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In Reply to: You may have salvaged it... posted by Triode_Kingdom on August 14, 2014 at 08:13:56:
A quick note on intelligence before I reply.If I were, say, roughly twice as intelligent as I am now (e.g., speed, accuracy, and scale of short- and long-term memory, ability to filter, sort, and associate random facts, and general attention and focus) it would be much easier for me to earn a living, I would have more free time to entertain myself, and I would be able to schooze with groups of elite thinkers who are just too smart to be bothered with the likes of me in my current sad state.
When I look at what I write, more often than not I say to myself, "My god! This is pathetic!" That said, I think as a general rule, the smarter a person is, the more likely he is to say, "I am such an idiot!" So, when I encounter a person who is totally assured of himself and what he knows, and unwilling to question his self-assurance, it is an immediate hint to me that maybe he isn't all that bright. All of which gives me some small hope that, in spite of not being a genius, I am at least I'm not hopelessly stupid. And that's important to know, because if I'm hopelessly stupid, then I'm making a fool of myself, and I do have some pride, after all.
Anyway...
Going back to basics, I think this whole argument can be summarized pretty simply. An audiophile seeks to maximize the subjective satisfaction he obtains from the experience of listening to his audio system. He makes certain changes to the system, perceives that his state of internal satisfaction has increased, and proclaims the change to be "good." For many people, like Uncle Stu and Jeff, this is sufficient and as far as the exploration needs to go.
To me, what is an ending point for Stu is really just the starting point of a much more crucial investigation. It demands (but certainly does not "beg," LOL) the question, "How do I know the change in my subjective internal satisfaction is directly attributable to the physical change I made in the audio system, and not to some change, instead, in my sensory apparatus or associated internal cognitive state and sensory processing?"
I mean, the worst possible state of affairs, in my mind, would be to learn, unequivocally, that everything I thought I knew was just a delusion. (Actually, that would be kind of interesting, as it would open up all kinds of hitherto unexpected possibilities. But to most people, such a revelation would be mind-blowingly traumatic.)
Dennett's article looks very closely at theories of how the mind turns sensory stimuli into models of the properties of things. And he exposes just how difficult it is to characterize this process or to draw conclusions about what it means when our perceptions of things change. At the very minimum, we have to concede that what at first seems like a very simple proposition ("I heard a change") is in fact extraordinarily complex.
What is ultimately so disappointing about the Audiophile Debate is how little attention is paid to this glaringly important psychological/philosophical question. How can it be that audiophiles place such stock in this process of listening and evaluating, but have absolutely nothing to say, give no credence whatsoever it seems, to deep introspection on the very nature of hearing?
Though I tend to fall in, of course, with the engineering camp in these arguments, I have to say nothing I learned during my engineering education taught me anything about these questions. So, an appeal to engineering authority doesn't seem convincing. As an engineer, I can evaluate a statement such as, "The magnetic susceptibility of copper is 2.6 times that of silver." I can even, with some difficulty, try to model the effect of a change in the magnetic properties of a conductor on the signal passing through it. But in the end, there is little I can say as an engineer about how that difference in material properties and signal conduction will change the subjective experience of an audiophile listening to his stereo system. This is the domain of psychology and philosophy.
In my old age, I've become far too lazy and senile to make a serious attempt at penetrating this question. I'm pretty sure nobody gives a flying fuck even about the contents of this posting. They're certainly not going to read a hundred-page treatise on the subject, even if I were qualified to write such a thing. So, let's just concede that this is all mental masturbation, and leave it at that.
Still, there is a point to be made. Each of us possesses, within our skulls, a data acquisition, signal processing, and general computing engine of extraordinary capability. (Some of us are more capable than others, ha, ha.) Every time we perform a listening test, the least complex part of the experiment, by far, is the stereo system. Really, what we are doing is experimenting on our own minds.
It seems to me, therefore, that anyone who claims to be serious about hi-fi needs to be thinking hard about the kinds of questions Dennett is asking. As I've said several times in different ways already, to dismiss the question is to concede the argument before it even begins.
Contrary to what Uncle Stu suggested, I am not remiss by virtue of having "given up." What I have actually done is progressed up, through, and beyond the limits of conventional audiophile thinking. In my view, it's actually people like Uncle Stu who have gotten off the escalator on the second floor. What he describes with evident pride and self-satisfaction as the "never ending quest for perfection is the capture of the nuance and the subtlety," I see as wandering aimlessly around the women's underwear section looking for cooking utensils.
So the obvious question in response to all of this is, "So are you going to put your money where your mouth is and actually throw yourself into bona-fide exploration of the philosophy of audio?" And the answer is no. I have my piano, and my motorcycle, and a slew of other diversions, and I'm content to remain a pathetic dabbler-hack with my existing audio components and my pseudo-philosophical musings. But at least I think I'm realistic about it, and about the limits of my own intelligence.
In a wholly related note, after seven months and $9000 spent, I completed rebuilding my 1988 BMW motorcycle on Saturday. Please listen to the linked video for an audio taste of what a BMW 1000cc boxer twin sounds like when you lose a mis-installed wrist pin circlip after only twenty miles on a new rebuild.
-Henry
Edits: 08/14/14
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- RE: You may have salvaged it... - op48no1 10:44:15 08/14/14 (0)
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