This started out as a reply to Michael's post about the evolution of duality but I decided to start my own thread as I find myself wanting to share my philosophical diarrhea all the time and this weblog listens so well!

To those who have not, I suggest introducing yourself to Robert Persig's meta physics of Quality.  It is the underlying theme of his book The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance“ Its poorly named (the book and the philosophy, I think), but it is designed to remove the duality of common subjective/objective metaphysics. 

We often create classifications to describe things and then suddenly out pops an exception.  Why is it an exception?  Because it does not follow the rules of logical reality?  NO!  because our rules are flawed.  Consider mammal, reptile, bird, fish...  Classification of these groups were defined from existing scientific knowledge of creatures in our Earthly world.  Then came the Platypus!  It lays eggs yet is covered with fur, has a beak, secretes poison, has an electro-receptor system for detecting prey...  what is this?  is it an exception?  is it a class all by itself? Truly, it is just a collection of qualities that make up the animal.  The meta-physics of quality suggests that "Quality" precludes everything else. 

Quality not just as a property of something (like the quality of being purple) but a measurable value which serves to both define and drive something (like the quality of being happy).  Quality drives evolution.  The value of being in a place with lots of light drives plants to evolve taller.  Gravity drives things to be short and close to the ground.  The quality of being tall outbids the quality of being pulled by gravity.  This allows classifications to be broken down and redefined more easily.

Light and Dark are the same thing.  They are quantities of light from much to none.  Black and White are values of shade quality from much shading to little or no shading and are really the quality of interpreting reflected light. Good and evil can be described and multiple qualities of wickedness and wholesomeness but there are so many more properties that make up what is evil and what is good that we group them such.  In fact, this falls into the "subjective" category (is ambition good or evil?) but then we find universal truths that can be listed as "objective" (murderous is evil) and this explains our failure when approaching the study of some interest because nothing truly falls entirely into one category or the other.  Even math begins to behave in strange ways in certain instances.  We call these anomalies, irregularities.  There is always that realm of unknown is any topic and when new knowledge does not follow old dogmas we either call it a Platypus or change our formulas to support it.  Democrat and Republican are a perfect example of illogical classifications.  We have become so immersed in this duality that we fail to serve the majority of people who have nothing personal to gain from an election.  We introduce the Platypuses of the Green party and the Christian Slangiest party but the truth is that we should just drop this party nonsense and vote on the qualities that we admire and share.  More people would vote if they had something to stand up for.  But to stand up against the most offensive party is like taking a punch from the weakest bully, what's the point? 

Allowing yourself to break free from the confines of your previously formed classifications and predispositions is a great way to find inspiration.  Language is one of those limiting structures.  Consider that American English has hundreds of words for money but only one word for love!  In fact you say, "I love my wife," and , "I love this commercial" the same way.  The Italians and French have many words for love but they don't generate the kind of gross national product that America does...  Alot to consider.   I mumble when I play the guitar while writing a song.  Before there are words to the song I try to let the emotion of the melody become something.  I have been told by other musicians that they “liked what I was saying in that first verse”.  The funny thing is that I wasn't saying anything.  It sounded like something to them and they made it fit the emotion of what they were hearing.  Because there was no rigid language structure there, their brains filled in the gaps and out came something else.  Or perhaps I was saying something and didn't know it!  But then my brain was doing the same thing.  That's the funny thing about brains.  When you take the cage off, it can do the most amazing things.  Clear the clutter first, then begin your dance. 

Begin with Quality.  Never begin with rules.  Apply the rules as they are appropriate and necessary.  When the rules work, use them to help make things consistent.  Every once in a while, even if just as an exercise, remove the rules and see if what comes out looks like a big, incoherent mess or if, by some subconscious, innate genius, a pattern emerges.

 

As expected, I'm running into more and more online related to my new obsession.

I'll expand after I've read the article!

http://alpha01.dm.unito.it/personalpages/cerruti/musicafutura.html

This will be an ongoing blogscussion. I have recently been granted the opportunity to study a subject of intense interest and riveting, even scary, possibilities. I have dual careers: Musician and Software Engineer. Some might say that the former is a hobby but I take it too seriously to be a hobby (though recently have learned to take myself much less seriously). You might call it a dream but this subject consumes me, defines me, drives me and makes me who I am. I am husband and father, musician, man and programmer/geek, in that order. I identify more with my artistic expressive character than I do with just about anything. In fact, I entered the professional computer world with the intention of using it as a stepping-stone to a career in music. I will not elaborate on this topic here, other than to say, “Keep your sites set on your ultimate destination no matter how far you get blown off course. Eventually, all paths lead to the same place.”

For my birthday, my wife searched and found “The Shillinger System of Musical Composition” by Joseph Shillinger. Two volumes weighing in at 900 pages each is an ominous avocation. It will be a labor of love.

What is it? The two volumes encompass a theory of music from a mathematical perspective and describe the general mechanics of music removed from traditional notation and rules of western music. It creates a visual, geometric approach to music that provides a model from which we can more easily architect a musical score. As opposed to rules from which we are restricted, this system is founded on opportunities and choices, distinguishable paths, which are revealed as we begin a musical voyage in the form of a song. It begins with rhythm on a macro and micro scale. The sounding of a note and the harmony or dissonance of chords is defined as the zooming out of a rhythm or polyrhythm. This concept has always intrigued me and I have been dancing around this theory on my own without grasping what it could mean. I was drug into the biology of the inner ear and physics of it and failed to grasp any useful meaning because music was encrypted within the complicated bounds of traditional music theory.  What I know of Joseph Shillinger is only what I've found online.  Here are some resources:

Harry Lyden on Shillinger

the Muse's Muse Messageboard - Yukon's topic on Shillinger << particulary good discussion with the usual banter

Some infor from Berklee

a sizeable PhD in music thesis by Jeremy Arden (pdf)

Music is not a mystical sorcery that stems from some ancient undiscovered, magical organ. It is a concrete part of human psychology and sociology that all humans share. It came from somewhere. Perhaps its evolutionary path split from speech out of early language as some theorize. It is certainly the most powerful way to express emotion between people. Sometimes you can decipher a complicated system by working back to its source. We can’t do that with music because we have no source, there are no early recordings. There is no record of what music sounded like 6000 years ago. We have to start with today, and today is very evolved, very powerful and very deep. 1800 pages may be a good start.

Some complain that using a system will remove the creative element from an artist. Using software is even worse. What if I can write these systems into a software product? My goodness gracious, holy f~@%ing s#!t! Could computers write music? What would happen to the world? First of all, computers tell them what you instruct them to do. If you program a system into some software, this instructs the computer to do something specific with an expected input. A human will still drive the racecar! Consider animation. Fifty years ago we were enthralled with moving pictures! No longer were artists confined to still images but now they could create scenes that changed in time. On one hand we had the ability to record reality as we constructed it (Hollywood) and on the other we had the ability to draw fantasy and make it move as if it were real (animation). Then came computers. Now we could not only create more realistic pictures faster, we could let the animation software do much of the drawing for us. An animator creates shapes in three dimensions and tells the software where to move it. She tells the software where the light is coming from and what the texture of the surfaces are and then executes the render command and lets the computer take over. When it is finished, a very realistic fantasy has become visually realistic. She can tweak and finesse the details and even combine it with real filmed events and suddenly we arrive at today. Would anyone argue that movies have destroyed the visual artist or that computers have killed the painter? No artistic freedom has been damaged by the introduction of software that draws for us! It has been enhanced, expanded and liberated! If I had known where animation was going when I was in high school, I’d be an animator today! Instead, I program computers for a living. …but recently I discovered a mathematic-based system for composing music and what do you think is spinning in the back of my head. Other than a thousand unfinished songs, a spark of an idea is flickering to life.

It will take a long time to finish these books. I will be taking my time and enjoying the trip. I will try to share regularly what I discover and learn. This is truly a liberating possibility. Sometimes a stepping-stone constitutes a very long journey.

Michael posted a blog about Netflix being a sham.  He has observed movies taking longer and longer and the service degrading as time went on.  He also made a comment about “tenure” having something to do with your place in line.  I thought I'd pass everyone on to a very scientific study that someone did on Netflix and revealed exactly what Michael observed but contradicts the concept of tenure having anything to do with your Netflix profile.

http://dvd-rent-test.dreamhost.com/

First, this is an exhaustive analysis of a distributed Netflix experience.  The author did an excellent job of validating his theories and hypothesis. 

My Netflix perspective is this:  Blockbuster sucks on big hairy donkey knob.  Their business model is based on ripping off their clients and taking advantage of human psychology.  If people did not forget to return movies and end up paying more than the movies are worth in late fees, they would not survive.  It is by virtue of peoples shortcomings that they are profitable.  It is more likely that someone will forget about a movies after two days then it is that they will remember to bring it back, hence, the four day rental.  Additionally, Blockbuster has a negative affect on the quality and selection of movies being produced because they only carry block busters and not less marketed, independent films.  Bottom line, I save alot of money by using Netflix, even if I onl rent three movies per month, because we can keep them as long as it take us to get around to returning them.  In fact, that's what they are hoping for.  Netflix makes less money each time you rent a movie in a month. 

Check out that above link.  Consider the alternatives and make an informed, a rediculously informed, decision.  This person, the author of the Netflox analysis, clearly has too much time on his hands.  However, I sure am glad he does because it makes an entertaining and interesting read. 

 

 

Dr Atkins has as much business telling a person how to lose weght and be healthy as Scott Weiland has telling you how to stay clean!

A childhood story inpired by a post by Michael Earls