Klarinet Archive - Posting 000383.txt from 2001/11

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Stan Geidel's comments on "Bananas"
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 13:09:17 -0500

On Fri, 09 Nov 2001 09:52:42 -0800, leeson0@-----.net said:

> I have absolutely no idea what your conclusion establishes.

It comes down to the same thing as a previous exchange of ours, Dan:

On Thu, 01 Jun 2000 07:36:23 -0700, leeson0@-----.net said, in part:

> It's simply another version of the statement "I don't like asparagus."
> Now he can give 500 good reasons why he doesn't like asparagus but, in
> the final analysis, it still remains opinion.

What I then said was:

"If he says "I don't like asparagus", we just learn something about him;
whereas if he gives the 500 good reasons, we stand a good chance of
learning something about asparagus too."

The point is that it's rather unlikely that he could give 500 good
reasons why he likes asparagus. But about Mozart, it's a bit more
plausible.

I don't really understand why you want to dispute this. If someone
makes an assertion about the worth of something, and their arguments for
that assertion are inadequate, then you dismiss their arguments. You
don't want to say that the idea of 'worth' is undermined.

If you want to push the matter, it's even true that we don't have an
operational definition of 'truth'. Our past scientific history has
shown that all of our formulations have been provisional, and fail at
their limits. Scientific truth is just our present best guess. We
criticise our provisional theories, but allow the ones that are best
substantiated to be our current best guess.

In the sphere of music, and the theories of what makes good music good
-- including what is known about our own constitution, and perceptual
mechanisms -- there have been a lot better guesses than the straw men
you put forward in your original light-hearted post, as I'm sure you
know.

Tony
--
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