kp@uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) (03/16/90)
(Now that the subject of music has come up in comp.ai, I'm not really sure what to do with it! So I'm cross-posting and suggesting followups to rec.music.classical. I hope this is the right thing to do...) In article <14431@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) writes: >In article <b1UF028Q90Pd01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> kp@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) writes: > >;. . . Husserl's >;distinction between "hyletic" ... and "transcendental" phenomenology >; seems to be absent {from Handel's description of variations of sound} > >Maybe not, because Handel is consistent in noting that the signal enables >perception without forcing it, . . . This is a good point, and well put. It seems to me that even when we consider the listener as embodied, and causally impinged upon by signals, it is *still* the case that the signal does no more than enable perception - assuming that perception involves such events as recognition or individuation. The mind actively applies itself to these processes, in my view. >;Husserl must avoid any claims to be discussing matter, so that his method >;of description can avoid empiricist criticism. I think he is right to >;attempt this, and I think he achieves some success. But I think that >;both AI and aesthetics will lose valuable tools if Husserl is followed >;to closely. By no means would I advocate a "stimulus-response" theory... > >. . . the problem here has to do ... with the fact that physical signals >are perceptually articulated in ways that gives evidence of a proliferation >of temporal representations. Not uniquely or invariably represented in such >and such a way, especially at the level of "music appreciation." Since I failed miserably to distinguish successfully between acoustic and psychoacoustic vocabulary before, let me try to make the point I had in mind again now. The acoustic waveform reaching the ear from an instrument is certainly quite complex and richly structured, even when described strictly within a physical vocabulary of frequency, amplitude, and superposition. One topic to consider is the variety and structure of the experience of listening. Another topic to consider is the relation of the various possible experiences of listening to the signals which enable them. A third topic is the nature of the material processes of signals, listening, and experience. Work on AI (if it intends to illuminate or reproduce the experience of music) must attend to all three of these topics. The first topic is clearly within Husserl's area of interest, and the second topic is perhaps on the border between "transcendental" and "existential" phenomenology. The non-uniqueness of representations may be the most interesting part of hyletic and existential phenomenology. Langer's approach to symbols and representation interests me precisely because it may be able to avoid the specificity of semantic theories of meaning. >;But I would suggest that the concept of time cannot be analyzed without >;reference to the physics of time. > >But without a phemomenology of time no physical analysis is possible. I'm not sure I understand this. Certainly the physicists have produced a very interesting analysis of time, which seems to me to be adequate for the description of natural processes. If you mean that physics is more dependent on phenomenology than most physicists often admit, then I would probably agree. However, the inscribed graduations on most measuring devices suggest to me that natural science is more dependent on *texts* than on perceptions. >;> . . Unfortunately, most people who "do" music theory have little to say >;>about these dynamic processes . . . >; >;... Susanne Langer...from "Feeling and Form" (1952): >; >; "The tonal structures we call "music" bear a close logical >; similarity to the forms of human feeling ... forms of growth >; and of attenuation ... speed, arrest ... vitally felt. ... >; the pattern, or logical form, of sentience; ... the pattern of >; music is that same form worked out in pure, measured sound and >; silence. > >As I've observed elsewhere, making statements of this sort presupposes >a capacity to evaluate pure abstract forms of emotion or whatever without >reference to personal experience -- something of a feat, I would say. This is confusing to me also. Langer is very serious about the "vitally felt" in this passage. She does not fall into the trap of supposing that emotions are "presented" to the mind or to experience. Emotions (and thoughts) are part of experience - not representations, and not represented. This is a subtle and controversial point, but very important. (I would request that we defer further discussion of representation until some agreement on abstraction is acheived) I brought Langer into the discussion partly to establish that there are music theorists who address dynamic processes outside the tradition of Husserl, and (mostly) to show how an idea which originated in music theory can be instructively applied to a difficult problem in computation - the relation of algorithms to hardware. >. . . Langer >follows Wagner in thinking that music is a "logical" (ie, cognitively >idealized) form of emotion, a translation of idealized experience into >sound. The musician (ie, Wagner) is priviledged with access to these >idealizations so that they can be translated into music. . . . This is not an accurate characterization of Langer's view. She does not say that music is a form of emotion, but rather that music and emotion have the same form. Neither music nor emotion are idealized - both are quite concrete. (I am not really competent to discuss music theory, so I can't promise to maintain whatever coherence I have on the topic much further. I've segregated some material which is closer to AI concerns in a separate article) > >--eliot handelman >princeton u., music Thank you, Eliot, for your comments and corrections. Ken Presting
smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) (03/17/90)
Like Ken, I am no longer sure just where this discussion belongs. However, in spite of the digression into music, I would like to continue to dwell on the theme (pun intended) of the perception and comprehension (whatever that may mean) of the dynamics of processes. Consequently, I would like to try to maintain this on comp.ai. I do not think the cross-posting to rec.music.classical will be of much help unless this whole debate spins off into aesthetics, music criticism, or music theory. I shall leave it on for now; but if we can hold to the line of the process question, it probably should go away. Now to the matters at hand . . . In article <7bnM02KL92Qo01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> kp@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) writes: > >In article <14431@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot >Handelman) writes: >>In article <b1UF028Q90Pd01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> kp@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com >>(Ken Presting) writes: >> >>;But I would suggest that the concept of time cannot be analyzed without >>;reference to the physics of time. >> >>But without a phemomenology of time no physical analysis is possible. > >I'm not sure I understand this. Certainly the physicists have produced >a very interesting analysis of time, which seems to me to be adequate for >the description of natural processes. If you mean that physics is more >dependent on phenomenology than most physicists often admit, then I would >probably agree. However, the inscribed graduations on most measuring >devices suggest to me that natural science is more dependent on *texts* >than on perceptions. > I would be prepared to argue that some of those texts may run the risk of being abstractions which were imposed in an effort to dodge critical questions of phenomenology. Where physical analysis has made its progress seems to be in the question of the perception of the passage of time. Thus, physics can bring insight to those very tricky questions about relationships between the passage of time, clocks which measure units of time, and observers of clocks. However, there is only part of the story about time; and it seems that Husserl's THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF INTERNAL TIME-CONSCIOUSNESS comes into the picture when we recognize that there is more story to tell. Where physics has not yet provided adequate analysis, to the best of my knowledge, is in the relationship that time plays in the GENERAL perception of phenomena. This is where the issues of experience which were nicely summarized by Ken being to rear their collective heads. However, while Ken wanted to relate experience simply to listening, I suspect he would agree that it is a factor in ANY form of sensory perception (including, for better or worse, our perceptions of any of the measuring devices provided us by physics). The reason I brought music in in the first place was that it seemed like a valuable metaphor. We began by debating the question of how we perceive the behavior of an array of cellular automata, such as the R-pentomino problem. I could have invoked the perception of traces in a cloud chamber for another metaphor; but music seemed particularly challenging because it involves the relationship between perception and the passage of time, it has to deal with a variety of different "levels" of the passage of time, and we all have some basic intuitions about the relationship between what we perceive and what we have previously experienced. All this began as a "modest" proposal that we may be able to approach the dynamics of complex systems on similar grounds, be they cellular automata or strange attractors. Why invoke the metaphor of music in the first place? The primary reason is that we have a base of experience when it comes to the problem of developing techniques for describing music. On the one hand, we have no end of notations: scores, figured bass notations, Roman numerals, Schenker graphs, and probably some new notation being cooked up by a desperate graduate student even as I write this. The problem is that most of these notations feed off of themselves. Roman numerals tell you how to label configurations of notes with respect to a terminology of chords, but that does not imply that they will tell you anything about what those chords actually SOUND LIKE. I think the word "like" is important here because of the experience connection: we hear in relation to what we have heard. On the other hand, if we put aside all the notational games which keep the academic types busy, we discover that there are other attempts at description which tend to dwell more on what we can express in natural language. Here we are more likely to encounters descriptions which have to do with what is HEARD. We find them in liner notes, and we read them in the better reviews by music critics. There has been recent recognition that phenomenology plays a role in that is being communicated by such means. Two music theorists who have broken considerable ground in this area are the late Thomas Clifton (who wrote a book entitled MUSIC AS HEARD) and David Lewin (in "Music Theory, Phenomenology, and Modes of Perception," which I believe I have already cited). All I am arguing is that such an approach to music leads us in a direction of getting a better handle on the description of dynamic processes. To sum up: I think that trying to approach music strictly in terms of its notation is a bit like Ken's suggestion that we understand cellular automata in terms of the state definitions of the automata themselves. Yes, that tells us about what is going on; but it does not tell us how we PERCEIVE what is going on. Such perceptions are the basis for abstractions we form which we then engage in our reasoning. Thus, if we have a better handle on the abstractions which facilitate our describing the experience of listening to a performance of music, those abstractions may also apply to our perception of the behavior of the R-pentomino. As a post script, I shall acknowledge that I have kept emotion out of this discussion. This is not to deny the role which emotion plays in listening to music. As I say, I am interested in finding appropriate abstractions. However, it may very well be the case that we CANNOT abstract the role of emotions out of an attempt to describe what goes on in the course of musical perception. If that is the case, then the metaphor I have been trying to construct may fall apart entirely. ========================================================================= USPS: Stephen Smoliar USC Information Sciences Institute 4676 Admiralty Way Suite 1001 Marina del Rey, California 90292-6695 Internet: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu "Only a schoolteacher innocent of how literature is made could have written such a line."--Gore Vidal