From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V1 #113 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Friday, June 8 2001 Volume 01 : Number 113 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [loud-fans] Orange Peels Saturday! [popanda@juno.com] Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awful attempt atOTing) [Da] Re: [loud-fans] Moulin RAV [Roger Winston ] [loud-fans] upcoming shows [bbradley@namesecure.com] Re: [loud-fans] upcoming shows ["Joseph M. Mallon" ] Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round N [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: [loud-fans] game theory pricing [Matthew Weber ] Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awful attemptatOTing) [Dan] Re: [loud-fans] ANnotations [Matthew Weber ] Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awfulattemptatOTing) [jenn] Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awfulattemptatOTing) [Dana] Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round N [Dennis_McGreevy@praxair.com] Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+awfulattemptatOTing) [jenny] [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awfulattemptatOTing) [Dana L P] Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awful attemptatOTing) [dm] Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awful attemptatOTing) [Den] Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awfulattemptatOTing) [Rog] [loud-fans] whoops! [dmw ] Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awful attemptatOTing) [Dan] Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+awfulattemptatOTing) [Dana ] [loud-fans] Is there an Eco in here? (was Re:aube vs reed vs ? round N) [] Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awfulattemptatOTing) [Mile] Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awful attemptatOTing) [dm] Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awful attempt at OTing) [M] Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awful attemptatOTing) [t] Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two(+awfulattemptatOTing) [jenny ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 08:48:31 -0400 From: popanda@juno.com Subject: [loud-fans] Orange Peels Saturday! From the mailing list. For those of you who are fortunate enough to be able to see these shows, please go, but know that I hate you. The Orange Peels and Cinerama is one thing, but the Peels AND the Ocean Blue? That's just not fair. - -Mark, wiping drool off chin np Starflyer 59 Leave Here a Stranger (recorded in breathtaking 180 degree, two-dimensional mono!) Yeah, it's us again. Just a quick reminder about our fab show this Saturday night at the Bottom of the Hill with Cinerama (ex-Wedding Present) and Mates of State. The Peels play at 10 p.m. Viva the West Coast Sound! Also check our web site for July tour dates with the fabulous Ocean Blue! Oh yeah, and check out a review of "So Far" in the new Amplifier magazine. See you! www.theorangepeels.com ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 07:46:19 -0400 From: Dana L Paoli Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awful attempt atOTing) Jeff and then Jenny wrote (re: momentary acheivments of enlightenment): > It can, surely - but a couple things: just try thinking without some sort > of verbal construct coming into play. i practice doing just this. it's not easy, but it can be done for short periods of time, and the sensation is quite rewarding. >>>>>>>>>> How are you able to remember that you did it? And how do you know that the sensation is rewarding? Since you're presumeably not doing it when you remember it, your memories are accessing a verbal representation of the experience. If the verbal representation was created after the experience, then it's not a result of the experience. If it was created during the experience, then you weren't thinking non verbally. - --dana ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 06:49:35 -0600 From: Roger Winston Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Moulin RAV At Tuesday 6/5/2001 02:19 PM -0400, JRT456@aol.com wrote: >As usual with hipsters, "Things I Don't Get" translates into "Things I Don't >Know And Would Rather Make Snide Comments About Than Bother To Actually >Learn." Folks in the market for a car will quickly discover that "RAV" means >"Recreational Active Vehicle." Try to puzzle out the meaning of the "4" from >there. All you hippies (and hipsters?) out there might be interested to know that Toyota makes a totally electric, non-polluting version of the RAV4 called RAV4-EV. I was just reading yesterday how my suburb (yes, I'm unhip - I don't live in the city proper) is testing one out under a one year renewable lease as part of some pilot program. Maybe if they like it, they will start replacing city government vehicles with them. Assuming they can actually get more of them... Anyway, they had a pic of it in the paper, and it didn't look any uglier to me than any other SUV. Even if it *is* ugly, maybe that's the price we pay to protect our environment. BTW, is the moratorium on Snide Comments Instead Of Learning over? As always, I'm having problems holding my tongue. Later. --Rog - -- When toads are not enough: http://www.reignoffrogs.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 09:31:14 -0700 From: bbradley@namesecure.com Subject: [loud-fans] upcoming shows Styx with Bad Company and Billy Squier, Saturday, June 9, 6:00PM at Chronicle Pavilion at Concord. WOTAPALAVA: Featuring Pet Shop Boys, Soft Cell, The Magnetic Fields, Rufus Wainwright Friday, August 3, 6:00PM Shoreline Amphitheatre Presented by the Chronicle Tickets: $79.50, $49.50 reserved seating and $29.50 GA On-Sale Sunday, June 10 at 10AM tickets at sfx.com - -- brianna bradley web designer, web ops http://namesecure.com IT ALL STARTS WITH A WEB ADDRESS tel: 925.609.1101 x206 fax: 925.609.1112 "The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing." Cole's Axiom http://startrekonice.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 09:50:51 -0700 (PDT) From: "Joseph M. Mallon" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] upcoming shows On Fri, 8 Jun 2001 bbradley@namesecure.com wrote: > WOTAPALAVA: > Featuring Pet Shop Boys, Soft Cell, The Magnetic Fields, Rufus Wainwright > Friday, August 3, 6:00PM > Shoreline Amphitheatre Presented by the Chronicle > Tickets: $79.50, $49.50 reserved seating and $29.50 GA > On-Sale Sunday, June 10 at 10AM I'm having trouble imagining a person who would pay $80 to see the Pet Shop Boys. I guess if you add up all the money one would spend seeing each band at a club... J. Mallon ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 09:54:09 -0700 From: "Andrew Hamlin" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] FW: Micro Chip League >>Do you know anything about Micro Chip League (from the 80's)? > >sounds like a big group of little football players to me. bueller? No band web page that I can discover, but from context in playlists, they appear to be a techno-disco type of thang. Oh, and they've got a cut on BIG LEAGUE ROCKS, Andy "It was in an agony of mind that he forced himself to admit that Colrayn had been right. That the authority which employed Colrayn had been right. And that now there was a Day of Reckoning. A Day of Reckoning that had started several months ago." - --from RODENT MUTATION by Bron Fane (aka R. Lionel Fanthorpe) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 13:04:20 -0400 (EDT) From: Michael Zwirn Subject: Re: [loud-fans] upcoming shows On Fri, 8 Jun 2001, Joseph M. Mallon wrote: > > WOTAPALAVA: > > Featuring Pet Shop Boys, Soft Cell, The Magnetic Fields, Rufus Wainwright > > Friday, August 3, 6:00PM > > I'm having trouble imagining a person who would pay $80 to see the Pet > Shop Boys. I was thinking of seeing this gig, when Sinead O'Connor was booked ... there will be other interesting acts there too. But probably not just for PSB and Rufus Wainwright ... I don't know Magnetic Fields enough to be drawn by their appearance. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Zwirn michael@zwirn.com ICQ #12755821 Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Medford MA - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 12:46:38 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round N On Fri, 8 Jun 2001, jenny grover wrote: > > Words are categories: with very few > > exceptions, words name not individual items but groups of like items > > ("tree" means not any one particular tree but any object that fits the > > criteria the language has established for the word "tree") - in other > > words, categories. That is, you're experiencing *something*...what is it? > > If nothing else, you probably categorize it as "good" or "bad" (i.e., "I > yes, that is certainly true, but how far you continue in your > compartmentalization, and what your purpose is in continuing your > compartmentalization is largely up to you. if it helps you clarify and > understand the experience, or helps you convey something of that > experience to someone else, that's fine, but after a point it can become > just a mental exercise that in itself often serves little purpose other > than as a mental exercise. Yes...and if I keep hammering on a nail I'm driving into a piece of wood, I'll damage the wood. Is there any activity that, when overindulged in, isn't harmful? and is there any activity that some people don't overindulge in? So? If your point is that we, on the list, keep pounding on a nail that's well-driven already, say so. Noting that gee, some people overdo things is none too revelatory. The point was that thought is intrinsically categorizing - so it's not a question of avoiding it. Rather, it's a question of being aware of that categorization and perhaps questioning its accuracy. Doug wondered aloud whether "music" was the appropriate category - i.e., name generally describing the thought - for artists like Aube - that is, he questioned whether his categories made sense or were accurate. That some people can be excessively rigid in their categorization (or excessively slack, I suppose: being unable to discern colors, say) is a given. - --Jeff, mentally exercising again J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb:: __Batman__ np: Suzanne Vega _Nine Objects of Desire_ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 10:57:37 -0700 From: Tim_Walters@digidesign.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] upcoming shows >I'm having trouble imagining a person who would pay $80 to see the Pet >Shop Boys. Maybe not, but if Soft Cell plays their Hendrix medley it would be a bargain. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 14:13:21 -0400 From: Dana L Paoli Subject: [loud-fans] game theory pricing You know, the way Game Theory CDs get priced on eBay is really strange. About six months ago, I thought I was going to be able to retire early by selling sealed copies of "Real Nighttime" on eBay: they were going for $26-$35 a pop. Then, sometime in like February or March, the bottom fell out of the market and the sale price declined to about $12 on a regular basis. Now, the price seems to be back up in the $30's. I wonder what that's all about. The other thing that I wonder about is the fact that, on a regular basis, Lolita Nation CDs are on sale on eBay. They usually go for $80-$100. But, what's odd, is that there almost always seems to be one being auctioned, which is sort of strange for such a "rare" CD. It makes me wonder about the economics of the whole thing. Sorry for the off topic post. - --dana ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 11:28:19 -0700 From: Matthew Weber Subject: Re: [loud-fans] game theory pricing At 02:13 PM 6/8/01 -0400, Dana L Paoli wrote: >The other thing that I wonder about is the fact that, on a regular basis, >Lolita Nation CDs are on sale on eBay. They usually go for $80-$100. >But, what's odd, is that there almost always seems to be one being >auctioned, which is sort of strange for such a "rare" CD. It makes me >wonder about the economics of the whole thing. My first cynical thought is that somebody's sitting on a pile of cutout or otherwise remaindered copies of LN and doling 'em out one by one. I know of some folks who are doing the same with some early-80's avant-garde stuff; stumbling on a stash of Nocturnal Emissions LPs in some wholesaler's warehouse and auctioning them off one by one. I'm surprised there's that much of a speculator's market for either thing, but then again there are lots of people who want something simply because it's rare. Matthew Weber Curatorial Assistant Music Library University of California, Berkeley People, of course, like to think they are special--that's exciting. It's disappointing to discover otherwise. J. Richard Gott III, an astrophysicist discussing the limited life span of the human species, _Washington Post_, 25 July 1993 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 11:25:01 -0700 From: bbradley@namesecure.com Subject: RE: [loud-fans] game theory pricing dana: s'ok. just find me a big trak with a dumper for less than $100. preferably working, in decent condition. i want one. 45 hail marys for you. - -- brianna bradley web designer, web ops http://namesecure.com IT ALL STARTS WITH A WEB ADDRESS tel: 925.609.1101 x206 fax: 925.609.1112 "The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing." Cole's Axiom http://startrekonice.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 14:30:43 EDT From: AWeiss4338@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] upcoming shows In a message dated 6/8/01 12:45:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time, bbradley@namesecure.com writes: > WOTAPALAVA: > Featuring Pet Shop Boys, Soft Cell, The Magnetic Fields, Rufus Wainwright > Friday, August 3, 6:00PM > Shoreline Amphitheatre Presented by the Chronicle > Tickets: $79.50, $49.50 reserved seating and $29.50 GA > On-Sale Sunday, June 10 at 10AM > > tickets at sfx.com > > I forget what the acronym stands for, but this is apparently the first openly gay/lesbian traveling rock show. I'm bummed, I can't see them, they're playing at a place called the PNC Bank Art Center (formally Garden State) and you'd think Holmdel, 20 min away from me, would be easy to get to-wrong. Andrea ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 14:36:50 -0400 From: jenny grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awful attemptatOTing) Dana L Paoli wrote: > > How are you able to remember that you did it? not all memories are verbal in nature, and not all awareness is verbal in nature. it is possible to remember these things, but not to adequately describe them verbally. what is rewarding about it is having experienced something outside the lines of usual thought. i can tack the tag "rewarding" onto it afterwards because i feel refreshed afterwards. > If the verbal representation was created after the > experience, then it's not a result of the experience. sure it is. all verbal representation happens after the experience, it's just usually so quick that we don't realize it. Jen ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 14:44:46 -0400 From: jenny grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round N Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > > If your point is that we, on the list, keep pounding on a nail that's > well-driven already, say so. I didn't, because it's not. My point was that people often engage in things like writing off music that doesn't fit their preconceived notions or preferences as "just noise", and that doing so can deter someone who hasn't heard it from bothering to listen. I was also saying that some things cannot be categorized in a way that is accurate, because the boundaries of those categorizations are not set, but that it doesn't stop some people from trying to compartmentalize everything anyway. In my opinion, if someone puts forth a collection of sounds as music, then it is music. I really see no distinction between calling something music and calling it sound sculpture. There can be musical qualities to collections of sounds that are happenstance, but if they are not put forth as a composition, or recorded and put forth as a composition, then calling them music is metaphorical. Jen ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 15:32:11 -0400 (EDT) From: Michael Mitton Subject: [loud-fans] ANnotations While singing "Soul D.C." to myself today, I thought of a possible reference that I don't think's been noted before in the line "She vibrates my bone, soul dc." Now, I think this is a reference to a product circa 1980, and here is literally all I remember about it. My brother once told me that before walkmans, there was this device that you sort of hung on your shoulders and it would send the sound in some way through your skeletal system to your ear, and you (and you alone) could hear the music. I don't remember the name of this product, but I'm pretty sure it had the word "bone" in it. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Or has my memory totally made this all up? Anyway, if I'm not making this up, it's a nice line to weave the music theme back through Soul DC one more time, and further couple it with the love theme. Bone chillingly on topic, Michael ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 15:32:09 -0400 From: Dana L Paoli Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awful attemptatOTing) not all memories are verbal in nature, and not all awareness is verbal in nature. >>>>>>> That's a fairly bold assertion. How do you know this? BTW, I don't think that by "verbal" Jeff meant to imply letters or spoken/imagined speech or anything like that. If he did, I take it back. I understood him to be speaking of catagories or signs. i can tack the tag "rewarding" onto it afterwards because i feel refreshed afterwards. >>>>>>>>>> But feeling refreshed afterward says nothing about the experience itself. What you're saying is that the feeling following the "experience that you think constitutes non-verbal thinking" is rewarding. Not that the experience itself is rewarding. And, entering into a mental state where you're not consciously aware of words is not the same as thinking non-verbally. I don't mean to deny your experience, but you do realize that the state of "thinking without words" is generally held to be either 1) impossible or 2) only attainable after years and years, and only if you're a wierd old guy who can sit with his legs crossed in a very strange way. sure it is. all verbal representation happens after the experience, it's just usually so quick that we don't realize it. >>>>>>>>> Another bold statement. What's your source? And, if it happens after the experience, then how is it connected to the experience? Are you saying that you have a non-verbal thinking experience, it ends, and that subsequently your verbally thinking mind is able to access that. How would that happen, given that words can only think about other words? - --dana, off to measure the exact spatial location of some electrons. ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 12:46:09 -0700 From: Matthew Weber Subject: Re: [loud-fans] ANnotations At 03:32 PM 6/8/01 -0400, Michael Mitton wrote: >While singing "Soul D.C." to myself today, I thought of a possible >reference that I don't think's been noted before in the line "She vibrates >my bone, soul dc." Now, I think this is a reference to a product circa >1980, and here is literally all I remember about it. My brother once told >me that before walkmans, there was this device that you sort of hung on >your shoulders and it would send the sound in some way through your >skeletal system to your ear, and you (and you alone) could hear the music. >I don't remember the name of this product, but I'm pretty sure it had the >word "bone" in it. The BoneFone, I think. It was some kind of floppy, vinyl-encased thing that hung around your neck as I remember. Matthew Weber Curatorial Assistant Music Library University of California, Berkeley People, of course, like to think they are special--that's exciting. It's disappointing to discover otherwise. J. Richard Gott III, an astrophysicist discussing the limited life span of the human species, _Washington Post_, 25 July 1993 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 15:53:47 -0400 From: jenny grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awfulattemptatOTing) Dana L Paoli wrote: > > sure it is. all verbal representation happens after the experience, > it's just usually so quick that we don't realize it. > >>>>>>>>> > Another bold statement. What's your source? And, if it happens after > the experience, then how is it connected to the experience? my source is the knowledge that the body responds to stimuli by sending signals to the brain, and the brain then interprets them and tries to put them into a context. it happens in a fraction of a second, generally, but we do not think directly in words, pictures, or ordered ideas. it is a process. Jen ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 16:14:17 -0400 From: Dana L Paoli Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awfulattemptatOTing) my source is the knowledge that the body responds to stimuli by sending signals to the brain, and the brain then interprets them and tries to put them into a context. >>>>>>> So your brain isn't dealing with the actual event, but with a representation of the event. Which is what I said. but we do not think directly in words, pictures, or ordered ideas. it is a process. >>>>>>> I'm not sure how the sentence "it is a process" relates to the previous (unsupported) sentence. - --dana ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 15:28:49 -0500 From: Dennis_McGreevy@praxair.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round N In my opinion, if someone puts forth a collection of sounds as music, then it is music. I really see no distinction between calling something music and calling it sound sculpture. There can be musical qualities to collections of sounds that are happenstance, but if they are not put forth as a composition, or recorded and put forth as a composition, then calling them music is metaphorical. <><><><><><><><><><> I'm inclined to agree with this, although under these terms Limp Bizkit is music, and birdsongs are not. - --Dennis ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 16:34:28 -0400 From: jenny grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+awfulattemptatOTing) Dana L Paoli wrote: > > So your brain isn't dealing with the actual event, but with a > representation of the event. Which is what I said. I'm not sure I would call it a representation. It's more a series of responses, of which cognition and memory then try to make sense. If I burn my hand, I'm not experiencing a representation of burning my hand. I'm experiencing the biological reactions and after-effects of my hand being burned, and my brain interpreting those effects. Jen ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 16:32:54 -0400 From: Dana L Paoli Subject: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awfulattemptatOTing) my source is the knowledge that the body responds to stimuli by sending signals to the brain, and the brain then interprets them and tries to put them into a context. it happens in a fraction of a second, generally, but we do not think directly in words, pictures, or ordered ideas. it is a process. >>>>>>> And another thing (he said)...we were talking about memories of a mental process, so all this about the body and stimuli is irrelevant. - --dana ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 16:41:28 -0400 (EDT) From: dmw Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awful attemptatOTing) On Fri, 8 Jun 2001, Dana L Paoli wrote: > or 2) only attainable after years and years, and only if you're a wierd > old guy who can sit with his legs crossed in a very strange way. and here i thought all it took was some good weed. in all seriousness, i don't think this is nearly as uncommon as dana suggests. in fact, i think i do it for stretches of several minutes at a time, several nights a week, when i'm playing music (or noise, if you prefer). words are one symbol set the human brain can use, but not the only symbol set. (i also think it's possible to do spatial thinking w/ no verbalization involved; again, i think i know a lot of visual artists who do it on a regular basis.) Steven Pinker in particular, and Noam Chomsky to a lesser degree, argue that similarites across human languages are a result of biological hardwiring in the brain that deals with symbol sets -- and some thought has been given to how the ur-level symbol set processing hardware of the brain could arise from combinations of 'fuzzy' variants of the familiar and/not/or, etc. logic gates at a synaptical level. (fuzzy because a synapse firing/not firing is not as rigidly binary as a bit being on or off -- ie. almost enough energy for the synapse to fire may affect the downstream output). But anyway the real point is that certainly Pinker, and probably Chomsky, would assert that "thought" really happens at the ur-symbol set level, and that verbalization is post-hoc'd onto it (where appropriate). As jenny suggests, it usually happens almost instantaneously, and i don't know that it's possible to be aware of the translation process. but i'd argue strenously that it is possible to not need the translation process, to be aware of that, and to describe it verbally later. - -- d. = i do what i am told. i am not opinionated. i accept without | dmw@ = questioning. i do not make a fuss. i am a good consumer. |radix.net = pathetic-caverns.com * fecklessbeast.com * shoddyworkmanship.net ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 15:51:15 -0500 From: Dennis_McGreevy@praxair.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awful attemptatOTing) dana sez: I don't mean to deny your experience, but you do realize that the state of "thinking without words" is generally held to be either 1) impossible or 2) only attainable after years and years, and only if you're a wierd old guy who can sit with his legs crossed in a very strange way. <><><><><> That's preposterous. If I go to see a band, and they're good, I don't have to even subconsciously articulate "This is blowing me away," in order to be blown away. I'll give you language as a mediator of most experience, but I routinely engage in complex organizational reasoning using my capacity to imagine space and motion, then have to find a linguistic template to bring this into the realm of dialogical consensus, that latter process generally being a square peg / round hole type experience, recallable itself as experience. We surely need words to commnunicate, but the word "red" can only convey the color of blood to someone else who has first seen it. Jen then dana: sure it is. all verbal representation happens after the experience, it's just usually so quick that we don't realize it. >>>>>>>>> Another bold statement. What's your source? And, if it happens after the experience, then how is it connected to the experience? Are you saying that you have a non-verbal thinking experience, it ends, and that subsequently your verbally thinking mind is able to access that. How would that happen, given that words can only think about other words? <><><><><><><><> That's a pretty substantial given, dude, and I for one am not inclined to give it. Of course words make reference to things which are not words. That's what meaning is. That's one of the most basic cognitive process around; are you saying it doesn't occur? - --Dennis ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 14:50:56 -0600 From: Roger Winston Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awfulattemptatOTing) Dana L Paoli on 2001/06/08 Fri PM 04:14:17 MDT wrote: > So your brain isn't dealing with the actual event, but with a > representation of the event. Which is what I said. I think we should table this discussion for now and reconvene later at the planetarium during the Laser Floyd show. I'll bring the Doritos, Later. --Rog - -- When toads are not enough: http://www.reignoffrogs.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 16:58:07 -0400 (EDT) From: dmw Subject: [loud-fans] whoops! no, dana is completely right. if you think you're thinking without words, then 'thinking' isn't really the proper term. it's actually "electrical brain activity sculpture" fthbpt! i'm sorry. i should have resisted. - -- the firm of pathetic, feckless, etc., representing cipher, louis = i do what i am told. i am not opinionated. i accept without | dmw@ = questioning. i do not make a fuss. i am a good consumer. |radix.net = pathetic-caverns.com * fecklessbeast.com * shoddyworkmanship.net ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 17:11:08 -0400 From: Dana L Paoli Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awful attemptatOTing) in fact, i think i do it for stretches of several minutes at a time, several nights a week, when i'm playing music (or noise, if you prefer). words are one symbol set the human brain can use, but not the only symbol set. >>>>>>>> I said, a couple of posts ago, that I assumed that Jeff was referring to "signs" when he started this whole thing. I would never argue that we constantly have words (English or otherwise) running through our thoughts. - --dana ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 17:16:17 -0400 From: Dana L Paoli Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+awfulattemptatOTing) If I burn my hand, I'm not experiencing a representation of burning my hand. I'm experiencing the biological reactions and after-effects of my hand being burned, and my brain interpreting those effects. >>>>>>>>> That's exactly wrong. You are experiencing your brain's representation, in the form of pain, of your hand burning. Or do you think that the pain exists in the burning hand? And, I'll repeat that Jeff's original post was to the effect that "Words are categories." Therefore, when Jenny says that she's thinking without words, I'm parsing that as "thinking without categories" which is preposterous. Unless, as I said before, Jenny has attained enlightenment. If she has, my bad. - --dana ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 17:39:43 -0400 From: timv@triad.rr.com Subject: [loud-fans] Is there an Eco in here? (was Re:aube vs reed vs ? round N) On 8 Jun 2001, at 12:46, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > The point was that thought is intrinsically categorizing - so it's not a > question of avoiding it. Rather, it's a question of being aware of that > categorization and perhaps questioning its accuracy. Doug wondered aloud > whether "music" was the appropriate category - i.e., name generally > describing the thought - for artists like Aube - that is, he questioned > whether his categories made sense or were accurate. That some people can > be excessively rigid in their categorization (or excessively slack, I > suppose: being unable to discern colors, say) is a given. Interesting discussion and I wish that my brain moved quickly enough to participate in it in real-time! Lately I've been trying to get started on reading Umberto Eco's book, "Kant and the Platypus." The impression I've gotten from the opening pages is that Enlightenment-era philosophy never got past this very issue of how categories and distinctions come about, and whether concepts can be meaningfully said to have any existence apart from the words that we use to name them. Eco's academic career as a professor of semiotics puts him in a great position to comment on modern and postmodern attitudes toward these issues, and he tends to be a bit more down-to-earth than many of his counterparts. But it's still pretty slow going through the early discussion of existence vs. being vs. essence, and the words that have been used for them in Greek, Latin, German, French, Italian, and English. Anyone here wish to comment on the book? The reviews on Amazon.com for this book were uncharactistically unhelpful. A lot of folks there seem to like it without showing any sign that they understood much of it. My thought on the original subject, fwiw and mainly cribbed from Eno: anything being appreciated as music/art/literature by an individual at a certain time is music/art/literature for that person at that moment. To try to say more--that this artifact is music in all places and at all times, while that one isn't--is a handy distinction in some simple cases, such as the Gin Blossoms disc in my CD player vs. the chainsaw outside my window. It's "a good trick" as Daniel Dennett likes to say, but destinited to fail in any critical, hair-splitting case. I suppose it's human nature to suppose that there must exist some universal sheep-from-goats test any time that we have two similar- but-different words to use. Nature usually isn't so accommodating though, and words and concepts aren't the infinitely sharp instruments we'd like to believe they are. And if we're just trying to establish a new category for artistic audio expression, in the vein of classical/pop/jazz/rock labels, then putting anything outside the realm of music is pretty much a guaranteed way to make enemies, given the charged history of such statements. Best wishes, Tim Victor timv@triad.rr.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 16:25:00 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awfulattemptatOTing) At 03:53 PM 6/8/2001 -0400, jenny grover wrote: >but we do not think directly in words, pictures, or ordered >ideas. it is a process. "Nobody thinks in stream-of-consciousness!" - -- a very conservative friend of mine from early grad school days, triumphantly capping his tirade against Faulkner and Joyce later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 17:29:38 -0400 (EDT) From: dmw Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awful attemptatOTing) On Fri, 8 Jun 2001, Dana L Paoli wrote: > prefer). words are one symbol set the human brain can use, but not the > only symbol set. > >>>>>>>> > > I said, a couple of posts ago, that I assumed that Jeff was referring to > "signs" when he started this whole thing. I would never argue that we > constantly have words (English or otherwise) running through our > thoughts. okay. this is a different use of the word "verbal" than i'm used to, but if you're in fact just arguing that it is imp[ossible to "think" without using some sort of symbol set as a medium for the thought, then i don't think we're in disagreement after all. - -- d. np bill nelson _quit dreaming and get off the beam_ = i do what i am told. i am not opinionated. i accept without | dmw@ = questioning. i do not make a fuss. i am a good consumer. |radix.net = pathetic-caverns.com * fecklessbeast.com * shoddyworkmanship.net ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 16:33:55 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awful attempt at OTing) At 11:10 PM 6/7/2001 -0500, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: >Yeesh - I gotta turn down my pretentiometer. Uh...Philly in six, cuz >little Iverson (wait...can we call him..."Little Ivery"??) beats big Shaq. >Given my geographical locale, you might understand why I want this to be >so... So the Bucks will look better because the eventual champs (the Sixers in this scenario) were the ones who beat 'em? Other than that, I don't see the Milwaukee-to-Philly/Iverson geographical-locale connection, unless Aaron McKie needs his share of the championship bonus to buy your house. later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 17:53:31 -0400 From: timv@triad.rr.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two (+ awful attemptatOTing) On 8 Jun 2001, at 16:41, dmw wrote: > [...] > But anyway the real point is that certainly Pinker, and probably Chomsky, > would assert that "thought" really happens at the ur-symbol set level, and > that verbalization is post-hoc'd onto it (where appropriate). As jenny > suggests, it usually happens almost instantaneously, and i don't know that > it's possible to be aware of the translation process. but i'd argue > strenously that it is possible to not need the translation process, to be > aware of that, and to describe it verbally later. Nice post, Doug (and not just the paragraph I excerpted.) Those kinds of writers mention CAT-scan experiments showing that the verbal activity to say "I'm starting to lift my hand" starts quite a long time--many tenths of seconds--after beginning of the motor activity to actually lift the hand. I'm inclined to think that a great deal of mental activity involves constructing verbal "what I'm doing and why I'm doing it" narratives when the real decision-making has already taken place in some non-verbal sphere. On 8 Jun 2001, at 16:32, Dana L Paoli wrote: > And another thing (he said)...we were talking about memories of a mental > process, so all this about the body and stimuli is irrelevant. "The body is the large mind." --Nietzsche "The booty is the large mind." --Eno Tim Victor timv@triad.rr.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 17:33:12 -0400 From: jenny grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] aube vs reed vs ? round two(+awfulattemptatOTing) Dana L Paoli wrote: > > That's exactly wrong. You are experiencing your brain's representation, > in the form of pain, of your hand burning. I think in this case we are differing in our definition of the word representation. > And, I'll repeat that Jeff's original post was to the effect that "Words > are categories." Therefore, when Jenny says that she's thinking without > words, I'm parsing that as "thinking without categories" which is > preposterous. My original use and understanding, in this argument, of "categories" was verbal compartmentalization of experiences based on philosophical and cultural notions. It probably is not possible to think completely without categories, verbally or not, but my original argument was that many people take categorization, in this case of music or sound collections, too far, to the point that it becomes innacurate and/or exclusionary. ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V1 #113 *******************************