I would argue that you are taking a narrow view of what music is. The fascination with the collection and intellectual understanding of information, as well as an addiction to emotional impact is something that is characteristic of our culture. And of course the music produced by a culture will be a reflection of the mind of its people.
I recommend that you examine carefully the wide variety of functions that music (and art in general) has in traditional cultures. Emotional, medicinal, social, as an aid to memorisation (see the Australian aborigines or vedic chanting), religious and spiritual, war and discipline and the list goes on. It is an extremely complex, and actually not yet understood, subject. In my opinion what you see in mainstream art is the exaggeration of our cultural characteristics mediated by the ability to record, manipulate and reproduce ‘art’ en mass.
Sure, I didn’t mean to take a narrow view of music, just to narrowly examine “newness” in music, which is a different question. I agree that music serves many purposes besides pop consumption of new songs or works. That is something I would want to explore further at some point.
I was aiming to understand the metaphysical question: is there is a limit to newness in music, and if so what does that imply about our universe? Could examining that question give us greater clarity in understanding the limits of other discovery or creation?
I see. It does still feel to me that you are asking a misguided question. I will try to unpack my thought so we can see where we are.
There are two concepts that are part of your question: genre and newness. Before examining these though, let’s give an (inevitably inadequate) definition of art for the purpose of our discussion. Let’s say that art is “the arranging and reproduction of sensory objects perceivable by humans, with the intention of producing an effect on a human being”. This is as general as I can think of at the moment and it is important to point to the fact that the human being and its current state (instincts, language, culture, knowledge, conditioning, etc.) is part of the definition. I would argue that in this definition the permutations of possible artworks are essentially infinite.
But to get a bit closer to what you are trying to explore let’s now carve out a subspace that you call ‘genre’. This is where we are going to find a problem. I was, actually, just having this discussion with a friend of mine that is completing his PhD in Musicology and specifically in Jazz. He came to a point where he got really confused about what ‘Jazz’ means. Is it only trumpet, sax, double bass, piano etc. bebop style jazz? Is it still jazz if you play with electronic or traditional instruments? Is it still Jazz when there is improvisation but no theme melody? What about improvised traditional music of Turkey? You get the point. What is a genre anyway? I offered my opinion on the subject by saying that you are confusing a label with the thing itself. Naming a genre is useful for organising your database and communicating certain characteristics but a genre is not a real thing, it is a communication/organisation tool.
This can then clarify our question on ‘newness’. If you can define a genre in a way that is restricted enough to seem limited then yes, it will be. But you should take care to avoid confusing a limited, artificial concept for the universe itself.
Ok great, yes this is what I’m trying to get at. First of all, I think your definition of art is good.
To your first point, I would say that I believe instincts, language, culture, knowledge, and conditioning are factors in art. But I believe that they are all limited in possibilities as well. So the manifestation of those limited factors into different art would lead to limited possibilities of art.
Let me try and clarify that by addressing your next points. I agree that genres are not real things. Like all language, it is imperfect labeling for a practical purpose. To simplify the problem even more, lets take out the concept of genre. In the creation of music over time, songs share characteristics (instrumentation, sounds, structures, rhythms, etc), and the common characteristics of music shift and change over human history. Certain songs in a realm of shared characteristics appear to have a period of greater creation of significant works before songs with those characteristics eventually decline in quality. What I’m trying to get at is that it doesn’t matter where you draw the lines for genres to determine whether there are limited possibilities in music as a whole.
The individual factors/characteristics of music are limited and therefore manifest into limited workable combinations (songs).
The article I link to “The Big Niche” is a three minute read and tries to explain the concept in totality if you have the time. I’m enjoying this back and forth.
Thank you for your answer. I reread your article more carefully. I think I can see what you are trying to do, though I am not sure what the utility of it is. I have disagreements based on epistemological and ontological grounds but I would like for start to focus on your example of music as to me it fails to demonstrate, if not contradict, your very point.
As I said in the previous post, there is no real completion of a genre. A completion can only be defined by defining a genre so the reasoning is circular. To give you another example, a huge chunk of modern music such as jazz, blues, rock, pop and the thousands of derivatives like metal, prog rock etc. are all using the same framework that Bach was using so can be conceptualised as being in the same genre. In other words you are creating boundaries by your definition and then offering your boundaries as evidence of completeness. That is not to say that my rebuttal proves that completeness is not possible. Just that the example is not working.
Now, no matter what you do, how much you flex your definition, I can always take you one level of abstraction out until we reach the definition of art I gave you in my previous post. And even further. But If you want, as a start, to focus on art, can you argue completeness from that definition?
If we can agree on that maybe we can debate the core of your argument.
Thanks for taking the time to read the article and continue responding. To progress further, maybe the idea I need to address is distinct points vs gradation.
Would you agree in music that there are limited factors involved in what makes a song? There are probably more than I can name (rhythm, chords, melody, instrumentation, etc), but there is a limit to how many factors are at play. These factors exist in limited distinct manifestations but that have infinite gradation. For example, look at the factor of instruments in an orchestra. There may be infinite gradations of each type of orchestral instrument (in the sound that it makes), but there are not infinite distinct types of instruments. Think about why there are around 24 instruments (I believe) in an orchestra—there are infinite gradations of instruments but a limit to distinct instruments.
The laws and matter of the universe manifests itself into limited distinct factors at play in music, which then manifests into limited distinct songs (those combinations of factors that produce a musical effect on a human being—related to our hearing and mental nature).
Within those possibilities of combinations of musical factors that can be put together and called a song, not all are equal in their effect on a human being. I can play a few chords randomly on the guitar, record the audio, and call it a song. But what separates that recording from The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction”? There are a limited number of distinct songs that we have recorded up until the present that can produce the same level of effect on a human being as “Satisfaction”.
How can there then be an infinite number of distinct songs to create in the future that would have an equal or greater effect on a human being as “Satisfaction”?
Again, I’m not saying that we will stop creating music in the future. Just that at some point there will be a general consensus that our best works are behind us—the idea that “you can’t reinvent the wheel”. We will keep creating songs with infinite gradations, but they won’t be infinitely distinct with as much of an effect on humans as the songs that came before. And while different songs have different levels of effect on different people, there is a non-perfect but non-arbitrary consensus on certain songs or artists having more of an effect than others (the extreme example being my random chords recorded have little effect vs “Satisfaction” having great effect).
As far as the utility of the idea, if we can view the sum of all possibilities as The Big Niche, then we can view all uncompleted possibilities as the remaining problems in the goal of human advancement. This can apply at a personal level to anyone looking to accomplish something great or contribute to human progress. For example, if you were a songwriter looking to make a significant contribution, it would be better to pursue an uncompleted genre (pop, hip hop, electronic, etc) instead of a mostly completed genre (classical, jazz, rock). But it also would apply to science, business, and technology: just like new instruments helped create new genres, a new technology or concept may create a new niche of possibilities in which to further explore in that field. Granted, progress in these fields already progresses in this way at an intuitive level, but it seems like having a stronger grasp of what is happening in human progress at a metaphysical level could only help (and couldn’t hurt).
It also follows that if The Big Niche is the sum of all possibilities, then we could view an Ideal Niche as the interplay of the big niche with human nature—an ideal configuration of all possibilities for human benefit. So the goal of humanity would be to discover all knowledge, and then be able to remake society to find the distinct ideal equilibrium in all things. Like a great song is a distinct point in the niche of music, there is a distinct point in all facets of society as to what the ideal configuration for humans would be.
Would you agree in music that there are limited factors involved in what makes a song?
Not really. There are limited factors if you define ‘song’ in a limited way (see previous post). What if I define a song as ‘the arranging and reproduction of sonic sensory objects perceivable by humans, with the intention of producing an effect on a human being’ ?
There are probably more than I can name (rhythm, chords, melody, instrumentation, etc), but there is a limit to how many factors are at play. These factors exist in limited distinct manifestations but that have infinite gradation. For example, look at the factor of instruments in an orchestra. There may be infinite gradations of each type of orchestral instrument (in the sound that it makes), but there are not infinite distinct types of instruments. Think about why there are around 24 instruments (I believe) in an orchestra—there are infinite gradations of instruments but a limit to distinct instruments.
Why are you choosing to focus on the limited factors (of our own defining) instead of the infinite gradations and permutations? And don’t forget that music is created by the permutations. There are 12 tones in an octave in the western system but music is created, among many other things, by their arrangement in time. It is a completely different thing to play an A and then a C to playing a C and then an A. Also, why are there 24 instruments in an orchestra? Assuming that is true, it would be because people decided they liked the balance and it became a convention. But there is nothing that stops you using any number of instruments as a composer. You could decide that you want a dog in the middle of the orchestra that you have trained to bark when the maestro signs. Cool, now you have a dog concerto (sorry, too much avant garde exposure :P).
The laws and matter of the universe manifests itself into limited distinct factors at play in music, which then manifests into limited distinct songs (those combinations of factors that produce a musical effect on a human being—related to our hearing and mental nature).
Now, here is an, apparently, general statement. I would rephrase as: ‘The laws and matter of the universe allow for sound waves, the permutations of which are experienced by humans through what we could define as ‘songs’ (those combinations of sound waves that produce an effect on a human being)‘. I find this more accurate as I am being descriptive without sneaking in conclusions in my definition. The word ‘limited’ you will have to offer supporting arguments about.
There are a limited number of distinct songs that we have recorded up until the present that can produce the same level of effect on a human being as “Satisfaction”. How can there then be an infinite number of distinct songs to create in the future that would have an equal or greater effect on a human being as “Satisfaction”?
A piece of music is experienced very differently from different people. We actually do not fully understand how it works. There are linguistic components, musical components, social components etc. Could you explain what you mean by ‘effect’?
And while different songs have different levels of effect on different people, there is a non-perfect but non-arbitrary consensus on certain songs or artists having more of an effect than others (the extreme example being my random chords recorded have little effect vs “Satisfaction” having great effect).
Is this really true? This is related to defining ‘effect’ in my previous question. After we do that, we can ask about consensus. It is here where the rabbit hole goes on forever. There are people (I have met them) that would get much more ‘effect’ from your random chords recording than from “Satisfaction”. For them “Satisfaction” draws them towards passivity but randomness excites them as a new sonic stimulus. They might connect this to philosophical schools and derive intellectual satisfaction, or just have a connection to a self-image of ‘avant-garde’ that craves non-convention. This you could argue is pathological but it is undeniable that you would get an ‘effect’ through the arrangement of sound waves. Is this art? Who’s to say. We do not know what art is and that is what you will find in front of you one way or another.
Well it seems that, if I continue, I will end up in an ontological question. It was inevitable wasn’t it? I think I will stop here for now ;)
P.S: Your argument for ‘completeness’ might have been easier if you did not focus on art.
Yes, I think we are stuck at this point. It seems that you are saying that it is self-evident that all relevant factors are unlimited and completely subjective, but from the points I was making I was trying to show why to me it is self-evident that the relevant factors are limited and objective. Just because something can have unlimited gradation, doesn’t mean that something like “instrumentation” or “melody” is indistinct and has no boundaries. And the distinctness is what leads to its perceived limit.
Along the same lines, you are arguing against absolute objectivity in musical appreciation, but that is not what I was asserting. I was arguing that there is an absolute limit to the number of distinct songs with a certain combination of distinct factors, and that because human nature between people has commonalities, there is consensus and similar subjective experience (within a range) of what has a greater enjoyment or emotional effect on listeners (I was using the word effect in reference to your own definition). To argue that art or music is absolutely subjective and indistinct seems the exact opposite of what is self-evident to me. You would also have to deny any shared human nature as to what sounds or songs have an emotional or mental effect on people.
I think those two points are where we truly disagree and won’t get past. Thanks for your input and the back and forth! I enjoyed the conversation.
It seems that you are saying that it is self-evident that all relevant factors are unlimited and completely subjective.
To argue that art or music is absolutely subjective and indistinct seems the exact opposite of what is self-evident to me.
I am not saying that. It is actually a mixture. The human nature part is objective. For example, as far as I can tell the perception of the octave is a human universal in music. But a large part of art, is undeniably subjective. This is easily demonstrated by exploring traditional music and checking studies on different cultures perception of each others music. You can think of the way art functions as linked to the nature / nurture human characteristic.
Thanks for your input and the back and forth! I enjoyed the conversation.
I would argue that you are taking a narrow view of what music is. The fascination with the collection and intellectual understanding of information, as well as an addiction to emotional impact is something that is characteristic of our culture. And of course the music produced by a culture will be a reflection of the mind of its people.
I recommend that you examine carefully the wide variety of functions that music (and art in general) has in traditional cultures. Emotional, medicinal, social, as an aid to memorisation (see the Australian aborigines or vedic chanting), religious and spiritual, war and discipline and the list goes on. It is an extremely complex, and actually not yet understood, subject. In my opinion what you see in mainstream art is the exaggeration of our cultural characteristics mediated by the ability to record, manipulate and reproduce ‘art’ en mass.
Sure, I didn’t mean to take a narrow view of music, just to narrowly examine “newness” in music, which is a different question. I agree that music serves many purposes besides pop consumption of new songs or works. That is something I would want to explore further at some point.
I was aiming to understand the metaphysical question: is there is a limit to newness in music, and if so what does that imply about our universe? Could examining that question give us greater clarity in understanding the limits of other discovery or creation?
I see. It does still feel to me that you are asking a misguided question. I will try to unpack my thought so we can see where we are.
There are two concepts that are part of your question: genre and newness. Before examining these though, let’s give an (inevitably inadequate) definition of art for the purpose of our discussion. Let’s say that art is “the arranging and reproduction of sensory objects perceivable by humans, with the intention of producing an effect on a human being”. This is as general as I can think of at the moment and it is important to point to the fact that the human being and its current state (instincts, language, culture, knowledge, conditioning, etc.) is part of the definition. I would argue that in this definition the permutations of possible artworks are essentially infinite.
But to get a bit closer to what you are trying to explore let’s now carve out a subspace that you call ‘genre’. This is where we are going to find a problem. I was, actually, just having this discussion with a friend of mine that is completing his PhD in Musicology and specifically in Jazz. He came to a point where he got really confused about what ‘Jazz’ means. Is it only trumpet, sax, double bass, piano etc. bebop style jazz? Is it still jazz if you play with electronic or traditional instruments? Is it still Jazz when there is improvisation but no theme melody? What about improvised traditional music of Turkey? You get the point. What is a genre anyway? I offered my opinion on the subject by saying that you are confusing a label with the thing itself. Naming a genre is useful for organising your database and communicating certain characteristics but a genre is not a real thing, it is a communication/organisation tool.
This can then clarify our question on ‘newness’. If you can define a genre in a way that is restricted enough to seem limited then yes, it will be. But you should take care to avoid confusing a limited, artificial concept for the universe itself.
Ok great, yes this is what I’m trying to get at. First of all, I think your definition of art is good.
To your first point, I would say that I believe instincts, language, culture, knowledge, and conditioning are factors in art. But I believe that they are all limited in possibilities as well. So the manifestation of those limited factors into different art would lead to limited possibilities of art.
Let me try and clarify that by addressing your next points. I agree that genres are not real things. Like all language, it is imperfect labeling for a practical purpose. To simplify the problem even more, lets take out the concept of genre. In the creation of music over time, songs share characteristics (instrumentation, sounds, structures, rhythms, etc), and the common characteristics of music shift and change over human history. Certain songs in a realm of shared characteristics appear to have a period of greater creation of significant works before songs with those characteristics eventually decline in quality. What I’m trying to get at is that it doesn’t matter where you draw the lines for genres to determine whether there are limited possibilities in music as a whole.
The individual factors/characteristics of music are limited and therefore manifest into limited workable combinations (songs).
The article I link to “The Big Niche” is a three minute read and tries to explain the concept in totality if you have the time. I’m enjoying this back and forth.
Thank you for your answer. I reread your article more carefully. I think I can see what you are trying to do, though I am not sure what the utility of it is. I have disagreements based on epistemological and ontological grounds but I would like for start to focus on your example of music as to me it fails to demonstrate, if not contradict, your very point.
As I said in the previous post, there is no real completion of a genre. A completion can only be defined by defining a genre so the reasoning is circular. To give you another example, a huge chunk of modern music such as jazz, blues, rock, pop and the thousands of derivatives like metal, prog rock etc. are all using the same framework that Bach was using so can be conceptualised as being in the same genre. In other words you are creating boundaries by your definition and then offering your boundaries as evidence of completeness. That is not to say that my rebuttal proves that completeness is not possible. Just that the example is not working.
Now, no matter what you do, how much you flex your definition, I can always take you one level of abstraction out until we reach the definition of art I gave you in my previous post. And even further. But If you want, as a start, to focus on art, can you argue completeness from that definition?
If we can agree on that maybe we can debate the core of your argument.
Thanks for taking the time to read the article and continue responding. To progress further, maybe the idea I need to address is distinct points vs gradation.
Would you agree in music that there are limited factors involved in what makes a song? There are probably more than I can name (rhythm, chords, melody, instrumentation, etc), but there is a limit to how many factors are at play. These factors exist in limited distinct manifestations but that have infinite gradation. For example, look at the factor of instruments in an orchestra. There may be infinite gradations of each type of orchestral instrument (in the sound that it makes), but there are not infinite distinct types of instruments. Think about why there are around 24 instruments (I believe) in an orchestra—there are infinite gradations of instruments but a limit to distinct instruments.
The laws and matter of the universe manifests itself into limited distinct factors at play in music, which then manifests into limited distinct songs (those combinations of factors that produce a musical effect on a human being—related to our hearing and mental nature).
Within those possibilities of combinations of musical factors that can be put together and called a song, not all are equal in their effect on a human being. I can play a few chords randomly on the guitar, record the audio, and call it a song. But what separates that recording from The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction”? There are a limited number of distinct songs that we have recorded up until the present that can produce the same level of effect on a human being as “Satisfaction”.
How can there then be an infinite number of distinct songs to create in the future that would have an equal or greater effect on a human being as “Satisfaction”?
Again, I’m not saying that we will stop creating music in the future. Just that at some point there will be a general consensus that our best works are behind us—the idea that “you can’t reinvent the wheel”. We will keep creating songs with infinite gradations, but they won’t be infinitely distinct with as much of an effect on humans as the songs that came before. And while different songs have different levels of effect on different people, there is a non-perfect but non-arbitrary consensus on certain songs or artists having more of an effect than others (the extreme example being my random chords recorded have little effect vs “Satisfaction” having great effect).
As far as the utility of the idea, if we can view the sum of all possibilities as The Big Niche, then we can view all uncompleted possibilities as the remaining problems in the goal of human advancement. This can apply at a personal level to anyone looking to accomplish something great or contribute to human progress. For example, if you were a songwriter looking to make a significant contribution, it would be better to pursue an uncompleted genre (pop, hip hop, electronic, etc) instead of a mostly completed genre (classical, jazz, rock). But it also would apply to science, business, and technology: just like new instruments helped create new genres, a new technology or concept may create a new niche of possibilities in which to further explore in that field. Granted, progress in these fields already progresses in this way at an intuitive level, but it seems like having a stronger grasp of what is happening in human progress at a metaphysical level could only help (and couldn’t hurt).
It also follows that if The Big Niche is the sum of all possibilities, then we could view an Ideal Niche as the interplay of the big niche with human nature—an ideal configuration of all possibilities for human benefit. So the goal of humanity would be to discover all knowledge, and then be able to remake society to find the distinct ideal equilibrium in all things. Like a great song is a distinct point in the niche of music, there is a distinct point in all facets of society as to what the ideal configuration for humans would be.
Not really. There are limited factors if you define ‘song’ in a limited way (see previous post). What if I define a song as ‘the arranging and reproduction of sonic sensory objects perceivable by humans, with the intention of producing an effect on a human being’ ?
Why are you choosing to focus on the limited factors (of our own defining) instead of the infinite gradations and permutations? And don’t forget that music is created by the permutations. There are 12 tones in an octave in the western system but music is created, among many other things, by their arrangement in time. It is a completely different thing to play an A and then a C to playing a C and then an A. Also, why are there 24 instruments in an orchestra? Assuming that is true, it would be because people decided they liked the balance and it became a convention. But there is nothing that stops you using any number of instruments as a composer. You could decide that you want a dog in the middle of the orchestra that you have trained to bark when the maestro signs. Cool, now you have a dog concerto (sorry, too much avant garde exposure :P).
Now, here is an, apparently, general statement. I would rephrase as: ‘The laws and matter of the universe allow for sound waves, the permutations of which are experienced by humans through what we could define as ‘songs’ (those combinations of sound waves that produce an effect on a human being)‘. I find this more accurate as I am being descriptive without sneaking in conclusions in my definition. The word ‘limited’ you will have to offer supporting arguments about.
A piece of music is experienced very differently from different people. We actually do not fully understand how it works. There are linguistic components, musical components, social components etc. Could you explain what you mean by ‘effect’?
Is this really true? This is related to defining ‘effect’ in my previous question. After we do that, we can ask about consensus. It is here where the rabbit hole goes on forever. There are people (I have met them) that would get much more ‘effect’ from your random chords recording than from “Satisfaction”. For them “Satisfaction” draws them towards passivity but randomness excites them as a new sonic stimulus. They might connect this to philosophical schools and derive intellectual satisfaction, or just have a connection to a self-image of ‘avant-garde’ that craves non-convention. This you could argue is pathological but it is undeniable that you would get an ‘effect’ through the arrangement of sound waves. Is this art? Who’s to say. We do not know what art is and that is what you will find in front of you one way or another.
Well it seems that, if I continue, I will end up in an ontological question. It was inevitable wasn’t it? I think I will stop here for now ;)
P.S: Your argument for ‘completeness’ might have been easier if you did not focus on art.
Yes, I think we are stuck at this point. It seems that you are saying that it is self-evident that all relevant factors are unlimited and completely subjective, but from the points I was making I was trying to show why to me it is self-evident that the relevant factors are limited and objective. Just because something can have unlimited gradation, doesn’t mean that something like “instrumentation” or “melody” is indistinct and has no boundaries. And the distinctness is what leads to its perceived limit.
Along the same lines, you are arguing against absolute objectivity in musical appreciation, but that is not what I was asserting. I was arguing that there is an absolute limit to the number of distinct songs with a certain combination of distinct factors, and that because human nature between people has commonalities, there is consensus and similar subjective experience (within a range) of what has a greater enjoyment or emotional effect on listeners (I was using the word effect in reference to your own definition). To argue that art or music is absolutely subjective and indistinct seems the exact opposite of what is self-evident to me. You would also have to deny any shared human nature as to what sounds or songs have an emotional or mental effect on people.
I think those two points are where we truly disagree and won’t get past. Thanks for your input and the back and forth! I enjoyed the conversation.
Just to clarify on your last comments:
I am not saying that. It is actually a mixture. The human nature part is objective. For example, as far as I can tell the perception of the octave is a human universal in music. But a large part of art, is undeniably subjective. This is easily demonstrated by exploring traditional music and checking studies on different cultures perception of each others music. You can think of the way art functions as linked to the nature / nurture human characteristic.
Thank you too. It was fun! :)