I hope this is not considered off-topic, but I’m more interested in the possibility of running out of perceptions.
Can I experience anything just as I did when I was 5 years old? That magical feeling? I think it’s unlikely. Whatever valence remains in music for me is something like how my internal noise and tempo interacts with the symmetry of the music. Positive associations, feelings, experiencing the music (e.g. as a story) aren’t a big part of my music experience anymore. But this is a problem with me, rather than the music, no?
If I require strong stimuli, it’s likely because of impatience and frequent overstimulation. If music doesn’t speak to me it’s because I’m jaded. If genres are too “silly” it’s because I take myself too seriously, basically closing off my perception. Depending on my mental state, the amount of things I can perceive and enjoy differs by a lot, perhaps even by multiple magnitudes.
To answer the post, I don’t think we’re running out just yet. I still have many things on my playlists which are unique. I can’t find anything remotely similar to them nor can I put words on them. I think there’s many more combinations which are just difficult to find. Sort of like how a lot of Game of Life configurations were hidden for many years.
But I’m not overly concerned, since the amount of art should still exceed that which any person can consume in their life time. So from that perspective, we’ll never run out even if humanity manages to map out “art-space” or “perception-space”. As to how big this space is, and whenever it has the same dangers as superstimuli, are questions I will leave to more knowledgeable people.
A category in which you may be able to get more direct questions is in ASMR. There’s a limited amount of triggers, and it should be possible to research how fast the novelty wears off and how preferences change over time. At the same time we could research the hedonic threadmill of sound and ways to migrate the negative effects.
I think that the reason why art is slowing down is because imitation is becoming more popular. The exploration-exploitation ratio is tending towards exploitations for reasons I will attribute to less abundant states of mind in society. It takes a certain amount of good health to experiment and create new things rather than just mindlessly consume.
Definitely interesting ideas about perception and this topic. Also, I’m not overly aware of ASMR but I’ll have to look into that that there’s a limited amount of triggers (and like you said, the hedonic treadmill of how our brain habituates to sound). Thanks for the thoughts!
I hope this is not considered off-topic, but I’m more interested in the possibility of running out of perceptions.
Can I experience anything just as I did when I was 5 years old? That magical feeling? I think it’s unlikely. Whatever valence remains in music for me is something like how my internal noise and tempo interacts with the symmetry of the music. Positive associations, feelings, experiencing the music (e.g. as a story) aren’t a big part of my music experience anymore. But this is a problem with me, rather than the music, no?
If I require strong stimuli, it’s likely because of impatience and frequent overstimulation. If music doesn’t speak to me it’s because I’m jaded. If genres are too “silly” it’s because I take myself too seriously, basically closing off my perception. Depending on my mental state, the amount of things I can perceive and enjoy differs by a lot, perhaps even by multiple magnitudes.
To answer the post, I don’t think we’re running out just yet. I still have many things on my playlists which are unique. I can’t find anything remotely similar to them nor can I put words on them. I think there’s many more combinations which are just difficult to find. Sort of like how a lot of Game of Life configurations were hidden for many years.
But I’m not overly concerned, since the amount of art should still exceed that which any person can consume in their life time. So from that perspective, we’ll never run out even if humanity manages to map out “art-space” or “perception-space”. As to how big this space is, and whenever it has the same dangers as superstimuli, are questions I will leave to more knowledgeable people.
A category in which you may be able to get more direct questions is in ASMR. There’s a limited amount of triggers, and it should be possible to research how fast the novelty wears off and how preferences change over time. At the same time we could research the hedonic threadmill of sound and ways to migrate the negative effects.
I think that the reason why art is slowing down is because imitation is becoming more popular. The exploration-exploitation ratio is tending towards exploitations for reasons I will attribute to less abundant states of mind in society. It takes a certain amount of good health to experiment and create new things rather than just mindlessly consume.
Definitely interesting ideas about perception and this topic. Also, I’m not overly aware of ASMR but I’ll have to look into that that there’s a limited amount of triggers (and like you said, the hedonic treadmill of how our brain habituates to sound). Thanks for the thoughts!