Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

Ooooo. That old chestnut. If I were to state that absolute truth is false, that is not an absolute truth, that is a logical consequence of the philosophical model I am using. "Absolute truth" is just another philosophical model. When you state that "absolute truth" is "true", what model are you using to draw that conclusion? You use the "absolute truth" model itself, don't you? That's a very basic form of circular argument -- you are saying, absolute truth is true because absolute truth is true. And that's a bit like trying to pick yourself up by your own bootlaces.

For the record, though, I AM NOT saying that absolute truth is false. That is the sort of value judgement that my own particular philosophical model does not make about other philosophical models. Rather, what I say is this: there are an infinite number of possible philosophical models, some of these are more "useful" than others. For the reasons I state in my previous post, "absolute truth" is not a very useful philosophy. (This is not at all the same as saying that absolute truth is absolutely false.)

Call me a post-modernist, if you like.


I once got into a argument over the word "spirituality", only to discover that my definition of spirituality was completely different to the other guy's. So we weren't talking about the same thing at all.

Because we are westerners with a certain affinity to the enlightenment, we do tend to think in absolute terms, and it gets us into all sorts of trouble. These days I am trying to cure myself of this habit. The simple fact is, we can never be 100% certain that any statement we make is "absolutely" true. We can only be reasonably certain. This is what I mean when I say truth is probabilistic.

What a scientist does is attempt to build a philosophical model with a high degree of continuity. So that no matter who uses a scientific theorum, and no matter how many times they use it, it always comes up with roughly the same results. But if you try to extrapolate an "absolute truth" from a scientific model, you will start to run into problems -- not the least of which is that 100 years down the track, scientists might come up with a better model that acheives a higher degree of accuracy and utility.

WJ

Hi Kim!

Sorry for the personal intrusion, but I see that your are a musician too! To that end, and speaking of truth, where does improvisation come from?

Don't mean to take it too far off topic but perhaps the question could come back around to epistemology.

Walrus

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

Well, I can only explain how I approach it. When I'm practicing by myself, I'll often randomly put different notes, chords, rhythms, etc. together, just to see how they sound. Another thing I do a lot is listen to music and try to figure out the little idiosyncratic technical things musicians do. Sometimes I'll take the tiniest little flourish I hear and elaborate it, turn it into a whole technique.

After years of doing these things, I've built up a whole repertoire of little phrases, intervals, chord sequences, and rhythmic things (I love syncopation). When I improvise I draw on this pool of ideas, constructing something new out of these prefabricated bits. But the creative effort of coming up with those bits (which I would never do on stage) comes from elaboration, outright theft, or random mucking around.

How that relates to the nature truth, I don't know. But regarding creativity, I tend to agree with whoever it was that said, "There is no such thing as an original idea; everything's been done." Originality, I find, comes from putting old things together in new ways, and investing it with your own unique attitude.

Just as an aside, I have to say that one of the best experiences I've had on stage so far was an improvisation. I was sitting in this club with a bunch of musicians (some of them really good, too). I'd finished my set piece, but the guy who was supposed to be on after me was late. So we were all there, twiddling our thumbs, with nothing left to play, but with ten minutes to fill up. So I say, "What key?" The guy with the saxophone says "F". We got the drummer to start, then I came in with the bass (I was playing bass that night), and the others just improvised over the top. It was great. We kicked. And it was all just totally spontaneous.

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

Ahem. Sorry. I forgot this thread was supposed to have a topic.

I think that the kind of experiences I have as a musician tend to highlight the fluid nature of "truth". Music theory is a philosophical system related to mathematics (the western musical scale was invented by Pythagoras). Yet within this system, there are a great number of "correct" solutions to any given problem. And each solution contributes to the character and mood of the music overall. So "truth" does not necessarily have to be exclusive. Again, it comes down to the context. In the case of music, it even comes down to the goal you have in mind for a particular song.

WJ

Hi Kim!

Interesting. (What is your main instrument(?), mine is bass-ex music major.) With regard to the distinctions between improv, creativity, ideas, mathematics, I have a few 'brief' thoughts (3) which I'll enumerate for clarity...

1. Which came first, music or theory? Music. someone played it first; then someone figured it out-with minor exception.

2. Is creativity in the form of a subconscious thought that was conceived by say empirically listening to other's music? Perhaps. But would it be manifested and drawn up from the subconscious, as you play it, in the exact same way or form as you originally heard it from your subconscious? Probably not. I think we put our very own uniqueness to it.

3. Too, although you have to wonder whether it is possible that all chord progressions or long passages, solo's, compositions, etc. have already been mathematically played before, there of course, is no way of knowing this. I also doubt that they have all been phrased the same way. Is phrasing itself the same as mathematics? I don't think so.

I think of phrasing as the primacy of spontaneous human sentience finding its [logical] outlet thru the instrument. Apparently, the cognitive science people say that a strange phenomenon of recall occurs in the subconscious mind only when the conscious is 'ready' for this idea, which may actually be completely novel, to enter the logical part of the brain to effect manifestation. Of course that is only partly a theory of creativity.

Nevertheless, I'm thinking there is a 'preferred mental state' that one has to be willing to engage in or be receptive to or freely accepting or has achieved while one is performing in order for this to 'flow' by itself. For instance, have you ever performed and thought that time went by faster than it should have? If you have, then I would say you probably engaged in creativity. Because, (I think) the creative/novel process only occurred when you lost yourself, your self-awareness. We didn't actually have an experience the same way that we could use or draw from and apply to a tune, and so our newness or novelness we expressed made it feel like it didn't happen at all. Time went by without us being aware, as a result. That's kinda how I put it together.

Whether it is kind of a blues or jazz jam like you mentioned you engaged in or a cover tune, creativity, spontaneauty can happen. I suppose in analogy, the computer's limitations are from designer input; the musician's limitations are bit more mysterious as how input and output manifest, and does not appear to be an exact science. But, all possible [musical]combinations apparently exist in the cosmic code, as it were, it is just that our mind's have to somehow discover/uncover them(?). Of course that in itself does not appear logically possible, for one person to do (?).

Thoughts?

Walrus

[ March 28, 2002: Message edited by: WJ ]</p>

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

I play guitar and bass. So far, I haven't been allowed to settle on either one or the other. I always figured that I'd concentrate on bass, because I could get more work that way. But so far, I don't think I've ever been on stage without having played both. When I get up there next Sunday night, I'll still be instrument hopping, so the bass player can sing. I don't have any formal training or qualifications in music, but then, I've been playing for fourteen years, so I know what I'm about.

I think the entire western musical tradition is a pretty big exception. Pythagoras invented scales! Could you imagine western music without them? Nobody thought in terms of scales before Pythagoras, but after he formulated the theory, everyone did. I would say that, in a very real sense, that the theory did come first.

I think you've probably missed what I was saying, so I'll have another go. When we play a set piece, we commit the entire thing to memory and play it back as faithfully as we can. Improvisation is similar, but it works on a different level. We don't memorize entire passages, only those little ideas that we know will work in certain contexts.
I'll give you a couple of examples of the ideas I use on electric bass. When I play a root note on the E string, I know that I can move from there to the fifth on the A string. That's just one of the options open to me. When I'm playing a root note on the A string, I sometimes do this little thing where I hammer on and pull off between that note and the note two frets down. But again, I might choose to do something else, depending on the context.

You build up a whole repertoire of these little bits, and you bring them all out when you sit down to write a new song, or when you improvise. I sometimes play with young people who haven't been going long, and consequently, haven't built up this repertoire of ideas. And I'll tell you, they can't improvise to save themselves. The creative part of improvisation -- the part where you make it unique -- lies entirely in choosing what little ideas you will use and where. And, of course, you only become good at improvising when you have practiced the technique so thoroughly that you can do it subconsciously.

I don't think that every possible combination has been played, and I didn't mean to imply it. What I meant is that we tend to recycle ideas. How many songs are based around that I, IV, V chord progression? Are they all the same? Of course not. Each one is unique, because all of its ideas are combined in a unique way, according to the inclinations and attitude of the songwriter and the performers.

Every piece of music you've ever heard is based around the same twelve notes (13 if you listen to eastern music). But as a system, music tends towards open-endedness. You can vary rhythm, tempo, chords, scales, and melody, so that the number of possible combinations tends towards infinite. But look at each of these components in isolation. Sometimes someone will invent a new rhythm (like Bo Diddley), but just as often, people will go back to the old favorites, time and time again. In fact, I'd say that popular music relies heavily on that kind of familiarity.

Hmm. I hear a lot of this kind of talk from musicians. To be honest, it tends too far towards mysticism for my taste. When it comes to philosophy, I have promised myself never to use phrases like "the primacy of spontaneous human sentience", which I cannot define in a pragmatic way, and which I only vaguely understand. You seem to be saying -- and I'm not quite sure about this -- that people get a false feeling of familiarity with something that's actually new, or something... I don't know. My brain hurts. Could we please not let this discussion devolve into obscurantism?

When it comes to creativity, I favour Edward de Bono's ideas. Not least because he manages to come up with some simple and practical techniques for acheiving it. From memory, Edward de Bono's chief hypothesis is that creativity comes from disrupting familiar patterns of thought.

Well, I would agree that when it comes to art (all art, not just music), that your best efforts will come only after you have memorised the techniques and concepts to the extent that you no longer have to consciously concentrate on them. And in my own case, I will admit that I only really became aware of what I was doing when I took the time to analyse it in depth.

These days I tend to approach music on two distinct levels. The first level is that primal, subconscious thing you talk about, which really works best at the coal face, where you shouldn't be thinking in technical terms, but concentrating on what the other musicians are playing! The other approach is a more theoretical, analytical one, where I deliberately formulate certain theoretical ideas, and practice them until they become habitual and filter through to my subconscious. Its gotten so that I can move from one state of mind to the other as easily as turning on a switch.

Some people find it a bit freaky, the way I can switch into performance mode at will, anywhere and any time. But it's only possible because I'm aware of the difference.

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

Hi Walrus,

I had another look at the parts of your last post I didn't understand the first time around. You seem to be referring to some very complicated theory of subsconscious, with a matching theory of creativity. I'm not a huge fan of shooting vague words around in the dark, so I'll explain the particular notion of subconscious I work from, and how it might relate to music.

In this post I will use the word "script" in the psychological sense, which roughly means, "a fixed and repeatable sequence of behavior."

Okay. Let's say you have a script that runs A-B-C-D. So that when A turns up, you would habitually run through the sequence B-C-D. However, if this script is a sequence of behavior you use quite often, you might begin to skip the intervening steps. So now you have a second script that runs A-D. A-D supercedes A-B-C-D, but the older script still exists -- it doesn't go away. You can still recall A-B-C-D if you think about it, but most of the time you will just use the new script, A-D. A-B-C-D has been relegated to a subconscious state.

Note that the start and ending positions are still the same, we have just dropped the intervening steps. A-D might not make logical sense by itself, and rely on A-B-C-D for its justification. So if you asked someone what they were doing, they might still say A-B-C-D, even though their behavior more closely resembles A-D. The two scripts remain related to each other, it's just that you can do A-D without having to think about the intervening steps. That, I think, is a pretty good description of sub-conscious behavior.

Let's consider a musical example of this notion of subconscious. A possible A-B-C-D script might be:

• You hear a particular progression of chords and rhythm.
• You remember the guitar riff Chuck Berry plays over that progression.
• You figure out how to make your fingers move to produce Chuck Berry's riff.
• You play the riff.

If you do this often enough, you will come up with a new psychological script like this:

• You hear a particular progression of chords and rhythm.
• You play the riff.

Now, every time you want to play that riff, you will do it according to the second script, rather than the first.

Why is this a good thing for music? Well, the first script is longer. If you had to use the first script rather than the second, there would be a short delay of a few hundredths of a second while you went through steps B and C. As a result, your playing would sound more hesitant, and less fluid. An onlooker would probably say you were too self-conscious, and not very spontaneous.

If you want to be a good player, you have to practice to the point where all your scripts are of the sub-conscious A-D variety. As a consequence, we get that well-documented phenomenon, where one seems to get "lost" in the music. I think what that really means, is that we're concentrating on the mood, the music, and the other musicians rather than having to concentrate on the notes we are playing.

WJ

Hi Kim!

I think we should move this to another section because I am finding great delight in reading your views and perceptions about our mutual interest. I'll just briefly comment on some things but first want to get something out of the way. You mentioned the word 'mystical' and that I consequently implied a negative connotation within the context of our discussion. I do think that other words can be used to provide for this explaination or convey [its] meaning and/or provide for a better comfort level. However (and that's a big however , I believe until the mind-body problem is solved and/or adequately explained, we will have to resort to similar words or euphamisims to describe essentially the same phenomenon such as; apparitional, spector, transendence, and so forth. I don't see any logical way out(?)

Also, just for house-keeping purposes, I too am a fan of pragmatics (ie, william james' philosophy and psychology) and so I think we can explore the further reaches of this 'inductive-empirical' approach to this thing we call creativity in the mind.

Anyway, with all due respect to the other poster's, let me just say I find partial agreement to your analysis but remain a bit hesitant to completely agree to all (ie, scales don't make melodic music in themselves; I believe theory is a method of working backwards to make music logical for the masses-music notation, sheetmusic, etc.). Perhaps in this regard, Philosophically/Existentially, truth is indeed Subjectivity!

Would you care if we moved the discussion forward? I would like to consider more implications of your ABCD theorem and other thought processes on creativity (as guided by the empirical sciences and pragmatics).

Let me know. And thanks for your warm replies.

Walrus

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

I assure you, the negativity is all my own. It's just that I'm not an academic, and I have trouble understanding this kind of abstract academic language. I'd much prefer to state the case as simply and concretely as possible.

Oh boy. I've just had the feeling about this conversation, that if it goes on long enough, I'll wind up posting the entire contents of my philosophical treatise to the board.

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

It's probably time to start a new thread. I'll do that now. I'll keep it in the Philosophy forum, though, because I think the general tone of our conversation is still philosophical, and I would like to keep it that way.