That is: the key point your analogies above miss is the concept of inferential distance. Even if the inferential distance is huge (e.g. learning Russian), that doesn’t make claims of the art’s quality fraudulent.
I don’t see how this comparison holds, since I can read a translation of TBK, and nothing I’ve said implies that not knowing the language it’s written in suffices for any kind of dismissal. Certainly, you can enjoy it more if you learn Russian and read it in the original, but it probably wouldn’t be worth the effort to do so just to enjoy this book (plus some other set) -- yet that’s basically what’s claimed of the top academic music/theology, and I hope you can see how that position is in error.
What’s annoying you, I suspect, is komponisto’s apparent assertion that his chosen favourite music is not only good, but objectively the best music there is, and that the qualia one experiences from this music are the best available from music.
I don’t know if komponisto asserts this, but by selecting one clique’s favored music (which cannot show its superiority in unfakeable tests), academia is saying something like this, and it is that position that I reject.
I don’t see how this comparison holds, since I can read a translation of TBK
OK then, you don’t get that analogy. Do you believe it is possible to learn about a piece of art and understand much better what it’s about where you didn’t before, thus increasing the quality of your subjective experience of it?
(which cannot show its superiority in unfakeable tests)
This phrase reads like a mindboggling category error on the level of this Robin Hanson post. Could you detail what sort of tests you are thinking of, and preferably any past examples? I cannot imagine what you could possibly be thinking of which would actually usefully answer any question about art as far as someone interested in having a superior artistic experience is concerned.
No, I got the analogy just fine—it just didn’t prove what you thought, and my position didn’t imply what you claimed.
Do you believe it is possible to learn about a piece of art and understand much better what it’s about where you didn’t before, thus increasing the quality of your subjective experience of it?
Yes. But when you get to the point where you’re claiming I must first be (in effect) indoctrinated into an insular clique, you’re going way beyond that. Once you start getting to pre-suppose feeding the listener a long cirriculum, it’s no longer sufficient to say, “hey, after that indoctrination, they liked it, so we were right all along!” As I keep saying, you can make anything likeable by this metric! My point is that any such priming of the subject means you have a higher standard to meet: that work needs must then be compared to other entertainment venues that can apply a similar amount of priming—you have to account for opportunity costs, in other words.
You can make me like your dance style after 10 years of indoctrinating me? So what? I can make you like Star Trek after 10 years of indoctrination—but Star Trek doesn’t get entire academic departments devoted to it.
This phrase reads like a mindboggling category error on the level of this Robin Hanson post. Could you detail what sort of tests you are thinking of, and preferably any past examples?
I already gave one—the Joshua Bell experiment. For others, it would be things like, “can people identify which ones academia has designated as ‘good’ without having been told in advance?”
Do you believe it is possible to learn about a piece of art and understand much better what it’s about where you didn’t before, thus increasing the quality of your subjective experience of it?
Yes.
That’s called “inferential distance” as it applies to music; the distance between you before you learnt more about the art and after you learnt more about the art is the inferential distance.
You appeared confused by and dismissive of the concept in music previously. Please go back and see if anything I or komponisto (who thinks quite different things to me, by the way) have said makes any more sense to you now.
But when you get to the point where you’re claiming I must first be (in effect) indoctrinated into an insular clique, you’re going way beyond that. Once you start getting to pre-suppose feeding the listener a long cirriculum, it’s no longer sufficient to say, “hey, after that indoctrination, they liked it, so we were right all along!” As I keep saying, you can make anything likeable by this metric! My point is that any such priming the subject needs must then be compared to other entertainment venues that can apply a similar amount of priming—you have to account for opportunity costs, in other words.
You appear to be claiming I said things that are a bit like things komponisto said (and which I disagreed with).
I already gave one—the Joshua Bell experiment.
You didn’t answer before so evidently I have to ask again: are you seriously asserting that, rather than being a human interest “fish out of water” story, the Washington Post seriously intended it as a scientific test of Joshua Bell’s artistic merits? What?
I don’t see how this comparison holds, since I can read a translation of TBK, and nothing I’ve said implies that not knowing the language it’s written in suffices for any kind of dismissal. Certainly, you can enjoy it more if you learn Russian and read it in the original, but it probably wouldn’t be worth the effort to do so just to enjoy this book (plus some other set) -- yet that’s basically what’s claimed of the top academic music/theology, and I hope you can see how that position is in error.
I don’t know if komponisto asserts this, but by selecting one clique’s favored music (which cannot show its superiority in unfakeable tests), academia is saying something like this, and it is that position that I reject.
OK then, you don’t get that analogy. Do you believe it is possible to learn about a piece of art and understand much better what it’s about where you didn’t before, thus increasing the quality of your subjective experience of it?
This phrase reads like a mindboggling category error on the level of this Robin Hanson post. Could you detail what sort of tests you are thinking of, and preferably any past examples? I cannot imagine what you could possibly be thinking of which would actually usefully answer any question about art as far as someone interested in having a superior artistic experience is concerned.
No, I got the analogy just fine—it just didn’t prove what you thought, and my position didn’t imply what you claimed.
Yes. But when you get to the point where you’re claiming I must first be (in effect) indoctrinated into an insular clique, you’re going way beyond that. Once you start getting to pre-suppose feeding the listener a long cirriculum, it’s no longer sufficient to say, “hey, after that indoctrination, they liked it, so we were right all along!” As I keep saying, you can make anything likeable by this metric! My point is that any such priming of the subject means you have a higher standard to meet: that work needs must then be compared to other entertainment venues that can apply a similar amount of priming—you have to account for opportunity costs, in other words.
You can make me like your dance style after 10 years of indoctrinating me? So what? I can make you like Star Trek after 10 years of indoctrination—but Star Trek doesn’t get entire academic departments devoted to it.
I already gave one—the Joshua Bell experiment. For others, it would be things like, “can people identify which ones academia has designated as ‘good’ without having been told in advance?”
That’s called “inferential distance” as it applies to music; the distance between you before you learnt more about the art and after you learnt more about the art is the inferential distance.
You appeared confused by and dismissive of the concept in music previously. Please go back and see if anything I or komponisto (who thinks quite different things to me, by the way) have said makes any more sense to you now.
Er, I at no stage questioned this, and previously agreed with you in saying so.
You appear to be claiming I said things that are a bit like things komponisto said (and which I disagreed with).
You didn’t answer before so evidently I have to ask again: are you seriously asserting that, rather than being a human interest “fish out of water” story, the Washington Post seriously intended it as a scientific test of Joshua Bell’s artistic merits? What?