> Are your decisions made by consulting the _I Ching_? Should decisions involving public health and safety be so governed?


All impositions of authority are questionable . Should an oracle inform a person's decision , likely those in authority won't be informed of this . Sometimes I carry an oracle about in my backpack . It's been investigated by gov't authorities when looking in there for either pot or a bomb . A Secret Service agent once discovered it , held it , opened up it's box - boom! what happened ? I don't know . Don't care . The only boom I knew of had been from the big drum I played on the street ; on occasion of Obama's over-night stay at our little town's hotel . Very mysterious ...


----------



## Strange Magic

millionrainbows said:


> Kinda like yours & Woodduck's 'philosophy,' which denies, denies, denies, without positing anything? You guys (and KenOC as well, come to think of it) seem to assume that you have no obligation to explain your position, either; you're like martial artists, who always wait for the opponent to make the first move, then just lay back and take pot-shots at whatever is said. That's the 'easy internet way' out.


I recommend the late philosopher Ernest Nagel's essay _Naturalism Reconsidered_, his 1954 presidential address before the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association. Boiled down, naturalism tells us that the world is more or less as it appears, given judicious use of scientific instruments that enable us to both expand and clarify our field of view, and that "ineffable", trans-physical, undetectable forces or entities are not required to sustain a usable view of the world. Nagel himself, as an intellectually chaste thinker, also imposed upon himself (and implicitly urged others) to not to teach inside the classroom things he did not believe outside the classroom--a refreshingly novel idea for a philosophy professor.

Edit: In rereading Nagel, I find him saying "...I prefer not to accept in philosophic debate what I do not believe when I am not arguing..."


----------



## KenOC

millionrainbows said:


> What about the "rational" decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hirishima and Nagasaki? In this case, we, and Harry Truman, were the "bringers of darkness," wrapped in a light brighter than the sun. To endorse reason blindly is to endorse The Darkness.


Dropping the bombs was not only rational but beneficial to both sides. As many as 250,000 Japanese were killed by the bombs. The alternative, the invasion plan called Operation Downfall, would have resulted in the loss of between 5 and 10 million Japanese lives plus US lives close to a million (estimates at the time).

There are several good books on the subject, or you can get a pretty good summary from _Wiki_.


----------



## eugeneonagain

Jacck said:


> It is a silent mind, that by silencing the conflict within itself, enters into a harmony with the world.


Sounds good, but says nothing.


----------



## Strange Magic

KenOC said:


> Dropping the bombs was not only rational but beneficial to both sides. As many as 250,000 Japanese were killed by the bombs. The alternative, the invasion plan called Operation Downfall, would have resulted in the loss of between 5 and 10 million Japanese lives plus US lives close to a million (estimates at the time).
> 
> There are several good books on the subject, or you can get a pretty good summary from _Wiki_.


I never could understand the zeal to invade non-strategic (not essential airfield sites) islands in the Pacific war where Japanese soldiers were reduced to hiding in caves, bunkers, trenches. These were thus existing POW camps, where the enemy could eventually surrender or starve, and needed only to be monitored by a handful of small craft. Ditto with the Japanese homeland, except that more robust monitoring would need to be done, by air and sea.


----------



## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> Dropping the bombs was not only rational but beneficial to both sides. As many as 250,000 Japanese were killed by the bombs. The alternative, the invasion plan called Operation Downfall, would have resulted in the loss of between 5 and 10 million Japanese lives plus US lives close to a million (estimates at the time).
> 
> There are several good books on the subject, or you can get a pretty good summary from _Wiki_.


Wik, as if I were ignorant? Thanks for the condescension, KenOC.

I've heard all the same arguments in college history classes. Nonetheless, I think someone should at least say "Excuse me" after committing such an act.

Couldn't we have just "shot them in the leg" instead of the head? We could have dropped it nearby, in an uninhabited region, or in the ocean, as a warning. Remember how big the Bikini atoll blast was? That would have gotten their attention.

And, we had TWO of them. If that warning didn't work, we could have gone ahead with plan A.

Also, we should consider the implications of such an act. Do we have the right to intervene in fate? Does any state entity have the power of life & death.


----------



## millionrainbows

eugeneonagain said:


> Sounds good, but says nothing.


It makes sense to me. All you ever do is criticize and invalidate, Eugene. Have you done anything positive lately for anyone other than yourself?


----------



## isorhythm

KenOC said:


> Dropping the bombs was not only rational but beneficial to both sides. As many as 250,000 Japanese were killed by the bombs. The alternative, the invasion plan called Operation Downfall, would have resulted in the loss of between 5 and 10 million Japanese lives plus US lives close to a million (estimates at the time).
> 
> There are several good books on the subject, or you can get a pretty good summary from _Wiki_.


Even if this were true (it isn't), "reason" doesn't tell us that preserving human life is good.


----------



## starthrower

The bombs were dropped to force the Japanese to surrender unconditionally. Many believe they were ready to surrender under certain conditions, and the destruction of two cities and their inhabitants was unnecessary.


----------



## KenOC

isorhythm said:


> Even if this were true (it isn't), "reason" doesn't tell us that preserving human life is good.


a. What about it is untrue?

b. True. Reason doesn't even say that our own survival is good. But it gets my vote regardless!


----------



## millionrainbows

isorhythm said:


> Even if this were true (it isn't), "reason" doesn't tell us that preserving human life is good.


I agree, and this casts doubt on simplistic answers, like the standard one that KenOC parroted.


----------



## Jacck

eugeneonagain said:


> Sounds good, but says nothing.


subjective experiences and states of mind are ineffable. I can try to describe a particular state, but if you have no experience of similar kind, you cannot relate to it. All spiritual experiences are like it. That is why I say it is like art. Some people can see the beauty, but other people don't. I can use many different names such as silence of mind, mental peace, inner freedom, but if you cannot relate to it, than it is incommunicable and even meaningless to discuss.


----------



## isorhythm

KenOC said:


> a. What about it is untrue?


What starthrower said - for more comprehensive reading, the Wiki article you linked and the related "controversy" article have plenty of references. I'm not getting into a debate on the merits because that's too far from music.



KenOC said:


> b. True. Reason doesn't even say that our own survival is good. But it gets my vote regardless!


Right - this is all I meant to say - it's not anti-rational to point out that there are areas where reason is simply not applicable.


----------



## eugeneonagain

millionrainbows said:


> It makes sense to me. All you ever do is criticize and invalidate, Eugene. Have you done anything positive lately for anyone other than yourself?


Yes I have. Must I list them for satisfaction purposes? You do realise that doing good for people doesn't necessarily require being anti-reason or having a concern with 'being'?

If it makes sense to you, then please guide me.


----------



## eugeneonagain

Jacck said:


> subjective experiences and states of mind are ineffable. I can try to describe a particular state, but if you have no experience of similar kind, you cannot relate to it. All spiritual experiences are like it. That is why I say it is like art. Some people can see the beauty, but other people don't. I can use many different names such as silence of mind, mental peace, inner freedom, but if you cannot relate to it, than it is incommunicable and even meaningless to discuss.


I'll agree with that. However, as was suggested far back in this thread (or the Mahler one), if we can't know other people's minds and experiences, you don't know what I experience. It may be exactly what you experience, but I don't decide to call it ineffable or spiritual or anything totally incommunicable.

Problem.


----------



## Strange Magic

millionrainbows said:


> It makes sense to me. All you ever do is criticize and invalidate, Eugene. Have you done anything positive lately for anyone other than yourself?


How does this bear on anything we have been discussing? The discussion has taken the form of how important rationality is or should be in the way we "think" or how we act. The attack on rationality is coupled with indigestible nuggets, koans, inscrutable utterances, invocations of the unknowable, allusions to mysticism, and other such materials. The positive aspect of materialism and rationality is that it gives us a firm grounding within a testable world around us. Isn't that good enough?


----------



## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> a. What about it is untrue?


That it saved lives. Get with the program.



> b. True. Reason doesn't even say that our own survival is good. But it gets my vote regardless!


If we'd been wise, this "reason" would have told us what we already know: that Man is self-destructive, and will destroy himself and others anyway. Then, the 10 million could have gone ahead and died, and there would be no intention behind the act; it would have been much better karma.
Now, we are paying the karmic fiddler. Doesn't anybody ever take karma into consideration? Or at the very least, Truman could have consulted an Ouija board, or called in an astrologer.


----------



## KenOC

If anybody's interested in examining the bombing issue dispassionately (which may not be the case here), I recommend Frank's *Downfall*. From the blurb, which is not exaggerated:



> In a riveting narrative that includes information from newly declassified documents, acclaimed historian Richard B. Frank gives a scrupulously detailed explanation of the critical months leading up to the dropping of the atomic bomb. Frank explains how American leaders learned in the summer of 1945 that their alternate strategy to end the war by invasion had been shattered by the massive Japanese buildup on Kyushu, and that intercepted diplomatic documents also revealed the dismal prospects of negotiation. Here also, for the first time, is a comprehensive account of how Japan's leaders were willing to risk complete annihilation to preserve the nation's existing order. Frank's comprehensive account demolishes long-standing myths with the stark realities of this great historical controversy.


----------



## Strange Magic

KenOC said:


> If anybody's interested in examining the bombing issue dispassionately (which may not be the case here), I recommend Frank's *Downfall*. From the blurb, which is not exaggerated:


I will look into that book. But many, many wars have gone on far longer than our war against Japan--take Afghanistan as an example, the Thirty-Years War, the several wars between Rome and Carthage. Ten or twenty years of enforced belt-tightening in Japan may have resulted in surrender or an equivalent decay in their ability to annoy their (recovered) neighbors.


----------



## Luchesi

Larkenfield said:


> Ineffable: "incapable of being expressed or described in words; inexpressible."
> 
> If music cannot be expressed in words then only one's _reactions_ to it can be expressed in words and not the thing itself.
> 
> _"Where words fail, music speaks." -Hans Christian Andersen
> "When words leave off, music begins." -Heinrich Heine
> "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." ―Aldous Huxley
> "How is it that music can, without words, evoke our laughter, our fears, our highest aspirations?" ―Jane Swan
> "Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent." ―Victor Hugo
> "Music is to the soul what words are to the mind." ―Modest Mouse
> "Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can't." ―Johnny Depp
> "Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends." ―Alphonse de Lamartine
> "Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife." ―Kahlil Gibran _
> 
> Poof! Ineffable.


Yes, one of the joys of tearing apart a score is to try to find how (specifically) the ineffable is achieved and 'presented'. And how each individual composer does it differently, within their own styles, in their own time periods, etc..


----------



## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> If anybody's interested in examining the bombing issue dispassionately (which may not be the case here), I recommend Frank's *Downfall*. From the blurb, which is not exaggerated:


Well, even the blurb reinforces the status-quo opinion that the bomb was necessary, by citing that the Japanese were unwilling to surrender, and that invasion strategy was doomed, and that documents indicated that negotiation was also doomed. How is this dispassionate?


----------



## millionrainbows

Luchesi said:


> Yes, one of the joys of tearing apart a score is to try to find how (specifically) the ineffable is achieved and 'presented'. And how each individual composer does it differently, within their own styles, in their own time periods, etc..


Yes, it's also instructive to analyze music from different genres, to see how it achieves the ineffable; like how Britney Spears achieves her sense of the ineffable as opposed to Katy Perry's ineffability. I especially like how Mylie Cyrus achieves the ineffable through nudity.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> The OP is really a rational "replacement thread" for "Mahler as Shaman," isn't it? It begins with _[...]_
> 
> *But it's OK to say that the whole [email protected] thing is rational?* That doesn't work for me, it takes away all the mystery, and is coming from a hubris-based standpoint, that "everything is within Man's purview."
> 
> "Systematically codified?" That doesn't sound mysterious or evocative of anything other than "the arts, which can have all the leftovers."
> 
> I am not conviced by this rational approach.
> 
> Man may end up destroying himself, along with the planet. Where will your precious rationality be, then?


I don't follow much of your post, but the part in bold - no-one said that, AFAIR. What _I _said, in short, is that music is itself ineffable, that _reporting the experience of music _isn't ineffable, but I accept that some report that their experience of music puts them in touch with the ineffable. (I don't accept that there is an ineffable for them to get in touch with, but that's a separate argument).

As for the last comment, if man ends up destroying the planet, rationality will have obviously come to an end (d'uh!) but so will the practice of insisting on the Darkness That Lies Beyond!


----------



## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> I don't follow much of your post, but the part in bold - no-one said that.


If it's bolded, it's for emphasis, not a quote. _I _said that.

You don't follow much of my post? Most of it was a quote of the OP, for clarity. But I notice you didn't reproduce _that_ part.



> What _I _said, in short, is that music is itself ineffable, that _reporting the experience of music _isn't ineffable, but I accept that some report that their experience of music puts them in touch with the ineffable. (I don't accept that there is an ineffable for them to get in touch with, but that's a separate argument).


I know, and it's boring, boring, boring. Just rational argumentation which has nothing to do with the exploration of the mysteries of art.



> As for the last comment, if man ends up destroying the planet, rationality will have obviously come to an end (d'uh!) but so will the practice of insisting on the Darkness That Lies Beyond!


Yeah, but the _fault _will lie with rationality and Man's slavish adherrence to it. Darkness will simply be dragged along after it, into the abyss, because this is "the age of reason."


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> If it's bolded, it's for emphasis, not a quote. _I _said that.
> 
> You don't follow much of my post? Most of it was a quote of the OP, for clarity. But I notice you didn't reproduce _that_ part.
> 
> I know, and it's boring, boring, boring. Just rational argumentation which has nothing to do with the exploration of the mysteries of art.
> 
> Yeah, but the _fault _will lie with rationality and Man's slavish adherrence to it. Darkness will simply be dragged along after it, into the abyss, because this is "the age of reason."


It was bolded by me to draw attention to what you asked - *"But it's OK to say that the whole [email protected] thing is rational?"*
To which my answer is, no, it isn't okay to say that the whole damn thing is rational - but then since nobody did say it, I can't understand why you asked the question!

Agreeing that music is ineffable is boring rational argumentation?

I see no hope for this conversation.


----------



## eugeneonagain

millionrainbows said:


> I know, and it's boring, boring, boring. Just rational argumentation which has nothing to do with the exploration of the mysteries of art."


You just want it to be mysterious. Even if a composer's motivations are revealed and prove to be not quite so mysterious. Why do you want it to be a mystery?


----------



## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> It was bolded by me to draw attention to what you asked - *"But it's OK to say that the whole [email protected] thing is rational?"*
> To which my answer is, no, it isn't okay to say that the whole damn thing is rational - but then since nobody did say it, I can't understand why you asked the question!
> 
> Well I asked the question because of the obvious direction the thread was headed in: away from
> Mahler as Shaman" to a rational encapsulation of 'the ineffable." Apparently, to bottle it up and sell it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> MR said: The OP is really a rational "replacement thread" for "Mahler as Shaman," isn't it? It begins with "Okay, leaving aside shamanism," and goes on to say "I am not conventionally religious. My Universe does not require a God to have set it in motion or to keep the clock ticking But if it turns out one is there, I'm not going to freak out - no harm, no foul. That probably makes me a rationalist. I tend to put stock in what science can "prove" (to the extent it can prove anything), and find attempts to make "sciences" out of studies that depend on human behavior (the so-called social sciences) admirable but misguided. And then there are the arts, which seem to have an ability to tell us things that cannot be systematically codified."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Agreeing that music is ineffable is boring rational argumentation?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> What does the OP appear to say? It looks like a nice, boring, rational argument to me.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I see no hope for this conversation.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Likewise, I see no hope for a thread based on a watered-down rational idea based on another thread which was derailed.
Click to expand...


----------



## KenOC

millionrainbows said:


> Well, even the blurb reinforces the status-quo opinion that the bomb was necessary, by citing that the Japanese were unwilling to surrender, and that invasion strategy was doomed, and that documents indicated that negotiation was also doomed. How is this dispassionate?


Because, having read the book, I can say that those views are fully supported by facts, not opinions.


----------



## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> Because, having read the book, I can say that those views are fully supported by facts, not opinions.


Still, "facts" do not prove that Truman's actions were justified.


----------



## eugeneonagain

millionrainbows said:


> Still, "facts" do not prove that Truman's actions were justified.


That's a bold claim since you think in the other thread that the 'fact' Mahler composed in a cabin and walked in nature means that he had arrived "there" into mystical enlightenment.

Such capriciousness.


----------



## millionrainbows

eugeneonagain said:


> That's a bold claim since you think in the other thread that the 'fact' Mahler composed in a cabin and walked in nature means that he had arrived "there" into mystical enlightenment.
> 
> Such capriciousness.


_*You are a mean person! Go read a book!*_

https://brianasaussy.com/the-artist-...tion-for-both/

https://www.academia.edu/1981865/The..._Marcus_Coates

https://shamaniceducation.org/the-ro...-in-shamanism/

https://www.evalewarne.com/blog/arti...porary-society

https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/bi...=1&isAllowed=y

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2905090...n_tab_contents

http://www.artnews.com/2015/03/20/ac...jects-in-1970/


----------



## KenOC

millionrainbows said:


> Still, "facts" do not prove that Truman's actions were justified.


In the Potsdam Declaration of 26 July 1945*, the United States, the British Empire, and China called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces-the alternative being "prompt and utter destruction." Reason didn't call for that but they did it anyway. So far as is known there wasn't any serious doubt or even much discussion of the issue.

From that point forward things took the only course they could. If the atomic bombs didn't work or failed to achieve their goal of unconditional surrender, Operation Downfall would have begun almost immediately. Author Paul Fussell was to be a foot soldier in the invasion and later wrote a famous essay about it.










*The Trinity nuclear test had taken place ten days earlier.


----------



## Luchesi

The Japanese were ....

(we) .."need to have their attention directed to the testimony of those who know, like, say, Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher, who said, “Moderation in war is imbecility,” or Sir Arthur Harris, director of the admittedly wicked aerial-bombing campaign designed, as Churchill put it, to “de-house” the German civilian population, who observed that “War is immoral,” or our own General W. T. Sherman: “War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.”"


----------



## DaveM

millionrainbows said:


> Still, "facts" do not prove that Truman's actions were justified.


Actually, they do. All your posts on this subject have been based on feelings, not facts. Read a few books about the latter part of the Pacific War.

Also, familiarize yourself with some other statistics. Just one that makes the deaths from the 2 bombs pale in comparison: It's estimated that in WW2, Japan was responsible for 5,000,000+ Chinese civilian deaths and approximately 540,000 deaths in POW camps. Also, we now know that Japan gave orders to execute remaining POWs in camps that were to take effect just a few days after the bombs were dropped. Hindsight judgment is all very easy if one just 'feels' something should have been done differently and doesn't attempt to have the perspective that the allies faced in 1945.

Even after the dropping of the 2 bombs, Japan did not surrender for 6 days. Day after day, Truman was waiting for some sign that they were going to capitulate. That's how uncertain those times were.


----------



## KenOC

DaveM said:


> Also, familiarize yourself with some other statistics. Just one that makes the deaths from the 2 bombs pale in comparison: It's estimated that in WW2, Japan was responsible for 5,000,000+ Chinese civilian deaths and approximately 540,000 deaths in POW camps. Also, we now know that Japan gave orders to execute remaining POWs in camps that were to take effect just a few days after the bombs were dropped. Hindsight judgment is all very easy if one just 'feels' something should have been done differently and doesn't attempt to have the perspective that the allies faced in 1945.


The most famous Japanese atrocity of the war was the Rape of Nanjing, a six-week episode of mass murder and rape that probably killed more people than the two atomic bombs. Example:



> Perhaps the most notorious atrocity was a killing contest between two Japanese officers as reported in the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun and the English language Japan Advertiser. The contest - a race between the two officers to see which could kill 100 people first using only a sword - was covered much like a sporting event with regular updates on the score over a series of days.


----------



## Woodduck

KenOC said:


> The most famous Japanese atrocity of the war was the Rape of Nanjing, a six-week episode of mass murder and rape that probably killed more people than the two atomic bombs. Example:


The Japanese responsible for that atrocity were obviously rationalists, out of touch with the ineffable essence of pure being. Very probably they hadn't listened to enough Mahler.


----------



## KenOC

Certain members (member?) here don't pay much attention to the atrocities of other countries because they don't elicit that delicious frisson of guilt that they love so much.


----------



## JosefinaHW

Enthusiast said:


> A reductionist argument might be to ask what parts of the brain are involved in religious and aesthetic/musical experiences. I don't think they would be the same but there are probably members who actually know the answer!
> 
> For the rest, yes: music moves us to an extraordinary degree. Some musical experiences are very intense. I think they are also very varied. But I do not think that they can be mapped directly onto religious experiences (not that I have ever had one). But religious and political leaders have used the power of music to move us ... ideally in the direction they are trying to get us to go.


Enthusiast resurrected a thread from several years ago. Exactly the kind of thread that will directly address religion, spirituality, and Joy to the World, politics much later on.

We know the Tof S especially all the same folks who love to tell us how they don't believe in "Spirituality"--or they don't have a problem with the word as long as it doesn't refer to anything. rolls eyes.
_
Please move this thread somewhere else. An anti-religion group, anti-spiritual/faith group, or a politics group.

_


----------



## isorhythm

KenOC said:


> Certain members (member?) here don't pay much attention to the atrocities of other countries because they don't elicit that delicious frisson of guilt that they love so much.


 Next time I hear an American defend the Rape of Nanjing, I'll be sure to speak up, OK?


----------



## KenOC

isorhythm said:


> Next time I hear an American defend the Rape of Nanjing, I'll be sure to speak up, OK?


Speak up, sir, and in no uncertain terms! A stiff letter of protest to the relevant authorities will be welcome as well. :tiphat:


----------



## Woodduck

JosefinaHW said:


> We know the Tof S especially all the same folks who love to tell us how they don't believe in "Spirituality"--or they don't have a problem with the word as long as it doesn't refer to anything. rolls eyes.
> 
> Please move this thread somewhere else. An anti-religion group, anti-spiritual/faith group, or a politics group.


"The ineffable" is a rather difficult subject to get a handle on, and certainly a subject unlikely to result in a narrowly focused and linear discussion. It must inevitably lead to matters pertaining to human consciousness such as art, psychology, philosophy, and spiritual disciplines, along with other things more tangential.

It seems to me that whatever the failures of the participants here - and we are fallible mortals one and all - the avoidance of specific religious argumentation has been observed admirably. I see no reason for panic and the invocation of the thought police.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> Well I asked the question because of the obvious direction the thread was headed in: away from Mahler as Shaman" to a rational encapsulation of 'the ineffable."


Let's stick with this thread shall we? I've not even read, never mind participated in any thread about "Mahler as Shaman." I've been responding to MarkW's query about the effect on him of the Missa Solemnis.



KenOC said:


> The most famous Japanese atrocity of *the war *was the Rape of Nanjing, a six-week episode of mass murder and rape that probably killed more people than the two atomic bombs. Example:


Which war? You do know it wasn't WWII?


----------



## KenOC

MacLeod said:


> Which war? You do know it wasn't WWII?


WWII started earlier for some countries than for us, for instance China and Poland. Ask them.

Amended: For your country, WWII began in 1939 with your declaration of war against Germany subsequent to its invasion of Poland. For China, it was 1937 with the Japanese invasion. My own country, the US, was a latecomer and officially joined the war in late 1941 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Although we advanced substantial aid in the meanwhile, our delay in officially joining the fray is not a source of pride.


----------



## Guest

KenOC said:


> WWII started earlier for some countries than for us, for instance China and Poland. Ask them.


Well, as we're both sourcing our info from Wiki, it refers to WWII as starting in 1939. Obviously, there is plenty of historical debate about when "it" started, and that this rather depends on the perspective of the country. But if WWII is that conflict initiated by the military aggression of Germany, the war between China and Japan wouldn't figure. Arguably, the war between Japan and the USA doesn't belong either, but then the counter- argument would be about the expansion of conflict through the aggression of the Axis Powers.


----------



## KenOC

MacLeod said:


> Well, as we're both sourcing our info from Wiki, it refers to WWII as starting in 1939. Obviously, there is plenty of historical debate about when "it" started, and that this rather depends on the perspective of the country. But if WWII is that conflict initiated by the military aggression of Germany, the war between China and Japan wouldn't figure. Arguably, the war between Japan and the USA doesn't belong either, but then the counter- argument would be about the expansion of conflict through the aggression of the Axis Powers.


An interesting viewpoint. Certainly WWII can be viewed as two separate conflicts only marginally related. But in my country it's not presented that way.


----------



## Guest

KenOC said:


> An interesting viewpoint. Certainly WWII can be viewed as two separate conflicts only marginally related. But in my country it's not presented that way.


So...we've moved from how it might be presented in China and Poland, to how it might be presented in your country. So, in your country, WWII started...when?


----------



## KenOC

The ambitions of Japan in China were at the heart of WWII in the Pacific: “Frustrated at the lack of progress and feeling the pinch of the American-British-Dutch sanctions, Japan prepared for war. On 20 November a new government under Hideki Tojo presented an interim proposal as its final offer. It called for the end of American aid to China and for lifting the embargo on the supply of oil and other resources to Japan. In exchange Japan promised not to launch any attacks in Southeast Asia and to withdraw its forces from southern Indochina. The American counter-proposal of 26 November required that Japan evacuate all of China without conditions and conclude non-aggression pacts with all Pacific powers. That meant Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning its ambitions in China, or seizing the natural resources it needed in the Dutch East Indies by force.”

America had its answer on December 7. That was when WWII began for us.


----------



## Guest

KenOC said:


> The ambitions of Japan in China were at the heart of WWII in the Pacific: "Frustrated at the lack of progress and feeling the pinch of the American-British-Dutch sanctions, Japan prepared for war. On 20 November a new government under Hideki Tojo presented an interim proposal as its final offer. It called for the end of American aid to China and for lifting the embargo on the supply of oil and other resources to Japan. In exchange Japan promised not to launch any attacks in Southeast Asia and to withdraw its forces from southern Indochina. The American counter-proposal of 26 November required that Japan evacuate all of China without conditions and conclude non-aggression pacts with all Pacific powers. That meant Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning its ambitions in China, or seizing the natural resources it needed in the Dutch East Indies by force."
> 
> America had its answer on December 7. That was when WWII began for us.


You missed the year - presumably 1941. That's even later than the 1937 of the Nanking massacre!

Are you saying that the history text books widely in use in US schools report that WWII started in 1941? Or that the US was drawn directly into the war in 1941?

Sorry - I know Ken and I are going off at a tangent, but no-one else seems to be around to discuss either music or the ineffable!


----------



## Jacck

MacLeod said:


> You missed the year - presumably 1941. That's even later than the 1937 of the Nanking massacre!
> 
> Are you saying that the history text books widely in use in US schools report that WWII started in 1941? Or that the US was drawn directly into the war in 1941?
> 
> Sorry - I know Ken and I are going off at a tangent, but no-one else seems to be around to discuss either music or the ineffable!


the start of WW2 is usually dated with 1. september of 1939, when Germany attacked Poland. Of course other things were happening before that (Japanese expansion, The Munich Treaty, Ribentrop-Molotov pact etc). In a sense, WW2 was just a continuation of WW1. If the French santions against Germany after WW1 were not so harsh, Hitler might not have been that successful and he would be just a painter with a love for Wagner


----------



## KenOC

MacLeod said:


> Are you saying that the history text books widely in use in US schools report that WWII started in 1941? Or that the US was drawn directly into the war in 1941?


Both. But other countries (Poland, Britain, China) had different experiences. Of particular interest to me was that China was at the heart of the Pacific war. I worked in China for several years some time ago, and China had not forgotten America's support against the Japanese invasion, or the Japanese themselves, who were still called simply "rapists" by many older Chinese.


----------



## Guest

This side issue neatly demonstrates that even in matters "documented" as "facts", one's subjective perspective bends facts to one's will, and the objective and rational is seen to be flawed.

Perhaps if I listen to Mahler's 3rd, the whole history of that conflict will become much more clearly defined...or disappear into insignificance?


----------



## Guest

KenOC said:


> Both. But other countries (Poland, Britain, China) had different experiences.


But my question wasn't about other countries' experiences. It was about what is officially declared to be the case in US schools.


----------



## KenOC

MacLeod said:


> But my question wasn't about other countries' experiences. It was about what is officially declared to be the case in US schools.


Been a long time since I went to school! I would guess 1939, since that is the received wisdom. But no schoolkid's interested until December 1941, when there are movies.


----------



## Haydn70

MacLeod said:


> But my question wasn't about other countries' experiences. It was about what is officially declared to be the case in US schools.


I'm really not sure what KenOC is talking about when he says "Both", i.e., "the history text books widely in use in US schools report that WWII started in 1941? Or that the US was drawn directly into the war in 1941?"

The textbooks I have seen are clear that WWII started on September 1, 1939 with the German invasion of Poland and the U.S. entered the war on December 8, 1941. And I believe most Americans are clear on this issue. They might not now the September 1939 start date exactly but they know that the war was already in progress when we entered it.


----------



## Haydn70

KenOC said:


> Been a long time since I went to school! I would guess 1939, since that is the received wisdom. But no schoolkid's interested until December 1941, when there are movies.


Received wisdom??? No, September 1, 1939 as the start of WWII is the "general consensus" date...and stated as so in American history textbooks.


----------



## Larkenfield

None of this has anything to do with this colossal thread drift, but...

*When did WW2 start?*

This seemingly simple question actually has several answers. They are all correct answers, depending on your definition of what WW2 is.

_Do you think WW2 began when the first of the regional wars within WW2 started? _If so, your answer is 7 Jul 1937, which was when Japan invaded China; some scholars actually date the invasion all the way back to 1931, when Japan occupied the northeastern region of China known as Manchuria, though they are a minority, as officially war was not declared between China and Japan until 1937.

_Do you think WW2 began when the conflict had spread to multiple continents?_ Then your answer is 1 Sep 1939, which was when Germany and Russia invaded Poland; although war had been underway for two years in Asia by this time, Russo-German aggression expanded war to Europe, Africa, and the Atlantic Ocean. Most publications cite this date as the start of WW2.

_Do you think WW2 began when all major players had all major players and joined in, and all regional wars that made up of WW2 had started?_ If so, then your answer is 7 Dec 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and started the Pacific War. With that attack, the last of the major players, the United States, finally formally took a side.

https://ww2db.com/intro.php?q=4


----------



## Haydn70

Jacck said:


> the start of WW2 is usually dated with 1. september of 1939, when Germany attacked Poland. Of course other things were happening before that (Japanese expansion, The Munich Treaty, Ribentrop-Molotov pact etc).* In a sense, WW2 was just a continuation of WW1.* If the French santions against Germany after WW1 were not so harsh, Hitler might not have been that successful and he would be just a painter with a love for Wagner


The sentence in bold is indeed the view of some historians...one long war from 1914 to 1945. Also tucked in between the two big ones was the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).


----------



## Haydn70

Larkenfield said:


> None of this has anything to do with this colossal thread drift, but...
> 
> When did WW2 start?
> 
> This seemingly simple question actually has several answers. They are all correct answers, depending on your definition of what WW2 is.
> 
> _Do you think WW2 began when the first of the regional wars within WW2 started? _If so, your answer is 7 Jul 1937, which was when Japan invaded China; some scholars actually date the invasion all the way back to 1931, when Japan occupied the northeastern region of China known as Manchuria, though they are a minority, as officially war was not declared between China and Japan until 1937.
> 
> _Do you think WW2 began when the conflict had spread to multiple continents?_ Then your answer is *1 Sep 1939*, which was when Germany and Russia invaded Poland; although war had been underway for two years in Asia by this time, Russo-German aggression expanded war to Europe, Africa, and the Atlantic Ocean. *Most publications cite this date as the start of WW2*.
> 
> _Do you think WW2 began when all major players had all major players and joined in, and all regional wars that made up of WW2 had started?_ If so, then your answer is 7 Dec 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and started the Pacific War. With that attack, the last of the major players, the United States, finally formally took a side.
> 
> https://ww2db.com/intro.php?q=4


Sentence in bold tells it.


----------



## Larkenfield

ContrapunctusXIII said:


> Sentence in bold tells it.


I question that. Most publications cite 1 Sep '39, but not all. That's the point of mentioning more than one point of view since there's a lack of consensus. For instance, why would the Japanese cite that date if they were already at war with China in the 1930s as part of their military expansion that eventually led to the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 Dec '41? The War on all sides was the end of a long series of consequences for a number of countries that led to military actions. It's the date of a military action that sets off a war though there are of course other causes that lead up to it. There were too many countries involved for there to be a simple answer to such a deadly and tragic war in which it's been estimated that 50,000,000 people lost their lives, including countless civilians.


----------



## KenOC

Larkenfield said:


> None of this has anything to do with this colossal thread drift, but...
> 
> *When did WW2 start?*
> 
> This seemingly simple question actually has several answers. They are all correct answers, depending on your definition of what WW2 is.
> 
> _Do you think WW2 began when the first of the regional wars within WW2 started? _If so, your answer is 7 Jul 1937, which was when Japan invaded China; some scholars actually date the invasion all the way back to 1931, when Japan occupied the northeastern region of China known as Manchuria, though they are a minority, as officially war was not declared between China and Japan until 1937.
> 
> _Do you think WW2 began when the conflict had spread to multiple continents?_ Then your answer is 1 Sep 1939, which was when Germany and Russia invaded Poland; although war had been underway for two years in Asia by this time, Russo-German aggression expanded war to Europe, Africa, and the Atlantic Ocean. Most publications cite this date as the start of WW2.
> 
> _Do you think WW2 began when all major players had all major players and joined in, and all regional wars that made up of WW2 had started?_ If so, then your answer is 7 Dec 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and started the Pacific War. With that attack, the last of the major players, the United States, finally formally took a side.
> 
> https://ww2db.com/intro.php?q=4


A nice summary. The West's Eurocentric view of things has been forced to change, and now I think more people are willing to consider conflicts among Asian powers as important (or perhaps more important) than European squabbles.


----------



## Larkenfield

KenOC said:


> A nice summary. The West's Eurocentric view of things has been forced to change, and now I think more people are willing to consider conflicts among Asian powers as important (or perhaps more important) than European squabbles.


I thought it might be useful to unify the different answers mentioned here that had been offered for the start of the War with everyone being right from the perspective they were coming from... Why, I don't know, other than I've had a particular interest in that war when the US was at the height of its military power in both Europe and in the Pacific. It was a terrible thing and my father was part of it in the Pacific where he was stationed in Hawaii... I was also watching chapter 7 of Ken Burns' _The War_ and it was a good review of why the A-bombs were dropped and what led up to it right or wrong. Toward the end of the Pacific war, the US was taking heavy casualties, especially on Okinawa with the Japanese determined to sacrifice themselves down to the last man. It was a devastating situation in a maggot infested hellhole and then the prospects of invading Japan that could have taken years horrified the US troops who had already experienced horror after horror having to dislodge the Japanese from each island where they had been completely dug in and entrenched.


----------



## eugeneonagain

That summary of the beginning of WWII is flawed. The germ also goes back to Mussolini's ascension and the Spanish civil war, long before major war erupted in the East. It is a story of various similar strands coming together, but the first major conflict for coming fascism was played out in Spain.


----------



## Strange Magic

October 3, 1935. Italy attacks Ethiopia. No, we can go earlier......
September 19, 1931. Japan attacks Manchuria. Here we have one of the powers later to be part of the Axis, invading its neighbor as part of a plan of expansion, aggression, aggrandizement.

But I too will stick with the September 1939 date as the "official" start, with the USA paralyzed by the America First movement fueled by Charles Lindbergh and thus unable to enter "officially" until December 7, 1941, though unofficially the US had far overreached the boundaries of neutrality earlier.


----------



## millionrainbows

MR: Still, "facts" do not prove that Truman's actions were justified.



DaveM said:


> Actually, they do. All your posts on this subject have been based on feelings, not facts.


No; the principle I'm using is that we must all take personal responsibility for our actions.

Anyway, the "fact" theory is flawed; the facts may have influenced Truman's decision, but they did not determine it; Truman himself had to make that decision. I don't see any real correspondence between "facts" and a decision. One is a set of ideas about something, the other is an action.

You could view the "facts" as a lesser class of action; as in "intent-speech-action" form an hierarchy, or class, of action; but the two do not correspond exactly. The "facts" are a lesser class of action than a "decision."


----------



## Jacck

millionrainbows said:


> MR: Still, "facts" do not prove that Truman's actions were justified.
> 
> No; the principle I'm using is that we must all take personal responsibility for our actions.
> 
> Anyway, the "fact" theory is flawed; the facts may have influenced Truman's decision, but they did not determine it; Truman himself had to make that decision. I don't see any real correspondence between "facts" and a decision. One is a set of ideas about something, the other is an action.
> 
> You could view the "facts" as a lesser class of action; as in "intent-speech-action" form an hierarchy, or class, of action; but the two do not correspond exactly. The "facts" are a lesser class of action than a "decision."


I don't blame Truman for using the A-bomb. It was a difficult decision, that probably saved many lives. The Japanese would not easily surrender. They did not surrender after the first bomb dropped on a city!, so what makes you think they would surrender if the bomb would have been dropped into sea? And remember that the US had just 2 of these bombs. But I blame Truman for the Yalta conference. Churchill saw clearly, but he had not the strength to stop Stalin. Truman did, but he was a weak and naive pacifist, who left half of Europe to Stalin basically for free.

sorry, it was actually Roosevelt


----------



## DaveM

millionrainbows said:


> MR: Still, "facts" do not prove that Truman's actions were justified.
> 
> No; the principle I'm using is that we must all take personal responsibility for our actions.
> 
> Anyway, the "fact" theory is flawed; the facts may have influenced Truman's decision, but they did not determine it; Truman himself had to make that decision. *I don't see any real correspondence between "facts" and a decision. *One is a set of ideas about something, the other is an action.
> 
> You could view the "facts" as a lesser class of action; as in "intent-speech-action" form an hierarchy, or class, of action; but the two do not correspond exactly. The "facts" are a lesser class of action than a "decision."


No correspondence between 'facts' and a decision? So I guess you decide to stop when a traffic light is red for no particular reason. There is no 'fact' theory.


----------



## DaveM

Jacck said:


> I don't blame Truman for using the A-bomb. It was a difficult decision, that probably saved many lives. The Japanese would not easily surrender. They did not surrender after the first bomb dropped on a city!, so what makes you think they would surrender if the bomb would have been dropped into sea? And remember that the US had just 2 of these bombs. But I blame Truman for the Yalta conference. Churchill saw clearly, but he had not the strength to stop Stalin. Truman did, but he was a weak and naive pacifist, who left half of Europe to Stalin basically for free.
> 
> sorry, it was actually Roosevelt


Roosevelt was not a weak and naive pacifist (if you are still applying those terms to FDR instead of Truman). Yalta was a complex conference. FDR really did not have much bargaining power when it came to Eastern Europe. Besides that, he was extremely ill and died one month later.


----------



## Jacck

DaveM said:


> Roosevelt was not a weak and naive pacifist (if you are still applying those terms to FDR instead of Truman). Yalta was a complex conference. FDR really did not have much bargaining power when it came to Eastern Europe. Besides that, he was extremely ill and died one month later.


there are of course different accounts of what really happened at Yalta. The history books that I read were not very positive in their judgement of Roosevelt
https://www.hoover.org/research/roosevelts-failure-yalta
but of course none of us was there, and we dont know all the details about the decisions being made then, so we don't know


----------



## DaveM

As for the date of the beginning of WW2, it is commonly given as Sept 1, 1939, but there was a continuum of important events prior such that other countries might choose to use another date. I’m not sure what date China uses, but it would be understandable if it was some time in 1937.

The same was true of WW1. The common date of the start of the war is given as July 28, 1914, but the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary on June 28, 1914 could have been considered as the starting date depending on one’s country and perspective.


----------



## isorhythm

In an earlier post that I can no longer find - maybe deleted? - someone said that it was interesting to see what specific musical means composers use to reach the ineffable. So, any thoughts on that? I thought it was interesting.


----------



## Jacck

isorhythm said:


> In an earlier post that I can no longer find - maybe deleted? - someone said that it was interesting to see what specific musical means composers use to reach the ineffable. So, any thoughts on that? I thought it was interesting.


All music is ineffable. But if we mean by ineffable some spiritual mystic state, then I am afraid that no music has this effect on me. None of the pieces traditionally considered as deeply spiritual - such as Mass in B minor, Scriabin and the Poem of exstasy, Bruckners symphonies, not even the medieval and renassance masses - none of that is spiritual for me and does not make me think about the Absolute, or God or Tao or whatever. It is all just great and pleasant music.


----------



## millionrainbows

DaveM said:


> No correspondence between 'facts' and a decision? So I guess you decide to stop when a traffic light is red for no particular reason. There is no 'fact' theory.


There is a _general _correspondence, in that they are classes of action. But "facts" are a lesser class of action than the "actual action" which was dropping the bomb.

Ideas are called "facts" (Japan could not be invaded, Japan would not surrender until annihilation), but these are not "actions" in the fullest sense. At best.they are "intent" or "speech," so they are lower classes of action.

Intent-Speech-Action, ascending in power.


----------



## millionrainbows

Jacck said:


> All music is ineffable. But if we mean by ineffable some spiritual mystic state, then I am afraid that no music has this effect on me. None of the pieces traditionally considered as deeply spiritual - such as Mass in B minor, Scriabin and the Poem of exstasy, Bruckners symphonies, not even the medieval and renassance masses - none of that is spiritual for me and does not make me think about the Absolute, or God or Tao or whatever. It is all just great and pleasant music.


This seems to contradict what MarkW said in the OP:



> So why, despite my manifold disagreements with the Catholic liturgy, do I find listening to Missa Solemnis *cathartic *enough that I consider it to be perhaps the greatest piece of music ever written? Why does listening to an intense performance of the Opus 111 piano sonata leave me drained? (In his liner notes, pianist Andrew Rangell says its ends with "a *silence* unlike any ever heard before.")


----------



## Bulldog

Just one opinion about Truman's dropping the two bombs. He did what he needed to do as the leader of the United States, and I'm proud of his action. Japan screwed up and its citizens paid the price.


----------



## Luchesi

Bulldog said:


> Just one opinion about Truman's dropping the two bombs. He did what he needed to do as the leader of the United States, and I'm proud of his action. Japan screwed up and its citizens paid the price.


Why did Japan bring the US into their wars of conquest over there? Punch drunk.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> Why did Japan bring the US into their wars of conquest over there? Punch drunk.


They thought they could bring the US to agree to a peace by an overwhelming defeat of US naval power in a cataclysmic Great Battle. Yamamoto told them it wouldn't work; he knew the US would never sue for peace, but they took the gamble. After all, they had the sea power--carriers, battleships--were highly trained especially in night battle at sea, torpedos that actually worked (unlike early US and even German torpedos), and plenty of nerve and aggressive spirit. And they felt the western powers were not respectful of Japan's "rights" as a Great Power in its own part of the world to seize what it felt it deserved or needed.


----------



## DaveM

millionrainbows said:


> There is a _general _correspondence, in that they are classes of action. But "facts" are a lesser class of action than the "actual action" which was dropping the bomb.
> 
> Ideas are called "facts" (Japan could not be invaded, Japan would not surrender until annihilation), but these are not "actions" in the fullest sense. At best.they are "intent" or "speech," so they are lower classes of action.
> 
> Intent-Speech-Action, ascending in power.


You can play with semantics all you want to cover the fact that your comments on the subject indicate an ignorance of the history. Outcomes are facts and the outcome of Japan's capitulation is a fact that indicates that Truman's decision was the correct one.


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> They thought they could bring the US to agree to a peace by an overwhelming defeat of US naval power in a cataclysmic Great Battle. Yamamoto told them it wouldn't work; he knew the US would never sue for peace, but they took the gamble. After all, they had the sea power--carriers, battleships--were highly trained especially in night battle at sea, torpedos that actually worked (unlike early US and even German torpedos), and plenty of nerve and aggressive spirit. And they felt the western powers were not respectful of Japan's "rights" as a Great Power in its own part of the world to seize what it felt it deserved or needed.


What would be involved in the peace agreement?


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> This seems to contradict what MarkW said in the OP:
> 
> [/COLOR]


Contradict? They just report different things about their experience of music, that's all.


----------



## Strange Magic

Strange Magic said:


> I never could understand the zeal to invade non-strategic (not essential airfield sites) islands in the Pacific war where Japanese soldiers were reduced to hiding in caves, bunkers, trenches. These were thus existing POW camps, where the enemy could eventually surrender or starve, and needed only to be monitored by a handful of small craft. Ditto with the Japanese homeland, except that more robust monitoring would need to be done, by air and sea.


I'll stick with my notion that Japan, having lost all control over its airspace and sea access, and lacking sufficient fuel, food, and material to sustain a military effort--and even feed its population--should have been placed under an impenetrable quarantine. This could be done at a tiny fraction of previous military expenditure. The Japanese government should then have been told to surrender, and also (after suitable further testing of the bomb to make sure it worked with great certainty) be shown a test of the bomb, with the threat that it would be dropped on them at a date of our choosing. This might be years later, and unnecessary if the anaconda grip of the blockade/embargo had already broken their will to resist.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> What would be involved in the peace agreement?


That I don't know, and I don't know if the Japanese had really thought that through themselves--it was an idea born of hope, enthusiasm, and desperation. Perhaps there are records of what was expected, but the Japanese were both certain that they needed to strike in order to survive with their self-esteem intact, and they also were totally unwilling to drop their incursions into China and Indochina.


----------



## KenOC

Luchesi said:


> What would be involved in the peace agreement?


The primary demand of the US was that Japan withdraw its forces from China. They refused. In 1940 the US embargoed aviation fuel shipments to Japan. Japan invaded northern Indochina, probably to get access to oil. The US then embargoed iron, steel and mechanical parts. These embargoes hurt Japan badly.

It seemed to Japan that it could succeed in its regional aims only if the US Pacific fleet were severely reduced, which was the purpose of the Pearl Harbor attack. Although the attack was quite successful, most aircraft carriers were at sea, something I think the Japanese were unaware of. The carriers, together with herculean efforts to repair damaged ships from Pearl Harbor, meant that the fleet was rebuilt faster than the Japanese hoped, although there was quite a period when the US was completely unable to project its forces into the now-Japanese part of the Pacific theater - the Doolittle raid, staged as a domestic morale booster, notwithstanding.

I'm not aware of any consideration in the US of suing for peace or of any action short of all-out war on Japan, or of any Japanese offer of a "peace treaty" that would allow the two countries some sort of mutually acceptable _modus vivendi._


----------



## Luchesi

KenOC said:


> The primary demand of the US was that Japan withdraw its forces from China. They refused. In 1940 the US embargoed aviation fuel shipments to Japan. Japan invaded northern Indochina, probably to get access to oil. The US then embargoed iron, steel and mechanical parts. These embargoes hurt Japan badly.
> 
> It seemed to Japan that it could succeed in its regional aims only if the US Pacific fleet were severely reduced, which was the purpose of the Pearl Harbor attack. Although the attack was quite successful, most aircraft carriers were at sea, something I think the Japanese were unaware of. The carriers, together with herculean efforts to repair damaged ships from Pearl Harbor, meant that the fleet was rebuilt faster than the Japanese hoped, although there was quite a period when the US was completely unable to project its forces into the now-Japanese part of the Pacific theater - the Doolittle raid, staged as a domestic morale booster, notwithstanding.
> 
> I'm not aware of any consideration in the US of suing for peace or of any action short of all-out war on Japan, or of any Japanese offer of a "peace treaty" that would allow the two countries some sort of mutually acceptable _modus vivendi._


From what I gather it was one of those fairly rare culminations of historical situations. Japan became very strong compared to all of its neighboring countries. So, along with its religious trends and its growing need for resources it started pushing and pushing. One 'success' after another, and the strong nations were far enough away. If it could've become a large empire it would've been set for the foreseeable future, like the USSR.


----------



## KenOC

I'm sure that Japan thought it was doing exactly what the European powers had been doing for many years: building empires by simply taking what they wanted. That Japan was prohibited from taking the same course has been laid to racism by some. Of course many of its regional targets (Indochina, Hong Kong, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, etc.) were already the "property" of others, which must have factored in.


----------



## ManateeFL

KenOC said:


> I'm sure that Japan thought it was doing exactly what the European powers had been doing for many years: building empires by simply taking what they wanted. That Japan was prohibited from taking the same course has been laid to racism by some. Of course many of its regional targets (Indochina, Hong Kong, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, etc.) were already the "property" of others, which must have factored in.


The Japanese attacks on Western Colonial possessions like Hong Kong and the Philippines came after the prohibitions and oil embargo had been enforced against them, immediately following their decision to take action against the United States at Pearl Harbor.


----------



## KenOC

ManateeFL said:


> The Japanese attacks on Western Colonial possessions like Hong Kong and the Philippines came after the prohibitions and oil embargo had been enforced against them, immediately following their decision to take action against the United States at Pearl Harbor.


Not entirely so. "In July 1941 Japan sent troops to southern Indochina, thus threatening British and Dutch possessions in the Far East. The United States, United Kingdom and other Western governments reacted to this move with a freeze on Japanese assets and a total oil embargo."

The policy decision to neutralize the US Pacific fleet came months later, probably in the second half of November -- although some military preparations were likely being made in advance of the final decision.

Japan's overall strategy: "Japan planned to rapidly seize European colonies in Asia to create a large defensive perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific. The Japanese would then be free to exploit the resources of Southeast Asia while exhausting the over-stretched Allies by fighting a defensive war. To prevent American intervention while securing the perimeter, it was further planned to neutralise the United States Pacific Fleet and the American military presence in the Philippines from the outset."


----------



## Strange Magic

> KenOC: "I'm not aware of any consideration in the US of suing for peace or of any action short of all-out war on Japan, or of any Japanese offer of a "peace treaty" that would allow the two countries some sort of mutually acceptable modus vivendi."


I did a brief search to see if there was anything on specific Japanese demands for a cessation of hostilities if Japan had won a series of decisive Great Battles against America: Pearl Harbor, then the final destruction of the US carrier fleet and its support vessels at Midway. All I found were hopes that there would be a "negotiated peace" with presumably all Japanese territorial gains left intact. It seems to have been a triumph of hope and expectation over the realities preached by Yamamoto that Japan was instead awakening a sleeping giant.


----------



## millionrainbows

DaveM said:


> You can play with semantics all you want to cover the fact that your comments on the subject indicate an ignorance of the history. Outcomes are facts and the outcome of Japan's capitulation is a fact that indicates that Truman's decision was the correct one.


No, I first heard this argument years ago in history class in college, and then I saw some internet forum discussions on Amazon.
My view is that this was a decision by Truman, and his alone.


----------



## millionrainbows

_Jacck said:
__All music is ineffable. But if we mean by ineffable some spiritual mystic state, then I am afraid that no music has this effect on me. None of the pieces traditionally considered as deeply spiritual - such as Mass in B minor, Scriabin and the Poem of exstasy, Bruckners symphonies, not even the medieval and renassance masses - none of that is spiritual for me and does not make me think about the Absolute, or God or Tao or whatever. It is all just great and pleasant music.__

MR said:
__This seems to contradict what MarkW said in the OP:__

From the OP: 
*So why, despite my manifold disagreements with the Catholic liturgy, do I find listening to Missa Solemnis* _*cathartic enough that I consider it to be perhaps the greatest piece of music ever written? Why does listening to an intense performance of the Opus 111 piano sonata leave me drained? (In his liner notes, pianist Andrew Rangell says its ends with "a silence unlike any ever heard before.")*



MacLeod said:


> Contradict? They just report different things about their experience of music, that's all.


Jacck's response is an attempt to deny the spiritual effect of music, which I pointed out is a contradiction. This effect is not just an opinion; it's an agreed-upon fact. _(Thanks, KenOC)_


----------



## DaveM

KenOC said:


> The primary demand of the US was that Japan withdraw its forces from China. They refused. In 1940 the US embargoed aviation fuel shipments to Japan. Japan invaded northern Indochina, probably to get access to oil. The US then embargoed iron, steel and mechanical parts. These embargoes hurt Japan badly.
> 
> It seemed to Japan that it could succeed in its regional aims only if the US Pacific fleet were severely reduced, which was the purpose of the Pearl Harbor attack. Although the attack was quite successful, most aircraft carriers were at sea, something I think the Japanese were unaware of. The carriers, together with herculean efforts to repair damaged ships from Pearl Harbor, meant that the fleet was rebuilt faster than the Japanese hoped, although there was quite a period when the US was completely unable to project its forces into the now-Japanese part of the Pacific theater - the Doolittle raid, staged as a domestic morale booster, notwithstanding.


It is my understanding that the fuel, steel etc. embargo was a major issue. Japan knew that the U.S. could and would interfere with the acquisition of natural resources that Japan didn't have which would stand in the way of its expansionism. In the minds of its military leaders, the U.S. would have to be dealt with sooner or later, so the sooner the better on their terms.


----------



## eugeneonagain

I'm glad that this time I can't be fingered as the person bringing a thread 'off topic'. This must be a fairly noteworthy example: from music and the ineffable to the politics of Hiroshima.

So long as it isn't religion eh?


----------



## millionrainbows




----------



## isorhythm

millionrainbows said:


> Jacck's response is an attempt to deny the spiritual effect of music, which I pointed out is a contradiction. This effect is not just an opinion; it's an agreed-upon fact. _(Thanks, KenOC)_


He's not trying to deny anything, he's just describing the effect of music on himself.

I personally find that there can be a connection between music and spiritual or mystical experience, but it's not straightforward. I like the quote about "a silence unlike any ever heard before" because it suggests that the effect is felt after the music is over; the music quiets the mind or makes it more receptive. In the moment of listening to the music, however, my feelings and imagination tend to become more active - further from silence.

Your experience may well be different.


----------



## millionrainbows




----------



## millionrainbows

isorhythm said:


> He's not trying to deny anything, he's just describing the effect of music on himself.


It looks like a denial, especially in his argumentative context.



> I personally find that there can be a connection between music and spiritual or mystical experience, but it's not straightforward. I like the quote about "a silence unlike any ever heard before" because it suggests that the effect is felt after the music is over; the music quiets the mind or makes it more receptive. In the moment of listening to the music, however, my feelings and imagination tend to become more active - further from silence.
> 
> Your experience may well be different.


This response is to invalidate any factual or universally-recognized spiritual effect of music, in order to invalidate it as "subjective opinion" as opposed to "scientific fact."

I don't buy this argument; we are humans, not automotons or computers.


----------



## KenOC

millionrainbows said:


> No, I first heard this argument years ago in history class in college, and then I saw some internet forum discussions on Amazon.
> My view is that this was a decision by Truman, and his alone.


This is correct. After the bombing of Nagasaki Truman made the opposite decision. Although a third bomb (of the plutonium implosion type) was ready by that time, Truman didn't authorize its shipment to Tinian, supposedly because he was bothered by the overwhelming preponderance of civilian casualties caused by the bombs. Or so claims Richard Rhodes.


----------



## isorhythm

millionrainbows said:


> It looks like a denial, especially in his argumentative context.
> 
> This response is to invalidate any factual or universally-recognized spiritual effect of music, in order to invalidate it as "subjective opinion" as opposed to "scientific fact."
> 
> I don't buy this argument; we are humans, not automotons or computers.


I don't think we actually disagree. I'd be interested to hear in more detail what you personally mean when you say music is spiritual - what kind of experience you're referring to.

I think a lot of apparent disagreements in this thread are just misunderstandings about the use of words.


----------



## millionrainbows

isorhythm said:


> I don't think we actually disagree. I'd be interested to hear in more detail what you personally mean when you say music is spiritual - what kind of experience you're referring to.
> 
> I think a lot of apparent disagreements in this thread are just misunderstandings about the use of words.


That's a nice sentiment, but I think the disagreements on this thread were attempts to derail the thread, and in lieu of that, to run it off-topic. But I have experienced this sort of behavior before; people who post thread ideas become targets for pot-shots. You will notice that Woodduck's responses rarely contain any real substance; they are just invalidations of ideas already posted, not counter-ideas.


----------



## isorhythm

Seriously, million, when you refer to the spiritual dimension of music, what does that mean for you? That's what this thread's about, right?


----------



## eugeneonagain

millionrainbows said:


> It looks like a denial, especially in his argumentative context.
> 
> This response is to invalidate any factual or universally-recognized spiritual effect of music, in order to invalidate it as "subjective opinion" as opposed to "scientific fact."
> 
> I don't buy this argument; we are humans, not automotons or computers.


Your grave error is in assuming a "factual or universally-recognized spiritual effect of music". That is what _you _and some other people decide to call the effect.

From this error flows an extremely tangled argument. So tangled that it obscures the lack of a meaningful foundation.


----------



## millionrainbows

isorhythm said:


> Seriously, million, when you refer to the spiritual dimension of music, what does that mean for you? That's what this thread's about, right?


I'm not sure. Would you rather discuss Truman's decision to drop the bomb?









When we say 'religious' music, it may fit that description for a number of reasons which do not concern the music itself, or the actual structure of the sounds; it may be 'religious' because it was used in church rituals, or based on sacred text, or about a religious subject, but none of these has to do with the actual structure of the music itself.

I am saying that the term 'religious' in 'religious music' (which is a misleading term in my opinion) is a quality which I define in general terms as 'spiritual' in nature. The music can produce, under the right conditions, a spiritual awareness or feeling, or effect, which may or may not be associated with a particular religion, or idea of religion. 

You must first accept the given that "religious" is a misnomer in the sense that 'spiritual' music need not necessarily be connected to an established religion or institution. If we can accept that broadening and generalization of the term 'religious' music, then we can move ahead to the meat of the discussion.

I contend that music which is harmonically static, such as a drone, or one note and its partials, is inherently 'spiritual' because of its universal propensity to affect us as humans. This 'spirituality' is the note, or drone itself, so it is a structurally inseparable quality of the sound.

As a result, all things or sound events which follow are secondary, and inessential, as they are derived from this one sound. This sound, it could be said, is "God." This is a possible interpretation of the words "In the beginning was the word, and the word was God."

In other words, the unchanging note, or drone, is the center of being, which is sacred and holy. This center of being is impervious to the passage of time; it is stillness, it is being, it is no-mind. This is OM.

All change which follows, which is defined by change in time, is illusion. Being does not travel; things around it come and go, but it remains.

Thus, the early Gregorian chant was inherently religious music; its drone-like qualities attracted 20th century audiences with the smash hit "Chant," and revealed that people are in search of a stillness and peace which only the uncluttered effects of such harmonically centered drone-like music can bring. All other music which is 'busy' is music of the 'ego,' and while it has its purpose, ultimately it is a distraction, or artifice, or merely a metaphor for the spiritual. 

This is the basis of Indian raga, which is spiritual music designed to enhance one's spiritual awareness. African music is based on the drone of a fundamental tone and its harmonics, a 'drone' which is manipulated with mouth-bows to bring out different harmonic resonances. This led to blues, such as the droney songs of Skip James. The blues is thus a sacred music, and these bluesmen were our avatars of this spirituality, holy men, traveling saints. Bob Dylan, Ry Cooder, and Alan Wilson understood this well. For the blues connection, refer to Canned Heat's "on the Road Again' by the late great Alan Wilson

'The drone' is universal. All folk and ethnic musics exhibit elements of it, as it is my contention that all people, no matter how 'primitive,' are inherently spiritual from their beginning. Of course, many are distracted away from the path.

The drone is the manifestation of being, not just a reference or metaphor for the sacred. The spirit is sound, and the sound is sacred.

No, I'm saying that 'spirituality' is primary and universal, and that religion is a tool which is ideally supposed to enhance this state, and draw us into it further. This is like 'music' and music theory; theory comes after the fact.

In terms of pure sound, a fundamental and its harmonics are the primary substance or sound that all music derives from, including harmonic progression, which is an elaboration of the harmonic model stretched out over time.

In this way, 'the drone' is primary and universal, and can be directly correlated to spirituality, not just conceptually, but in a more basic way, as if it is hard-wired into humanity. Thus it will reappear in many guises. All music which proceeds from this elaborates on this primal state of drone in one way or another.

I'm making an almost direct correlation between the drone and Man's awareness of the sacred.

"Monotony" or "boredom" as you call it is the thinking part of the mind shutting down, and making way for "being" or primary awareness. It's like an empty room, which can be seen as boring or as refreshingly uncluttered.

Of course I agree that "sound events which follow" matter, and should be manifest in all their diversity.

Yes, music which is not droney or static can be spiritual and can suggest things which are permanent and transcendent; but these are still elaborations or expansions of the source in some way. 
I'm not trying to do away with that, or invalidate it, or say it is inferior. It simply occupies a different place in the order of things, and at the center is the drone.

I'm saying that the most simplified aspect of sound is the one note, and its partials. I quaintly call this the drone.

This is reflected in Man's spiritual awareness; again, the most basic kind of awareness and being is the state of stillness, when it is simplified and uncluttered by the tickertape of thought.

I will not argue with you if you say that "religious music" means music which was written and used in a specific religion, or in specific rituals or settings. A Baptist hymn is an example of religious music, or a mass.

But the term 'religious' is limiting, in that it refers to religion, and that term means specific things to different people.

With the term "spiritual" (and keeping in mind that spirituality is universal to all, and that religion came after, and acts as a limiter and is specific), we can identify and explore the universal aspects of music which are not only common to all men, but can produce or enhance a sense of spiritual awareness which is universal and inclusive, which centers us and gets us to that common, universal state of being.

I say this not to invalidate any form of religious music, but to get people to recognize that our sense of spirituality is nearly synonymous, in sound terms, with 'the drone' or the single note.

From this beginning, all awareness and music proceeds.

This idea is not mine alone; it works in practice as well. The overwhelming success of the CD "Chant" is evidence that people were craving a sense of peace, and a centering experience. The companion book which came out with this discusses these ideas. Call it 'new age' if you wish, but this idea has real validity, as Indian raga demonstrates, and can't credibly be written off simply as a fad or trend.

... some music is religious, and creates a visceral spiritual effect as well, and does this by other methods, perhaps using two chords and 100 singers, as in Handel's Messiah chorus as they sing "Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah," which is relatively close to being simple, and uses the force of voices and their implication as a large mass of people, and repetition, to create an effect on the listener.

I'm just saying that the most simplified, elegant, uncluttered way of expressing this sense is via the drone.

By the way, a 'pedal point' is a sustained note under two chord, as in the above "Messiah" section, so in a way, Handel was using a drone to convey the message.

...the criticism that 'any music can be regarded as spritual' is too subjective. I want objective, formal criteria, and formal structures, if possible. The drone is such a structure. Although it could be used in secular music, that's after the fact. I identify the drone as a Jungian archetype in music; it is a primal, prototypical form which is universal in its meaning and effect, in a basic sense.

But perhaps in the end, you are correct: "religious" music ,may be just that: music intended for religious use. That's rather boring, though, as it says nothing about the effectiveness of the music, or its universal, if any, qualities. By this definition, Kate Smith singing "God Bless America" is in the same category as Bach's B Minor Mass. That tells us nothing about the nature or even the intent of the music, or its possible effectiveness on people.

...The more I think about it, and see the various reactions to this thread, the more I become convinced that the obstacle for many here is that I'm really not talking about 'religious' or 'spiritual' music per se, but rather what common and universal elements of human psychology and physiology are triggered by certain kinds of sounds, namely drones and repetitions, and how these sounds can affect us and lead us closer to being 'in tune' and resonating sympathetically with certain kinds of sounds and music.

That's me; I've usually got things backwards, and tend to work from the inside-out. Apologies to those critics who find this irritating.


----------



## eugeneonagain

Millionrainbows said:


> and keeping in mind that spirituality is universal to all


You're doing it again. Making personal decisions apply universally.

On the drone... I imagine this also explains part of the effectiveness of a police/fire/ambulance siren. The drone probably mimics the very basic natural sounds like the wind, reverberations, the sounds rushing through your ears, tinnitus... Merely a sound that relates to natural sounds.

You are in desperate need of a razor manufactured by Occam.


----------



## millionrainbows

eugeneonagain said:


> You're doing it again. Making personal decisions apply universally.


You mean like KenOC did with Truman's decision to act?

Well, I consider Man's inherent spirituality to be a given fact, even if you have rationalized it into a subjective opinion. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one.



> On the drone... I imagine this also explains part of the effectiveness of a police/fire/ambulance siren. The drone probably mimics the very basic natural sounds like the wind, reverberations, the sounds rushing through your ears, tinnitus... Merely a sound that relates to natural sounds. You are in desperate need of a razor manufactured by Occam.


I hear a lot about that razor. You could metaphorically cut someone's throat with it, couldn't you?


----------



## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> That's a nice sentiment, but I think the disagreements on this thread were attempts to derail the thread, and in lieu of that, to run it off-topic. But I have experienced this sort of behavior before; people who post thread ideas become targets for pot-shots. *You will notice that Woodduck's responses rarely contain any real substance; they are just invalidations of ideas already posted, not counter-ideas.*


Evidently you aren't perceptive enough to grasp the premises that underlie the counterarguments of those who disagree with you or question your questionable propositions. This is proven by the absurd way you caricature those who reject your gelatinous hokum as "rationalists" who are incapable of properly appreciating music and are essentially responsible for every evil in the modern world from genocide to climate change.

The way you keep mentioning "Woodduck" in the third person is very irritating, but also rather flattering. Of course, you are telling a ridiculous lie about me: in over 12,000 posts on this forum, I have expressed an enormous number of ideas of considerable substance. In fact I set forth ideas in post #11 on the very first page of this thread, upon which you immediately proceeded to pile a typical truckload of needlessly convoluted and unreadable obfuscations and qualifications, culminating in the usual shot at (my? our? everyone's but your?) "rationality."

If anything in my post actually required an argument, no one would know it from your ponderous response.

The reason you feel "invalidated" (hmmm...I've never thought anyone was "invalidating" me by disagreeing with me) is that you tend to release into the air great buzzing swarms of no-see-ums which clear-thinking people cannot penetrate without wielding a can of repellent. It's quite possible that many of us would agree with you more often than any of us would suspect, if only it were clear what the hell you were talking about. But close analysis of your language in an attempt to translate it into things graspable by an ordinary mind only calls forth from your defensive nature a gigantic and unending argument ad hominem. So what can we "rationalists" do but continue to reason and thus "invalidate" what appears to have so little validity?


----------



## Strange Magic

IN some ways it's rather fruitless to "argue" with mr or attempt to refute him. To use an ancient metaphor, he "piles Pelion upon Ossa", heaping assertion upon assertion and then saying This I Believe. It is essentially the articulation of a credo, and is not subject to the ordinary tests by which truth, falsehood, or even simple utility are measured. It is presented as a package, to be accepted or rejected. I think he is, or would be if asked, quite candid about that. And there's nothing wrong with it, except when the attacks upon rationalism, rationalists, etc. are dusted off and trotted out, usually in the initial throat-clearing prologue that precedes the laying-out of his latest version of his "thesis".


----------



## regenmusic

There is a little bit of music that seems ineffable to me. You have to listen to it on low volume and maybe a few times to get the effect. It's very short. I wouldn't mention it for fear of tooting my own horn but I got these emails about it:

Hello regenmusic
I heard your Starry Prelude, and there is something about it that was quite interesting. Seems influenced by the "new age" style, which often is not my cup of tea, anyway your work sounded very good to me. Is there any score for this which you could show/send me?
Congratulations, and thanks in advance for any reply

Best
Artur Cimirro
www.arturcimirro.com.br
Hi Artur,

As William Bolcom once said to me, when I complimented his work, "You made my day."
Thank you. I really need to work with arrangers, because I believe my brain is not able to notate like other peoples, since I use so much of it for writing with words. I used to write on staff as a child but stopped at around 15 and just recorded what I composed after figuring out parts of it ahead of time.

If you know of anyone who would like to do things like this for composers, please let me know.

all the best to you!

Robert
Dear Robert,

I understand, and I will keep in mind this "need" you have for an arranger
Unfortunately at the moment I have no name to give you as a possible helper for writing down your works.
(I'm myself in terrible situation concerning the use of music editors because the time necessary is too much and I'm working a lot in studio making recordings for a CD label - so a lot of study at the piano is necessary daily to make the different repertoires I'm recording.)

On the other hand, since I first heard your piece I was already with a piano solo arrangement in mind or even a new composition inspired by the "sound image" I got while listening.
So, if you can give me any details about the music as you play it - have you used a keyboard or a computer tool? - maybe I can do it in some free time at some point soon - but any details concerning the composition lines is helpful because transcribing by ear is possible, but requires more time than what I can dedicate at the moment.
So think about and let me know,

BTW, If I write anything inspired in your work I'll send it to you and mention in the piece.

All the best
Artur

--

It is meant to be heard soft, like at a distance.

http://rspearson.com/music/RSPearsonStarryPrelude.mp3


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> IN some ways it's rather fruitless to "argue" with mr or attempt to refute him. To use an ancient metaphor, he "piles Pelion upon Ossa", heaping assertion upon assertion and then saying This I Believe. It is essentially the articulation of a credo, and is not subject to the ordinary tests by which truth, falsehood, or even simple utility are measured. It is presented as a package, to be accepted or rejected. I think he is, or would be if asked, quite candid about that. And there's nothing wrong with it, except when the attacks upon rationalism, rationalists, etc. are dusted off and trotted out, usually in the initial throat-clearing prologue that precedes the laying-out of his latest version of his "thesis".


My rationality, that damnable thing which I can't overcome no matter how loudly my spirituality screams in protest, recognizes this to be true.


----------



## KenOC

Woodduck said:


> Maybe it's just that the moderators recognize that some discussions naturally tend to go off on tangents which are generally self-limiting and nothing to worry about. Or maybe they're weary of self-styled guardians of the moral order who enter threads just to wax indignant, and who file reports just to punish people they hate.


Actually, of course, it was I who derailed the thread with my endless and boring posts about Japan and China and so forth. Nevertheless, echoing Winston in 1984: "Punish Woodduck, not me!"


----------



## Larkenfield

If the ineffable part of music could be described in words it wouldn't be ineffable. That's the beauty of it.


----------



## KenOC

Larkenfield said:


> _If the ineffable part of music could be described with words it wouldn't be ineffable._ That's the beauty of it.


The problem with ineffability is that it's so effing ineffable.


----------



## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> Maybe it's just that the moderators recognize that some discussions naturally tend to go off on tangents which are generally self-limiting and nothing to worry about. Or maybe they're weary of self-styled guardians of the moral order who enter threads just to wax indignant, and who file reports just to punish people they hate.
> 
> Could either of those things be true?


Poor Woodduck. He must feel "invalidated." It happens to the best of us. :lol:


----------



## millionrainbows

Back on topic:

I'm considering doing a thread on The Enlightenment, a critical one, which underscores the things that it took away from us. Everybody is always raving about how great it was. It wasn't all good. 

"If Romanticism did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it."


----------



## Strange Magic

millionrainbows said:


> Back on topic:
> 
> I'm considering doing a thread on The Enlightenment, a critical one, which underscores the things that it took away from us. Everybody is always raving about how great it was. It wasn't all good.
> 
> "If Romanticism did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it."


I hate Enlightenment!!


----------



## Jacck

millionrainbows said:


> I'm considering doing a thread on The Enlightenment, a critical one, which underscores the things that it took away from us. Everybody is always raving about how great it was. It wasn't all good.
> 
> "If Romanticism did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it."


better not. It seems like you have some serious gaps in your understanding of some very fundamental things, for example you don't seem to understand the difference between a fact and an opinion, between the subjective and the objective. And without this understanding, you misunderstand the whole Enlightenment and how the Enlightenment was a reaction against the superstitious magical thinking of the middle ages


----------



## millionrainbows

Jacck said:


> It seems like you have some serious gaps in your understanding of some very fundamental things, for example you don't seem to understand the difference between a fact and an opinion, between the subjective and the objective.


Oh, I learned on this thread from KenOC that "facts" can be whatever you want them to be, if it serves your purpose. The "facts" behind the decision to drop the bomb are not opinion, but are _fact,_ and invalidate any opposing decision. See how that works? It's ballsy, but I'm gonna start running with the big dogs!

from post #241:
_Originally Posted by *millionrainbows* 
Well, even the blurb reinforces the status-quo opinion that the bomb was necessary, by citing that the Japanese were unwilling to surrender, and that invasion strategy was doomed, and that documents indicated that negotiation was also doomed. How is this dispassionate?

_KenOC: Because, having read the book, I can say that those views are fully supported by facts, not opinions.

That's clever, isn't it? See how "opinions which support opinions" become "facts?" All you need is a little bit of data to justify it. It's all about polls and market research.



> And without this understanding, you misunderstand the whole Enlightenment and how the Enlightenment was a reaction against the superstitious magical thinking of the middle ages


You poor, deluded child. Don't you realize that the Enlightenment overstepped its bounds and left a gaping hole in Humanity's relationship to the world?


----------



## Strange Magic

Jacck said:


> better not. It seems like you have some serious gaps in your understanding of some very fundamental things, for example you don't seem to understand the difference between a fact and an opinion, between the subjective and the objective. And without this understanding, you misunderstand the whole Enlightenment and how the Enlightenment was a reaction against the superstitious magical thinking of the middle ages


Some people prefer superstitious magical thinking. It's easier and less constrained by adherence to testable hypotheses. You can postulate whatever comes into your head. Try it; it's great!


----------



## Jacck

Strange Magic said:


> Some people prefer superstitious magical thinking. It's easier and less constrained by adherence to testable hypotheses. You can postulate whatever comes into your head. Try it; it's great!


I guess that is why thay hate science. It bursts the magical thought bubbles, that they have constructed in their heads and which they have fallen in love with. They love their illusions and hate reality for ripping their illusions to shreds


----------



## isorhythm

millionrainbows said:


> Back on topic:
> 
> I'm considering doing a thread on The Enlightenment, a critical one, which underscores the things that it took away from us. Everybody is always raving about how great it was. It wasn't all good.
> 
> "If Romanticism did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it."


This isn't back on topic at all! The topic is music and the ineffable. I liked your previous post, which was on that topic, and I think I agree with it. A certain kind of simplicity - which might encompass diatonicism, repetition, slow harmonic movement, and, of course, drones - does seem to be associated with the spiritual/religious/contemplative for many people. If I had to guess why, I'd say it has something to do with conveying a sense of repose, stasis, or peace.

You distinguished between music with these qualities and music merely for religious use, but I wonder if these things aren't related. I'm thinking specifically of the use of hymns in Christianity, where the same hymns are sung at the same time of year, year after year. Maybe this adds up to your "drone," but experienced over the course of decades? I'm not conventionally religious, but have certainly found that my experience of familiar Christian hymns is altered by the fact that I've experienced them in a liturgical context at certain times of year over the course of my life.

I would also note - NOT my way of attack, but just in an effort to further the discussion and clarify the ideas here - that musical Romanticism moved away from the qualities you've identified as belonging to spiritual music. I.e., it got more chromatic, less repetitive, and overall more complex. So that suggests the Englightment vs. Romanticism, rationalism vs. spirituality dichotomies you've proposed are not so clear-cut.


----------



## Luchesi

I can read post after post that is highly negative and I can ‘rationalize’ with the feelings of the poster, but when I see a moderator censor anything, that's it, I'm done - because the waste of time and the overbearance of authority, so two-dimensional, and the loss of control is just too much. There’s already so much negativity in real life.

At that point I have to be impressed by some unrelated posted ideas to start posting again. I need to be desensitized, but how?


----------



## millionrainbows

Strange Magic said:


> Some people prefer superstitious magical thinking. It's easier and less constrained by adherence to testable hypotheses. You can postulate whatever comes into your head. Try it; it's great!


I never said I believed in anything supernatural or metaphysical.


----------



## millionrainbows

Jacck said:


> I guess that is why thay hate science. It bursts the magical thought bubbles, that they have constructed in their heads and which they have fallen in love with. They love their illusions and hate reality for ripping their illusions to shreds


I never said I hated science. I just think it should stay in its place, unless invited in to art, like Milton Babbitt or Xenakis. But you rationalists probably hate that music, paradoxically.

If any "ripping to shreds" has been practiced here, it's Jacck, McLeod, eugeneonagain, and Woody. Did I forget anyone?


----------



## eugeneonagain

millionrainbows said:


> I never said I believed in anything supernatural or metaphysical.


Oh? So that super-reality behind the world of appearances which you talk about, and which is accessed by some means you can't properly describe, is not a metaphysics? It isn't super-natural?

You've not been 'ripped to shreds'. All that has happened is music has proved not to be some sort of sacred safe-haven where sophistry is allowed to run amok.


----------



## millionrainbows

isorhythm said:


> This isn't back on topic at all! The topic is music and the ineffable. I liked your previous post, which was on that topic, and I think I agree with it. A certain kind of simplicity - which might encompass diatonicism, repetition, slow harmonic movement, and, of course, drones - does seem to be associated with the spiritual/religious/contemplative for many people. If I had to guess why, I'd say it has something to do with conveying a sense of repose, stasis, or peace.
> 
> You distinguished between music with these qualities and music merely for religious use, but I wonder if these things aren't related. I'm thinking specifically of the use of hymns in Christianity, where the same hymns are sung at the same time of year, year after year. Maybe this adds up to your "drone," but experienced over the course of decades? I'm not conventionally religious, but have certainly found that my experience of familiar Christian hymns is altered by the fact that I've experienced them in a liturgical context at certain times of year over the course of my life.
> 
> I would also note - NOT my way of attack, but just in an effort to further the discussion and clarify the ideas here - that *musical Romanticism moved away from the qualities you've identified as belonging to spiritual music. I.e., it got more chromatic, less repetitive, and overall more complex. So that suggests the Englightment vs. Romanticism, rationalism vs. spirituality dichotomies you've proposed are not so clear-cut.*


The Enlightenment would apply to the members here; most of them seem to be more like scientists than aesthetes, so I think it would be perfectly on-topic to discuss that, since it precludes any possibility of discussion on more artistic matters...*but I said that would be in another thread.*

Yes, Romanticism moved on to Post-Romanticism, and then on to modernism. I did not intend for the "drone" to be a limiting factor in identifying objective qualities or formal elements of spirituality in music, but only as a first step in formulating a set of criteria for identifying such music.

I certainly disagree with the notion of chromaticism (the other direction away from drone) as being unable to convey a spiritual sense; listen to Scriabin. He is all over the place harmonically, and his music very much embodies the irrational, wandering Romantic sensibility.

In fact, *if you will re-examine my reply, I say this same thing:*

*Of course I agree that "sound events which follow" matter, and should be manifest in all their diversity.**
Yes, music which is not droney or static can be spiritual and can suggest things which are permanent and transcendent; but these are still elaborations or expansions of the source in some way. 
I'm not trying to do away with that, or invalidate it, or say it is inferior. It simply occupies a different place in the order of things, and at the center is the drone.*


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Some people prefer superstitious magical thinking. It's easier and less constrained by adherence to testable hypotheses. You can postulate whatever comes into your head. Try it; it's great!


But there must be something beyond science, no? When scientists are searching and they discover something revelatory, a new finding, a whole new explanation then that's what used to be in the realm of the dreamers and the mystics?

Ooops, I think I just confirmed what you wrote.. heh heh


----------



## DaveM

millionrainbows said:


> Oh, I learned on this thread from KenOC that "facts" can be whatever you want them to be, if it serves your purpose. The "facts" behind the decision to drop the bomb are not opinion, but are _fact,_ and invalidate any opposing decision. See how that works? It's ballsy, but I'm gonna start running with the big dogs!
> 
> from post #241:
> _Originally Posted by *millionrainbows*
> Well, even the blurb reinforces the status-quo opinion that the bomb was necessary, by citing that the Japanese were unwilling to surrender, and that invasion strategy was doomed, and that documents indicated that negotiation was also doomed. How is this dispassionate?
> 
> _KenOC: Because, having read the book, I can say that those views are fully supported by facts, not opinions.
> 
> That's clever, isn't it? See how "opinions which support opinions" become "facts?" All you need is a little bit of data to justify it. It's all about polls and market research.


Opinion is an inappropriate word here.

_Opinion_: def: a view or judgment formed about something, *not necessarily based on fact or knowledge*

What Truman did was _evaluate_ facts. Fact: thousands of people, military and civilians already weary by war would be killed or wounded if the Pacific war were to continue for several more months. Fact: There were more signs than not that Japan was not going to capitulate any time soon by a general embargo. Fact: Hundreds if not thousands of POWs were in danger of being executed.


----------



## Strange Magic

millionrainbows said:


> I never said I hated science. I just think it should stay in its place, unless invited in to art......


Science, or "Rational Inquiry", is free to stick its nose into anything someone who values it is interested in examining. Rational inquiry should "stay in its place"? What areas are forbidden to it?


----------



## Bulldog

millionrainbows said:


> Still, if it must happen, I support other people who report my opponents.


Paranoia runs amok.


----------



## isorhythm

Framing your side of a debate as being opposed to the forces of reason is kind of an own goal, I don't know why you'd ever want to do that.


----------



## SONNET CLV

Bulldog said:


> Paranoia runs amok.


Yes it does. So, watch out! It's after all of us!


----------



## Bulldog

SONNET CLV said:


> Yes it does. So, watch out! It's after all of us!


Were you the one following me yesterday afternoon? :lol:


----------



## Strange Magic

I'm not an Opponent of mr. I think of myself as a Guide.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> I never said I hated science. I just think it should stay in its place, unless invited in to art, like Milton Babbitt or Xenakis. But you rationalists probably hate that music, paradoxically.
> 
> If any "ripping to shreds" has been practiced here, it's Jacck, McLeod, eugeneonagain, and Woody. Did I forget anyone?


Would you like to back up your assertion that I've been "ripping to shreds" with some evidence? I've been disagreeing with you (and others) - but I'm not sure how disagreement can be characterised in the way you have just done.


----------



## regenmusic

It's funny the resistance to the ineffable in the human race. Hannah Arendt said that evil shows itself by being banal.


----------



## Guest

I guess we've given up discussing ineffable (or effable) music altogether now? 15 pages of thread drift (to which, I accept, I contributed my challenge about when WWII began) - that's some drift!

Is there any point suggesting that we wind back to just _before _millionrainbows set us off with his post about rationality and the bomb?

Music and the Ineffable

It seems there's a majority in favour of the idea that there is a line to be drawn somewhere between what words can usefully tell us about the effect or experience of music on our mental, emotional, intellectual, physical and spiritual states, and where music must stand alone and words cannot help. Where that line is drawn is not readily agreed, partly because whilst we know from the mere existence of TC that we share much in common about what music does for us and to us, it remains, ultimately, a personal experience. I can give a description of what listening to Sibelius' Symphony No 6 does to me, but it's only an approximation of what I think and feel.

Beyond that, there is no agreement that music puts the listener in touch with "Something Beyond". One reason for the lack of agreement is the varying use to which the word "ineffable" has been put; from the very literal to the highly metaphorical.

Speaking for myself, I had assumed that "ineffable" was intended as a metaphor for something spiritual, supernatural, apart from me (as opposed to being wholly a physical response to a musical stimulus) - what some choose to connect with their religious beliefs. I have no problem with the fact that this works for some people. I acknowledge that that is what they think, feel, believe. The fact that it doesn't tally with what I think, feel, believe, should not be taken in any way as an attempt to invalidate others' views.


----------



## TurnaboutVox

Some off topic posts have been removed, and the thread will be closed temporarily until we decide how best to manage it.


----------



## Taggart

Thread re-opened. Please return to the original topic.

If you suspect anybody of trolling or posting intemperately a) do not respond b) report them.


----------



## Larkenfield

"Speaking for myself, I had assumed that "ineffable" was intended as a metaphor for something spiritual, supernatural, apart from me (as opposed to being wholly a physical response to a musical stimulus)"

I wouldn't describe it that way myself. 'Ineffable' suggests an experience beyond words, beyond the movement of thought or the logic to describe or explain it... but that experience beyond words is not separate or apart from you. It _is_ you, a dimension of yourself that you can sense or feel as the essential you that's beyond words. That dimension of the self cannot be understood with words... Words are action and movement in time; the essential self is experienced as a state of 'being'... something timeless... You're experiencing the ineffable dimension of yourself.


----------



## StrangeHocusPocus

I am confused.............................


----------



## Guest

Larkenfield said:


> It _is_ you, a dimension of yourself that you can sense or feel as the essential you that's beyond words. That dimension of the self cannot be understood with words... Words are action and movement in time; *the essential self is experienced as a state of 'being'... something timeless*... You're experiencing the ineffable dimension of yourself.


And here's the Catch-22. I don't understand what you mean (espcially the part I've bolded), but then, I wouldn't, would I? - you're using words to explain what can't be explained by words.


----------



## isorhythm

MacLeod said:


> And here's the Catch-22. I don't understand what you mean (espcially the part I've bolded), but then, I wouldn't, would I? - you're using words to explain what can't be explained by words.


As I think someone else said higher in the thread, this is true of all the basic concepts we describe with language - no words can describe the color red to a person who's never seen it. There's nothing really mysterious about this.


----------



## eugeneonagain

isorhythm said:


> As I think someone else said higher in the thread, this is true of all the basic concepts we describe with language - no words can describe the color red to a person who's never seen it. There's nothing really mysterious about this.


And the trick to making such things no longer ineffable is to show such a person an example of the colour red.

Now, there may be all manner of minor problems to grapple with, such as colour-blindness, a badly-chosen example, inability to interpret what _you_ interpret from the colour example, etc. However, showing a person the colour red at least takes away the burden of trying to explain such an 'ineffable' thing.

If we return to music, the problem is not nearly as difficult as colour, nor as elemental. Add into this that interpretations (at least those not derived from stated intentions of the composer) tend to be personal and rather fanciful at times, with a tendency to feed into other personal ideas.

It's possible to some extent to explain how music is constructed and is used to create effects, but some people don't like to hear this. They like magic.


----------



## isorhythm

eugeneonagain said:


> And the trick to making such things no longer ineffable is to show such a person an example of the colour red.
> 
> Now, there may be all manner of minor problems to grapple with, such as colour-blindness, a badly-chosen example, inability to interpret what _you_ interpret from the colour example, etc. However, showing a person the colour red at least takes away the burden of trying to explain such an 'ineffable' thing.
> 
> If we return to music, the problem is not nearly as difficult as colour, nor as elemental. Add into this that interpretations (at least those not derived from stated intentions of the composer) tend to be personal and rather fanciful at times, with a tendency to feed into other personal ideas.
> 
> It's possible to some extent to explain how music is constructed and is used to create effects, but some people don't like to hear this. They like magic.


I'm not sure I follow.

First of all, I think you're conflating the two different senses of "ineffable" that have come up in this thread. You're talking about the feelings evoked by music. You're right that these are not as elemental as color, but that makes the problem more difficult, not less. As you say, I can show someone the color red, but I can't show someone an example of a feeling I get from a particular piece of music. What we can do instead is listen to musical examples, talk about how they make us feel using our limited words for emotions and perhaps metaphors or comparisons, and talk about how the music is put together to produce these effects. No matter how hard we try, we won't arrive at something as definitive as the color red.

I am pretty sure, however, that Larkenfield is talking about the other kind of ineffable, the kind of mystical experience Jacck and millionrainbows also talked about, which is not thought or feeling at all.


----------



## Anna Strobl

We also know music stimulates parts of our brain associated with pleasure and reward. If one gets goosebumps listening to a certain piece / movement that's quite like getting *high*


----------



## eugeneonagain

isorhythm said:


> I'm not sure I follow.
> 
> First of all, I think you're conflating the two different senses of "ineffable" that have come up in this thread. You're talking about the feelings evoked by music. You're right that these are not as elemental as color, but that makes the problem more difficult, not less. As you say, I can show someone the color red, but I can't show someone an example of a feeling I get from a particular piece of music. What we can do instead is listen to musical examples, talk about how they make us feel using our limited words for emotions and perhaps metaphors or comparisons, and talk about how the music is put together to produce these effects. No matter how hard we try, we won't arrive at something as definitive as the color red.
> 
> I am pretty sure, however, that Larkenfield is talking about the other kind of ineffable, the kind of mystical experience Jacck and millionrainbows also talked about, which is not thought or feeling at all.


Then you are not following.

Showing someone a colour is about evoking a response in them (by means of sensory experience), so it is the same. It makes the problem no more difficult. That is a conflation: between objects, the sensations they create and the experience - between the two examples.
'The colour red' is not definitive. That's why Pantone exists and why some people seem to think anything orange (which isn't light orange) is red.

Larkenfield's "other ineffable" is the same sort of ineffable. It is feeling/experience expressed through the filter of culture and other accumulated ideas.


----------



## isorhythm

I'm not talking about people's response to the color red, I'm just talking about seeing the color. Just sense perception, that's it.

The other thing is just consciousness without thoughts or feelings, to put it in the least mystical sounding way possible.


----------



## eugeneonagain

isorhythm said:


> I'm not talking about people's response to the color red, I'm just talking about seeing the color. Just sense perception, that's it.
> 
> The other thing is just consciousness without thoughts or feelings, to put it in the least mystical sounding way possible.


You should be, because seeing a colour and hearing music are both examples of sensory perception; albeit of different magnitudes; though that is not a problem. Both can only be understood and expressed by what the person experiencing it says about it. If that person can't explain it then there's nothing to say about because we'll never know. Call it 'mystical' or whatever, it's a waste of time discussing it.


----------



## Zofia

I wanted and tried to make this thread. As a religious person I feel it was derailed by non-believers on purpose so please know it is not my intention to do so. I would like to see this question answered also.

First to remove it from the discussion I think God exists what God is we cannot understand as mortals it is beyond us. Having said this I think if God exists or not is irrelevant to the experience we call religious when it involve music. Our brain has developed to seem a meaning of life in religious or spiritual behaviour.

I personally think the feeling I think you talk about is proof of God but even if it is not it does not change the fact it happens. I personally think that churches and cathedrals were desgined to exploit this feeling as well. Whatever it is devine or not we are truly affected by music on a plane we do not fully understand it's part of the reason it is so beautiful in my opinion.


----------



## eugeneonagain

Not at all 'derailed' by religious people then. Even if it is supposedly irrelevant. 

I'm bored of this rubbish and the incorrigible religionists who shift the goalposts whenever the heat is on.

Have this thread and the ineffable mystical experiences. Who cares.


----------



## Luchesi

isorhythm said:


> I'm not sure I follow.
> 
> First of all, I think you're conflating the two different senses of "ineffable" that have come up in this thread. You're talking about the feelings evoked by music. You're right that these are not as elemental as color, but that makes the problem more difficult, not less. As you say, I can show someone the color red, but I can't show someone an example of a feeling I get from a particular piece of music. What we can do instead is listen to musical examples, talk about how they make us feel using our limited words for emotions and perhaps metaphors or comparisons, and talk about how the music is put together to produce these effects. No matter how hard we try, we won't arrive at something as definitive as the color red.
> 
> I am pretty sure, however, that Larkenfield is talking about the other kind of ineffable, the kind of mystical experience Jacck and millionrainbows also talked about, which is not thought or feeling at all.


A big dimension for the appreciation of music is to look at the score and be able to see where and how a composer has specifically evoked the feelings and made the music 'ineffable'.
How this was done in Bach (and it's very interesting before the baroque solutions), and in the classical style, and later with the romantics until you reach all the complexities used in more modern music.

So you say, "What we can do instead is listen to musical examples, talk about how they make us feel using our limited words for emotions and perhaps metaphors or comparisons, and talk about how the music is put together to produce these effects. No matter how hard we try, we won't arrive at something as definitive as the color red."

Really? Just try music theory.


----------



## Zofia

eugeneonagain said:


> You should be, because seeing a colour and hearing music are both examples of sensory perception; albeit of different magnitudes; though that is not a problem. Both can only be understood and expressed by what the person experiencing it says about it. If that person can't explain it then there's nothing to say about because we'll never know. Call it 'mystical' or whatever, it's a waste of time discussing it.


There are common factors when people describe the feeling though. I am against taking drugs but I have read that many many people when using hallucinogens report seeing or experienced the same or almost exactly similar things.

This would lead me to suspect that the same area of the brain is affected allowing for a somewhat "shared" experience if that's possible who knows. I find it telling people want to shut down this type of topic whenever it is brought up.

No one is asking those of you who object to contribute although others to talk freely without being so negative please.


----------



## Luchesi

eugeneonagain said:


> Not at all 'derailed' by religious people then. Even if it is supposedly irrelevant.
> 
> I'm bored of this rubbish and the incorrigible religionists who shift the goalposts whenever the heat is on.
> 
> Have this thread and the ineffable mystical experiences. Who cares.


They're never going to stop. As wise people have said down through 20 centuries, it's human vanity.


----------



## Zofia

double post sorry


----------



## Jacck

Zofia said:


> There are common factors when people describe the feeling though. I am against taking drugs but I have read that many many people when using hallucinogens report seeing or experienced the same or almost exactly similar things.
> 
> This would lead me to suspect that the same area of the brain is affected allowing for a somewhat "shared" experience if that's possible who knows. I find it telling people want to shut down this type of topic whenever it is brought up.
> 
> No one is asking those of you who object to contribute although others to talk freely without being so negative please.


Hallucinogens such as LSD are certainly a very powerful means to convince people about the existence of the mystical states. I tried it several times and had almost always very mystical religious trips and experiences of ego death, or of reaching the source of all existence etc. But I know other people, who never got any mystical trips despite having tripped many times. Some people are probably more prone to these types of experiences than others. It is no use trying to "convert" them. Let everyone believe what he wants. The only obnoxious people are those, who will force their beliefs on others.


----------



## Zofia

Anna Strobl said:


> We also know music stimulates parts of our brain associated with pleasure and reward. If one gets goosebumps listening to a certain piece / movement that's quite like getting *high*


Music definitely makes a physiological responses. Think of the movie Jaws crescendoing minor chords give me nightmares just thinking of the theme, much anxitey making.



Jacck said:


> Hallucinogens such as LSD are certainly a very powerful means to convince people about the existence of the mystical states. I tried it several times and had almost always very mystical religious trips and experiences of ego death, or of reaching the source of all existence etc. But I know other people, who never got any mystical trips despite having tripped many times. Some people are probably more prone to these types of experiences than others. It is no use trying to "convert" them. Let everyone believe what he wants. The only obnoxious people are those, who will force their beliefs on others.


I am sorry if I seem to push my beliefs on others I really do not try to do so. I have read what you say is true it seems perhaps about the effects not working on some people. Perhaps it is a higher threshold or tolerance or they simply lack the working part of the brain for the "switch".

Example opioids do not work on my brain. I was to given morphine after an car accident some years ago it had no effect on me and it was very difficult to find pain relief.


----------



## Zofia

Why does a simple discussing cause such heated responses from some? I am always terribly saddened by it at the same time appalled by the arrogance.


----------



## Luchesi

Zofia said:


> View attachment 114279
> 
> 
> Why does a simple discussing cause such heated responses from some? I am always terribly saddened by it at the same time appalled by the arrogance.


You're being raised to be a good person.


----------



## isorhythm

Luchesi said:


> A big dimension for the appreciation of music is to look at the score and be able to see where and how a composer has specifically evoked the feelings and made the music 'ineffable'.
> How this was done in Bach (and it's very interesting before the baroque solutions), and in the classical style, and later with the romantics until you reach all the complexities used in more modern music.
> 
> So you say, "What we can do instead is listen to musical examples, talk about how they make us feel using our limited words for emotions and perhaps metaphors or comparisons, and talk about how the music is put together to produce these effects. No matter how hard we try, we won't arrive at something as definitive as the color red."
> 
> Really? Just try music theory.


Yes, of course, that's included.


----------



## Zofia

Luchesi said:


> A big dimension for the appreciation of music is to look at the score and be able to see where and how a composer has specifically evoked the feelings and made the music 'ineffable'.
> How this was done in Bach (and it's very interesting before the baroque solutions), and in the classical style, and later with the romantics until you reach all the complexities used in more modern music.
> 
> So you say, "What we can do instead is listen to musical examples, talk about how they make us feel using our limited words for emotions and perhaps metaphors or comparisons, and talk about how the music is put together to produce these effects. No matter how hard we try, we won't arrive at something as definitive as the color red."
> 
> Really? Just try music theory.


I kind of agree with you here but I think it is also interesting to ask why the "spiritual" or religious feelings arises within music. Regardless of the truth to any religious claims. Even deeper why do we create music in the first place and why is it a true universal language across ethnic and cultural groups.

The same could be asked for all art but I feel music has a way of getting inside you that statuettes and wall paints do not.

When I screen capped your post I was just too lazy to look for the quoted post. I cannot judge sarcasm well I apologise if I offended you.


----------



## Luchesi

Zofia said:


> I kind of agree with you here but I think it is also interesting to ask why the "spiritual" or religious feelings arises within music. Regardless of the truth to any religious claims. Even deeper why do we create music in the first place and why is it a true universal language across ethnic and cultural groups.
> 
> The same could be asked for all art but I feel music has a way of getting inside you that statuettes and wall paints do not.
> 
> When I screen capped your post I was just too lazy to look for the quoted post. I cannot judge sarcasm well I apologise if I offended you.


No problem. I personally can't see how someone can be offended in an anonymous discussion. And I hope I haven't 'offended' anyone by quoting wise men down through the 20 centuries.

Science has discovered one reason why we make music, and how on the deepest electro-chemical level it affects us. We don't have to read the science. We don't have to believe in the discoveries. We can keep music as our personal world, evoking personal feelings. Or like me, we can do both. Every human has their own concepts, abstractions and convictions, and that's the way it should be.


----------



## Zofia

Luchesi said:


> No problem. I personally can't see how someone can be offended in an anonymous discussion. And I hope I haven't 'offended' anyone by quoting wise men down through the 20 centuries.
> 
> Science has discovered one reason why we make music, and how on the deepest electro-chemical level it affects us. We don't have to read the science. We don't have to believe in the discoveries. We can keep music as our personal world, evoking personal feelings. Or like me, we can do both. Every human has their own concepts, abstractions and convictions, and that's the way it should be.


No no you are fine I thought you were beibg sarcastic when you replied thats all. I'm not against either religion or science if you have links to the articles etc if I could bother you for them I'd like to read it very much.


----------



## Luchesi

Zofia said:


> No no you are fine I thought you were beibg sarcastic when you replied thats all. I'm not against either religion or science if you have links to the articles etc if I could bother you for them I'd like to read it very much.


Most of the scholarly works are behind a paywall. But here's one;

http://pzacad.pitzer.edu/tjustus/justus-2005-music-perc.pdf


----------



## Guest

isorhythm said:


> As I think someone else said higher in the thread, this is true of all the basic concepts we describe with language - no words can describe the color red to a person who's never seen it. There's nothing really mysterious about this.


But at least we know that the colour red exists. It is not ineffable. The "ineffable" that we are trying to describe is ineffable to all - by definition.


----------



## isorhythm

MacLeod said:


> But at least we know that the colour red exists. It is not ineffable. The "ineffable" that we are trying to describe is ineffable to all - by definition.


I don't see how it's more ineffable than "red." We all recognize it, but we can't describe it any further than just the one word. (Of course there are shades of red, but we can't describe our perception of the essential "redness" that distinguishes it from other colors any further.) Similarly I think I got what jacck and million were talking about even though there are various ways to describe it in different cultures, because I've had a couple similar experiences. It doesn't need to be mysterious.

I think this is getting off track from music, because I don't think music directly causes this type of experience. If we're just talking about the feelings we get from music, we're again talking about something that is ineffable, in that I can't tell you in any number of words exactly how I feel when I listen to the Kreutzer sonata.

Nothing I'm saying is mysterious or any kind of religious claim. I feel as though a couple of people are doing kind of the mirror image of what millionrainbows was doing when he accused anyone who disagreed with him of being "rationalists" or whatever.


----------



## millionrainbows

isorhythm said:


> I feel as though a couple of people are doing kind of the mirror image of what millionrainbows was doing when he accused anyone who disagreed with him of being "rationalists" or whatever.


Oh, yeah, I remember him.


----------



## Guest

isorhythm said:


> Nothing I'm saying is mysterious or any kind of religious claim. I feel as though a couple of people are doing kind of the mirror image of what millionrainbows was doing when he accused anyone who disagreed with him of being "rationalists" or whatever.


I don't know about other people. I thought I'd explained _my _position fairly thoroughly in earlier posts, distinguishing between music, the experience of listening to music, and that which, some report, the music puts them into contact with - which some declare (here comes the metaphor) as The Ineffable. There's nothing mysterious in what I am saying either. The Ineffable - where the term is used by those wishing to describe the god of their beliefs, is Ineffable. That's part of their definition of god.

If Mark W wasn't referring to anything like that, and wants to come back and say, "No, set that aside, I was only referring to the difficulty of describing in words what I sometimes experience when listening to music." then I will withdraw my analysis is irrelevant to the subject of the OP.


----------



## isorhythm

MacLeod said:


> If Mark W wasn't referring to anything like that, and wants to come back and say, "No, set that aside, I was only referring to the difficulty of describing in words what I sometimes experience when listening to music." then I will withdraw my analysis is irrelevant to the subject of the OP.


It's not difficulty, it's impossibility. Just as it's not difficult, but actually impossible, to describe the color red. What we can do is point at something red. For the inner experience of music, we can't point at anything.


----------



## DaveM

No matter how it looks to each individual, everyone will be forced to see something personal that is red every so often during life.


----------



## eugeneonagain

DaveM said:


> No matter how it looks to each individual, everyone will be forced to see something personal that is red every so often during life.


Indeed. And the ability to communicate it (like you are doing now) without having to point to something red or a specific red, tells us there is enough of a shared idea of red - just in the word - for it to be not quite as ineffable as some would have us believe. Though of course it doesn't easily 'define' it.

Has anyone ever had to explain the expression: 'I saw red', meaning 'I was angry'? The idea 'red' is ineffable, but no one seems to need to ask what the expression means. It just makes sense.

Sometimes it's better to listen how children react, or people with a limited vocabulary, react to things like music or stories. You get more visceral, real responses instead of the academic-babble of the 'educated' critic or the sophistry of the spiritualist guru.

You ask: Did you like that music? The child's answer: 'It made my tummy go all funny' or it made my hair stand up'. (I've actually heard these responses). As we get older and start knotting together all the different threads of knowledge we accumulate the answers change. They also change to reflect what we believe, so the music no longer just makes your 'tummy go funny', the funny tummy becomes transformed into an experience of an otherworldly kind.


----------



## Guest

isorhythm said:


> It's not difficulty, it's impossibility. Just as it's not difficult, but actually impossible, to describe the color red. What we can do is point at something red. For the inner experience of music, we can't point at anything.


Let's not go too far, otherwise everything becomes impossible to describe in words. Without a common experience of 'table', 'leg' and 'flat', we might struggle to describe a table.

Besides, it's not the literal "impossible to describe" that's at issue. It's its use to refer to that which is beyond comprehension.


----------



## Larkenfield

Red is for people with sight like music is for people with hearing. For everyone with normal vision the color is visible and will look the same. The ineffable in music is invisible but still has power and influence even if everyone has a different reaction.


----------



## Guest

Larkenfield said:


> Red is for people with sight. For everyone with normal vision the color is visible and will look the same. The ineffable in music is invisible but it can be sensed even if everyone has a different reaction.


I think you'll find 'red' is for everyone. A blind person's blood is the same colour as a sighted person's blood. This isn't about whether something can or cannot be seen.


----------



## science

I don't know whether everyone's "red" really is the same - but I suspect that for all of us, fundamentally, the meaning of "red" is something we feel. As is the meaning of any other meaningful word (or lexical chunk, if we need to say something like that). Even though we have a word that refers to our feeling of what red is, the word itself doesn't really capture that feeling. Words point to the feelings that they mean; they don't really embody the feeling. Anything that can be really, really, completely expressed in words is a shallow, trivial, or unimportant thing.

I don't know of this matters. But again, music is powerful because at least sometimes it reaches deeper - means more, gets closer to the feelings - than mere words or than words alone. Put music and words together and, at least sometimes, you've really got something _human_.


----------



## Mandryka

Larkenfield said:


> Red is for people with sight like music is for people with hearing. For everyone with normal vision the color is visible and will look the same. The ineffable in music is invisible but still has power and influence even if everyone has a different reaction.


with these colour judgements, there's consistency in people's responses. If someone said that strawberries were blue or or that blood is green, we'd think they hadn't grasped the meaning of the word red, or that they were colourblind.

This happens because there's consensus about how to use the concept of "red", a community of users who use it consistently.

I don't know if the same is true for "ineffable"


----------



## Mandryka

science said:


> fundamentally, the meaning of "red" is something we feel. .


I think this is hard to maintain. It's been subjected to a lot of investigation over the past 100 years, the main work which investigates it and rejects it is Wittgenstein's _Philosophical Investigations_ I can spell it out for you if you're interested, though maybe this isn't the place.


----------



## science

Mandryka said:


> I think this is hard to maintain. It's been subjected to a lot of investigation over the past 100 years, the main work which investigates it and rejects it is Wittgenstein's _Philosophical Investigations_ I can spell it out for you if you're interested, though maybe this isn't the place.


How much do you charge for your lessons? I'd like to know what suffering this kind of condescension is going to set me back.

Anyway, contrary to your suggestion that I'm ignorant as mud, I've read Wittgenstein a few times, and the conclusion of the whole matter is that I don't hold him - or, really, anyone else - as much awe as you apparently do.


----------



## Mandryka

Can you say a little bit more about what you find problematic with the Private Language Argument?


----------



## science

Mandryka said:


> Can you say a little bit more about what you find problematic with the Private Language Argument?


That's not actually what my statement suggested, so I'm not sure why I would spend my time that way.


----------



## science

Anyway, it's the individualism. We're not isolated computers working on sense-data. We're a social animal; our minds develop in a social context or not at all.


----------



## science

But that's more than enough. I will not subject myself to any more of this.


----------



## Mandryka

The Private Language Argument is concerned with the idea that the meaning of a word is a state of mind, "something we feel".


----------



## Mandryka

science said:


> But that's more than enough. I will not subject myself to any more of this.


I understand completely.


----------



## science

Mandryka said:


> I understand completely.


Yeah, I already got my degree.


----------



## eugeneonagain

Mandryka said:


> The Private Language Argument is concerned with the idea that the meaning of a word is a state of mind, "something we feel".


It is actually the argument that words can only really have functional meaning when they are agreed upon in communication, which makes actual language public rather than 'private'. Private 'meanings' mean nothing outside of mere sensation because they are simply thoughts of a single mind and not a _language_ at all.


----------



## Mandryka

eugeneonagain said:


> It is actually the argument that words can only really have functional meaning when they are agreed upon in communication, which makes actual language public rather than 'private'.


The way I read it the core of the argument consists in a demonstration that a private ostensive definition would not establish a criterion for correct application of a predicate.



eugeneonagain said:


> when they are agreed upon in communication,


The agreement is constituted by the whirl of organism Wittgenstein calls "forms of life".


----------



## Larkenfield

“The limits of my language means the limits of my world.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein


----------



## millionrainbows

Every time I see this thread title in the forum list, I think it says "Music and the Laffable." :lol:


----------



## Luchesi

millionrainbows said:


> Every time I see this thread title in the forum list, I think it says "Music and the Laffable." :lol:


They know it when they hear it.

The screaming vocals of Plant and screeching guitar etc. of Led Zeppelin were ineffable to those kids back then.

..I don't know, Sinatra's croonings?


----------

