Home Critic's Corner

Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry.

[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ Critic's Corner ]
[ Alert Moderator ]

RE: The answer seems obvious, no?

Please read all and carefully before replying if anyone wishes to reply.


>>So your position is that everything gets equal consideration?<<

For me, personally, only the most likely untested candidates get higher consideration for test. The others should be stated: "I personally feel it does have enough plausibility at this time to spend time with while others have higher plausibility and thus higher priority. It remains on the back burner, perhaps not in my lifetime." This is how a professional engineer or scientist ought to state his prior judgment on it.

>>If I declare the sound quality of my system improved when my neighbor five houses away installed a new gas stove in their kitchen, Stereophile is to start testing immediately?<<

No. That is why it should be stated in a way like above if a cause-effect relationship appears highly unlikely. IOW, same answer as the one above.

>>Sounds like your playbook contains no chapter for reductio ad absurdum. Guess mine's a different edition.<<

What's absurd is that by quantum physics, the theory states that for an instance you could be on the moon and then back here even though you're not a subatomic particle. You have an overstatement with high judgment, not even "just let someone else do it, I am not interested". All you know about it goes straight back in line to the first question answered above.

And I have put a lot of things on the backburner as I am far more interested in establishing some cause-effect relationship for what things I can't avoid feeling I hear something happening, or I have a physical known measured effect and many observed effects with anecdotes that might actually correlate, and it seems too much to just ignore it blindly both right away. Amazingly, as Einstein and Heisenberg showed, the absurd may be true. The flash of genius is in proving something absurd is true. There's no genius in not finding it and especially none in not imagining it. It's just lack of doing effort.

But not looking into the weird claims is certainly not giving up on life. It's just a choice to test it or not. When not choosing to test something in a review, the honest reviewer or editor will clearly make his personal disclaimer in a simple factual statement. We, like H-A, cannot feel the claims for this are plausible in any manner significant and therefore will not be reviewing it. Then the scientist/reviewer with his editor has shown he knows what he is doing, it's a decision he will not test nor review the item by his pre-judgment, plain and simple. That is then all there is to write about it and there should never be words of controversy over it. To be polite, it might be nice to add, "but someone else may want to test it." Otherwise, a sense of arrogance permeates.

There are not enough people on Earth to test every possible hypothesis and gizmo presented every day.

People will say sometimes, "well I don't need to jump out the window of a high-rise to know I won't live to tell about it." And say that is equivalent to a knowing about a highly unlikely claim. Not at all. Deaths from falling is common knowledge just by it happening already to other people. It has been tested already.

The "it's absurd to believe by common sense" argument falls flat as so much already tested absurdities were indeed realities. The unknown is just unknown, and many we will judge a priori as a very unlikely cause-effect possibility. Such is life. We need to do that all the time in real time to increase our odds of survival. But we don't know a stove is too hot to touch and how hot is it, until it gets tested somehow by ourselves or proof by seeing an actual other person's experience that we see for ourselves, or just believe in the "common knowledge education" by statement taken alone.

Summing up, there's different levels of knowing, believing, and not believing, for every individual. The willingness to do what someone else says - "test it for me" needs a real explanation for why or why not it will be done. Guessing no effect is not good enough for publication except to just state it's a bowing out.


-Kurt


This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Kimber Kable  

Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups
  • RE: The answer seems obvious, no? - kurt s 06:39:10 02/16/11 (0)
FAQ

Post a Message!

 Forgot Password?
Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
  Remember my Moniker & Password  (What's this?)    Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:
Message:   (Posts are subject to Content Rules)
Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:  Automagically notify you when someone responds.

[ Top Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]