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Re: Still waiting...


In a separate reply, I will give some of the anomalies you are requesting from within the world of audio.

My brief reply, to an earlier posting of yours, (link below) was in exasperation because, contrary to what you said, I felt you were NOT grasping what I was trying to convey. In my struggle to convey my thoughts I wanted to point out that we (human beings) had never acquired the ability to 'deal with' (modern) electromagnetism and, I might add, plastics (different mixes of chemicals), man made materials etc - all things now common in the modern environment. You are quite right, these things have only been with us just over a hundred years ( plastics - different mixes of chemicals - only since around the 1920s). What YOU suggest is that because electromagnetism had never been a threat earlier in evolution, therefore we (human beings) do not now see it as a threat (as danger). Whereas my concept is that if we have (such as) a pulsing energy (caused by such as the modern level of electromagnetism), present in the environment, we therefore do not know how to 'deal with' it, therefore we cannot 'sign off' the environment as safe !! THIS is the crucial part of my concept. That we cannot 'sign off' our environment as 'safe'. And, because Nature dictates that if we (and the earliest of creatures) cannot 'sign off' the environment as 'safe', then we (they) must remain under tension. My use of a 'snake' as a quick illustration was, obviously, way out of your thought process because you ended up asking "Are we seeing the cable as a snake" i.e (using sight), whereas I am, most of the time, referring to a time in evolution when there were none of the senses as we know them. And, yet, the earliest of creatures could 'read/sense' their environment without these senses. So, Nature had some tricks up her sleeve !!!
So, how did Nature perform such tricks? How did Nature get the early creatures to sense their environment ? How did Nature get the early creatures to communicate with each other, both to communicate "Watch out there's danger about" and also to communicate "It's OK, you can relax, the danger has gone away" ? And to do this long before the senses as we know them evolved !! For the early creatures to be able to communicate, they had to have both some form of transmitter and some form of receptor - so what did Nature use ?
What WAS available within creatures was chemical concentrations and dilutions !! Is this how the early creatures communicated - by regulating their own chemicals and being receptive to other's chemical changes ?
To give one example. It is known that tobacco plants communicate - that when a tobacco plant is affected by the tobacco leaf virus, it can communicate to other (healthy) tobacco plants - to warn them ??? They cannot communicate by sight, nor by sound, nor by touch, nor by smell, nor by taste - so how do they do it ?
How does a shoal of fish turn 'as one'. instantaneously ? It cannot be by sound - by leader fish shouting "Turn left" or "Turn right" because by the time this (sound) instruction reached the fish at the back, it would be too late for them !!! It cannot be by leader fish using sight - by using semaphore signals - because by the time this instruction reached the fish at the back, it would be too late for them !! Ditto touch, taste, smell !!! And so on - and on.

You asked "Why is (my example) a 'snake' on cable risers less threatening?" I used that as a way of trying to illustrate how there are degrees of 'tension'. That even though we are not 'programmed' to deal with electromagnetism (pulsing energy) as a threat, we are still attempting, somehow, to 'deal with it' by asking ourselves "What is that pulsing energy doing in our environment ?" That if you were then INTERPRETING the pulsing energy as "Watch out there's a Lion about", then you would react as though your life would be in danger - it is not what we SEE but HOW we are INTERPRETING what we sense !! Now, if we INTERPRET the pulsing energy as "Watch out there's a hedgehog about." Then the only thing in danger would be that our stash of food could be eaten. Therefore our life would not be in danger, we would be under slightly less tension, therefore we would (feel !!) more relaxed - creating less stress chemicals !!
What I was trying to point out is that it does not take much to change the energy pattern(s) to one(s) where we feel slightly less tension, therefore produce slightly less stress chemicals.

You would be amazed Jim, at just what SMALL things can be done which can change our perception of our environment and which, in turn, can create a more 'reassuring' atmosphere which, in turn, allows a lessening of 'tension' which, in turn, can change the way our working memory constructs a 'sound picture'. What YOU and many other hundreds if not thousands of people have been doing, without realising it !!! Yes, you have heard changes in your sound but you have been struggling, stretching, bending, pushing, shoving conventional theories to try to find some sort of explanation - as to why what you had observed could possibly have affected the audio signal going through the system or could possibly have affected the acoustic air pressure waves in the room !!

The problem, Jim, in debating different understandings of a concept is that that is where it stays - a disagreement in understanding - rather than an attempt to find an explanation for people's observations !! To my knowledge, for decades, people have been describing changes to their sound which they have not been able to explain from within conventional electronic and acoustic theories. THIS is the problem we have to try to solve, THIS is what we have to struggle to try to explain, and constantly dismissing their experiences down to "suggestion, the placebo effect, imagination, mood changes, audio faith healing or effective marketing" in no way addresses the problem. This dismissing of people's experiences denies them their intelligence - intelligence to be able to think about and then make a judgement as to whether what they had heard could be "Suggestion etc. Etc. Etc.".

To return to the early creatures and their reading/sensing of their environment. Were they 'sensing' chemical changes ? Different changes in chemical dilutions and concentrations giving 'danger' signals or giving 'reassuring' signals ? Could this be how Peter and I could sense a 'stress' chemical which, in turn, caused such a deterioration in the sound and then sense a 'reassuring' chemical which, in turn, gave such a unbelievable improvement in the sound ?
Regards,
May Belt.

It's simpler than that. - Jim Austin - March 14th 2007.


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