Religious music does weird things to me

[Jules Troy]

As well co enzyme Q10 and L-Carnitine.

[jts]

How is a deficiency of coQ10 possible when

1. It is abundant in any half decent diet.

2. The body makes it.

One way is drugs. Drugs can cause a deficiency of coQ10.

[Jules Troy]

It works synergistically with L-Carnitine....

[anthony]

That's insightful, but do you wonder 'why'?

There is no split between mind and emotions - unless one makes it so.

Indeed, Tony.

People are only primitive creatures of feelings until they make the conscious choice to become a being of thought, or even of Conscience.

Case in point, if one consciously places high value in what's overtly and clearly "ugly", one's emotions accurately follow suit and will be destructive.

I believe that low grade choice could only be made made unconsciously.

Greg, a better explanation you might not be familiar with in The Virtue of Selfishness, from which this comes:

"Man has no choice about his capacity to feel that something is good for him or evil, but WHAT he will consider good or evil, what he will love or hate, desire or fear, depends on his standard of value.

I'd take her statement even further. The "feeling that something is good for him or evil" cannot be trusted.

"If he chooses irrational values, he switches his emotional mechanism from the role of his guardian to the role of his destroyer.The irrational is the impossible; it is that which contradicts the facts of reality; facts cannot be altered by a wish, but they can destroy the wisher."

That's simply beautiful. She acknowledges the truth that emotions are not an end in themselves, but serve something greater than themselves... values... which can be good or evil, as freely determined by the wish of the wisher.

The irrational, for Rand then, is not the emotional (or vice-versa) - it's the impossible or unreal.

Yes. Subjective emotions can be highly rational... when they serve rationality.

And again the emotional is not 'subjective' - unless you made it so.

While the functional end results can be the same... I have a different view concerning my relationship to objectivity. I see myself as a wholly subjective being. I can never be objective... not by subjective thought... not by subjective emotion. However, I can choose to subjectively agree with objectivity in thought and emotion...

...and as a result of that choice, act in harmony with it.

Greg

The feeling is to be trusted, IF we're talking of emotions, the "barometer" and "guardian" of the status of our recent thought and actions. Perhaps I misunderstand, and that you mean 'whims' or instinctive desires. Allowing emotion to be the standard of evaluation - acting by emotions - of course, that's never to be trusted.

In your arguments here, I see you recognize the connect between value and morality, and agree. Leaving aside our differences of which morality, and why and how it must come about.

Because, any value should be based ultimately on what is pro-life as a whole - and personally, on what serves your purpose and enhances your own life.

How much those values are rational depends on how objectively one perceives, identifies and judges the facts of life. Supportive of man's life - or harmful? For me?; neutral?; against me?

Following from that, how can anything be 'subjective'? (By an individual committed to reality and reason).

By one's free will, one creates a long hierarchical value chain, all the way down to one's most trivial tastes. (The categories, e.g. art, friendship - would be mostly fixed, but specifics e.g. types of music and particular friends - might be changed, reduced and elevated, naturally).

One's assessments will not be perfect - you can't see the future or know all there is to know about something or someone - like everything they are a work in progress, as one's observation, method and knowledge improves and expands. Therefore nobody can judge for him, only the individual can be the final arbiter.

it's a misconception of 'objective values' to claim they mean one size fits all.

Or - that 'objectivity' means taking oneself out of the picture.**

To show by contrast, what simplified subjectivity is:

"What is - ain't! What ain't - is! Reality is always relative to me and dependant on what I want and wish it to be".

Surely that's not what you use "subjective" to be.

For a person who never stops reviewing and assessing the facts of reality, his values, and his moral state - what he deems important to his life can well be called 'personal' to him - but outside the everyday, commonly-used sense, not 'subjective'. If he is not objective, who or what is?

*(A fitting quote I saw today by Schopenhauer - "Materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take account of himself")

[Brant Gaede]

deleted

[Jonathan]

Greg, here's a piece of music:

Identify its subject and meaning, and the view of morality that it communicates.

J

That's not music.

Music is harmonic sound.

(...and you don't even realize how silly you're behaving. )

Grow up, Jonathan.

Greg

Greg, the idea would be to read the sheet music and play it on an instrument. See, then you'd hear the music. Or just skip the playing of it and just "hear" it in your head while reading it, as any moderately experienced musician can do.

Ah! That's the problem, isn't it? You can't read music, can you? Or play any instruments? Heh. Why am I not surprised?

J

[Jonathan]

I stated in my last post that my view is that there is an objective moral standard.

There is no objective basis on which to conclude that a listener is right to interpret a work of music "as a manifestation of evil" versus an inspiration of "their personal power."

Here are two contradictory statements in your own words. Reconcile them if you can.

Greg

They're not contradictory statements.

You still haven't taken up my suggestion that you should study logic. You really need to study it, Greg. In fact, you're probably going to need a tutor to help you grasp it. I don't think you'll get it on your own.

J

[moralist]

I stated in my last post that my view is that there is an objective moral standard.

There is no objective basis on which to conclude that a listener is right to interpret a work of music "as a manifestation of evil" versus an inspiration of "their personal power."

Here are two contradictory statements in your own words. Reconcile them if you can.

Greg

They're not contradictory statements.

Of course they are not contradictory to secular relativists...

...and that defines the difference between each of our views.

Greg

[moralist]

Greg, here's a piece of music:

Identify its subject and meaning, and the view of morality that it communicates.

J

That's not music.

Music is harmonic sound.

(...and you don't even realize how silly you're behaving. )

Grow up, Jonathan.

Greg

Greg, the idea would be to read the sheet music and play it on an instrument. See, then you'd hear the music. Or just skip the playing of it and just "hear" it in your head while reading it, as any moderately experienced musician can do.

Ah! That's the problem, isn't it? You can't read music, can you? Or play any instruments? Heh. Why am I not surprised?

J

Your childish attitude will not serve you well in life, Jonathan, because it's the attitude of a failure. I play piano and compose music.

When can you post a complete song as played by the composer or performer then I will tell you what it communicates to me. Each of us will very likely hear two completely different messages as befits our two different views. And one subjective view will always agree with objective morality more than the other.

Greg

[moralist]

Consistent with the title of this thread, a half hour of pig swill religious music.

A collection of descriptions of his voice:

-- rich light baritone

-- velvet

-- flawless

-- smooth, soothing

-- young

-- soft baritone

-- mellow baritone

-- beautiful

-- magical

-- softness and clarity

-- clear and gentle, yet strong

http://youtu.be/8Sqr_JgfvbI

Thanks for posting songs about goodness, Jerry.

The accompanying video is also nice... the natural beauty of the world God created for us to enjoy.

Greg

[Selene]

[moralist]

I enjoy anything that eats flies.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Greg, here's a piece of music:

Identify its subject and meaning, and the view of morality that it communicates.

J

That's not music.

Music is harmonic sound.

(...and you don't even realize how silly you're behaving. )

Grow up, Jonathan.

Greg

Greg, the idea would be to read the sheet music and play it on an instrument. See, then you'd hear the music. Or just skip the playing of it and just "hear" it in your head while reading it, as any moderately experienced musician can do.

Ah! That's the problem, isn't it? You can't read music, can you? Or play any instruments? Heh. Why am I not surprised?

J

Your childish attitude will not serve you well in life, Jonathan, because it's the attitude of a failure. I play piano and compose music.

Greg

Can a successful person have "the attitude of a failure" and if so, what's the analysis of that?

I think Greg is on to something somewhat if not someone.

--Brant

[moralist]

Greg, here's a piece of music:

Identify its subject and meaning, and the view of morality that it communicates.

J

That's not music.

Music is harmonic sound.

(...and you don't even realize how silly you're behaving. )

Grow up, Jonathan.

Greg

Greg, the idea would be to read the sheet music and play it on an instrument. See, then you'd hear the music. Or just skip the playing of it and just "hear" it in your head while reading it, as any moderately experienced musician can do.

Ah! That's the problem, isn't it? You can't read music, can you? Or play any instruments? Heh. Why am I not surprised?

J

Your childish attitude will not serve you well in life, Jonathan, because it's the attitude of a failure. I play piano and compose music.

Greg

Can a successful person have "the attitude of a failure" and if so, what's the analysis of that?

I think Greg is on to something somewhat if not someone.

--Brant

People have different views as to what success in life is, so that would weigh heavily on the answer. I heard Dennis Prager offer an interesting observation:

"Good people are rarely famous... and famous people are rarely good."

The last place to look for goodness is on TV!

If I were to put success into words it would be:

doing what's right

...because every other good thing in life flows from that... everything. Happiness, Health, Love, Productivity, Prosperity, and the Peace of a Clear Conscience.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Greg, I think you enjoyed the movie Body Heat.

--Brant

[moralist]

Haven't seen that one, Brant... but I have seen "The Heat" with Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy. It's hilarious!

Greg

[Selene]

Haven't seen that one, Brant... but I have seen "The Heat" with Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy. It's hilarious!

Greg

Superior movie - McCarthy is incredibly funny and Bullock does an excellent job as the tight assed FBI agent.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Further pertaining to the "representational" issue in regard to Rand's views on music.

Anyway, Rand DID think that music, and all other art forms that she classified as valid, had to be representational, which is why she was hellbent on trying to make music qualify as being representational at some point in the future.

Her definition of art is that it must be representational -- it must "re-create reality." Her entire approach to art was to start with a mimetic theory that seemed to work well with literature, and to then try to force it onto the other art forms. Some of the other art forms, not being representational, then had to be adjusted to fit the theory, and therefore contradictions and double standards had to be introduced as fixes.

First - and this is a major issue about Rand's theory - I don't agree with you about her angle of approach, or that her approach "seemed to work well with literature."

Counter to your view, I think that the art form which Rand takes as the prototype in two important ways is painting, with bizarre force-fitting of literature as a result.

(I emphasize the sentence, since it touches on a thesis which I mentioned some months ago and intend to write about later on - Rand's leaving out "the imaginal" in her theory.)

One of the two ways she takes painting as prototype is in her description of art as bringing metaphysical value-judgments to the perceptual level. This doesn't really apply even to painting, since there are no objects of perception in a painting, only semblances thereof. But there is something visual. With literature, she fudges by saying that literature describes perceptual reality.

With music, however, Rand explicitly acknowledges that no entities are depicted:

"Art and Cognition"

Signet Second Revised Edition

pg. 37

[bold emphasis added]

Music does not deal with entities, which is the reason why its psycho-epistemological function is different from that of the other arts[.]

Where there aren't entities depicted, there can't be representation.

You didn't answer where the quote you cited comes from, but I found it. As I thought, it's from the same essay, "Art and Cognition," and it's definitely from a visual arts context. She's talking about the decorative arts and why she doesn't classify those as "art in the esthetic-philosophical meaning of the term."

"Art and Cognition"

Signet Second Revised Edition

pg. 66

The psycho-epistemological base of the decorative arts is not conceptual [which she's previously said the base of painting, like literature, is], but purely sensory; their standard of value is appeal to the senses of sight and/or touch. Their material is colors and shapes in nonrepresentational combinations conveying no meaning other than visual harmony; the meaning or purpose is concrete and lies in the specific object which they decorate.

As a re-creation of reality, a work of art has to be representational; its freedom of stylization is limited by the requirement of intelligibility; if it does not present an intelligible subject, it ceases to be art. On the other hand, a representational element is a detriment in the decorative arts; it is an irrelevant distraction, a clash of intentions. And although designs of little human figures or landscapes or flowers are often used to decorate textiles or wallpaper, they are artistically inferior to the nonrepresentational designs. When recognizable objects are subordinated to and treated as a mere pattern of colors and shapes, they become incongruous.

I think she's clearly using "representational" and "nonrepresentational" in the standard visual-arts usage, a usage which doesn't apply to music and which she'd in effect stated doesn't apply in indicating that music doesn't deal with entities.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Further pertaining to the "language" issue in regard to Rand's views on music.

What I described isn't a language. Rand thought that depersonalized emotions were physiologically produced in listeners, not that some sequence meant an emotion.

Rand's view was that specific sequences universally trigger or evoke specific emotions, and listeners then conceptualize those emotions (her view was that music operated in the reverse of the other arts). So, I think that the accurate way to say it would be that Rand thought that a musical sequence evoked an emotion, and then that the emotion communicated a concept. The melody and chords therefore only indirectly conveyed the concept -- the experiencing of the emotion was an integral step in the "language."

The chain was: Music > emotion > meaning.

The discovery of her hoped-for "conceptual vocabulary" would mean that there would be only one objectively valid emotion that could be experienced due to hearing a specific section of music, and the emotion would lead to only one objectively valid meaning. That's a language.

Except for your statement "her view was that music operated in the reverse of the other arts," I don't think that your description is accurate.

You left out a step in what she thought the sequence was.

"Art and Cognition"

Signet Second Revised Edition

pp. 49-41

The other arts create a physical object (i.e., an object perceived by man's senses, be it a book [!!!] or a painting) and the psycho-epistemological process goes from the perception of the object to the conceptual grasp of its meaning, to an appraisal in terms of one's basic values, to a consequent emotion. The pattern is: from perception - to conceptual understanding - to appraisal - to emotion.

The pattern of the process involved in music is: from perception - to emotion - to appraisal - to conceptual understanding.

She thought a "depersonalized" emotion was evoked, and then one's sense of life emotions react. The "understanding" she's talking of is a person's supposed associative sequence to circumstances in which a person would feel like the emotions evoked. That would be unique for each person and isn't an issue of the music's referencing the associations.

If you read her suggested requirements of analysis, she wasn't talking about some set of chords having some sort of specific evoking power.

Yes, she was. Her (mistaken) view was that a specific section of music would evoke the same emotion in everyone.

A more complicated analysis than some sequence of chords. I haven't time to type in her whole hypothesis. What she says is primarily involved is a psycho-epistemological congeniality or not to one's characteristic method of cognitive functioning.

The analysis she envisioned was a very complicated one. Also, you ignore her specifically saying that music cannot tell a story.

There are a lot of things that Rand said about art that must be ignored or taken as contradicting everything else she said about it. I think that she meant that music cannot tell a story to the same degree or with the same amount of precision and detail that literature can. But she believed that it could indeed tell stories of "defiance" and "victory" and such. And I think that she believed that music would be much better at telling stories once the future "conceptual vocabulary" was discovered.

I think she didn't believe that music can tell a story - or that it ever would become able to tell a story. And "'defiance' and 'victory' and such" aren't stories. You need events for a story. Which means you need entities acting. See the previous post. "Music does not deal with entities."

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

(As to how "evil" she'd call someone who said that "sorrow" means "serene" or "contemplative," I'll leave that to your imagining.)

It doesn't take any "imagining." Read Rand's own words. She very strongly, and very hatefully, vilified anyone who experienced in art what she did not, or who had a different interpretation than she did. It is not fanciful or whimsical to think that she would very likely do the same in all of her judgments of others' tastes and interpretations of art.

She vilified in some contexts regarding some forms of response but by no means in all cases.

And let's not forget some of Rand's comments on various composers and works of music. Her opinions about their "malevolence" and such. Are we to take such silly views as representing the universal identifications of emotions conveyed by the music? The most common reaction that I hear from people about Rand's "identifications" of the emotional content of works of music is, "Seriously? WTF? How is she imagining hearing doom or defeat in this piece of music, or Romantic joy in that one?" Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Rand's view of universal emotion identification, or of her absolute confidence in her own musical connoisseurship and the inevitable objective superiority of her tastes!

Her opinion that Beethoven's music conveys a malevolent sense of life often gets a "WTF" reaction. A great deal of talk has gone on for more than fifty years as to why she heard Beethoven the way she did. Her "pre-music" about Mozart also gets astonished reactions. Are you thinking of others? Her antipathy to much modern popular music hasn't been greeted with surprise that I recall.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

Haven't seen that one, Brant... but I have seen "The Heat" with Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy. It's hilarious!

Greg

I recommend Body Heat because it depicts low lifes all getting what they deserve in spite of itself. The audience is seduced into sympathy for a murderer for the story is told through his eyes. (Enjoy the artificial pre-air conditioning motif just as The Silence of the Lambs gets away with no use of video cameras to keep an eye on the cannibal in the cage. These movies are unmakeable today those ways.) Thx for The Heat.

--Brant

[Peter]

It is odd how some music inspires hope even if it is not labeled religious. Try not to be too bigoted about IZ. He is a Hawaiian who was Large, Larger, Largest, and his size killed him some years ago, but he could sing beautifully. Listen to "Somewhere over the Rainbow" by Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwoʻole on Youtube.

[Jonathan]

First - and this is a major issue about Rand's theory - I don't agree with you about her angle of approach, or that her approach "seemed to work well with literature."

Counter to your view, I think that the art form which Rand takes as the prototype in two important ways is painting, with bizarre force-fitting of literature as a result.

(I emphasize the sentence, since it touches on a thesis which I mentioned some months ago and intend to write about later on - Rand's leaving out "the imaginal" in her theory.)

One of the two ways she takes painting as prototype is in her description of art as bringing metaphysical value-judgments to the perceptual level. This doesn't really apply even to painting, since there are no objects of perception in a painting, only semblances thereof. But there is something visual. With literature, she fudges by saying that literature describes perceptual reality.

In regard to the issue of art bringing MVJs to the "perceptual level," I think that Rand was uncharacteristically sloppy and careless in describing what she meant. I think that Roger Bissell gets very close to identifying what Rand was after in his stating that she was all about art being a "microcosm." But even that's not quite precise/accurate. She was about art being a "simulation" of reality, and that simulation could include mental visualizations in addition to the "perceptual level" notion that she was obsessed with.

And I don't think that her fixation of "the perceptual level" came from visual art, but from her falling in love with her own theory of epistemology. That's what she was imposing on her theory of art. Entities. There must be entities, because that's what her epistemology focuses on. You can't have actions without entities in reality, therefore you can't have them in art. Bullshit.

With music, however, Rand explicitly acknowledges that no entities are depicted:

Ayn Rand said

"Art and Cognition"

Signet Second Revised Edition

pg. 37

[bold emphasis added]

Music does not deal with entities, which is the reason why its psycho-epistemological function is different from that of the other arts[.]

Where there aren't entities depicted, there can't be representation.

Are you asserting the position that there can't be representation where there aren't entities depicted, or are you just speaking for Rand here? Either way, it is not a true statement that "Where there aren't entities depicted, there can't be representation."

You didn't answer where the quote you cited comes from, but I found it. As I thought, it's from the same essay, "Art and Cognition," and it's definitely from a visual arts context. She's talking about the decorative arts and why she doesn't classify those as "art in the esthetic-philosophical meaning of the term."

Ayn Rand said

"Art and Cognition"

Signet Second Revised Edition

pg. 66

The psycho-epistemological base of the decorative arts is not conceptual [which she's previously said the base of painting, like literature, is], but purely sensory; their standard of value is appeal to the senses of sight and/or touch. Their material is colors and shapes in nonrepresentational combinations conveying no meaning other than visual harmony; the meaning or purpose is concrete and lies in the specific object which they decorate.

As a re-creation of reality, a work of art has to be representational; its freedom of stylization is limited by the requirement of intelligibility; if it does not present an intelligible subject, it ceases to be art. On the other hand, a representational element is a detriment in the decorative arts; it is an irrelevant distraction, a clash of intentions. And although designs of little human figures or landscapes or flowers are often used to decorate textiles or wallpaper, they are artistically inferior to the nonrepresentational designs. When recognizable objects are subordinated to and treated as a mere pattern of colors and shapes, they become incongruous.

I think she's clearly using "representational" and "nonrepresentational" in the standard visual-arts usage, a usage which doesn't apply to music and which she'd in effect stated doesn't apply in indicating that music doesn't deal with entities.

In the quotes that you provided above, Rand is identifying her criteria of art -- of all art. She is explaining what is required in order for something to qualify as art. She is using the decorative arts as an example of something that does not qualify, and why.

Rand classified music as a legitimate art form. Therefore music must meet her criteria of re-creating reality, of being representational, and of being objectively intelligible. The fact that she recognized that music does not do those things is the reason that she asserted that in the future music would have a "conceptual vocabulary." It was nothing but a bad attempt at sleight of hand to keep music classified as a legitimate art form. It was a way to claim that the yet-to-be-discovered true nature of music will meet her criteria of re-creation, representation and intelligibility.

If Rand believed, as you are suggesting, that music's very nature was not representational (that it would never be representational even after the discovery of a "conceptual vocabulary"), then she would have had to identify it as not qualifying as art by her criteria, or she would have had to change her definition and criteria of "art." Those are the only two rational, logical things for her to have done: Reject music, or change her criteria so as to eliminate the requirements of re-creation, representation and intelligibility.

She didn't want to do either of those two rational options, so instead she chose an irrational one of asserting that music would meet her criteria in the future -- that in the future music would be shown to have a nature which meets her criteria.

Additionally, in her comments on the decorative arts, Rand is once again making assertions without any proof whatsoever. She's talking off the top of her head on a subject about which she knows nothing. She is basing her position entirely on introspection and her own subjective tastes and experiences. She is falsely assuming the universality of her experiences, and that they are the limit of human cognitive nature.

Except for your statement "her view was that music operated in the reverse of the other arts," I don't think that your description is accurate.

You left out a step in what she thought the sequence was.

Ayn Rand said

"Art and Cognition"

Signet Second Revised Edition

pp. 49-41

The other arts create a physical object (i.e., an object perceived by man's senses, be it a book [!!!] or a painting) and the psycho-epistemological process goes from the perception of the object to the conceptual grasp of its meaning, to an appraisal in terms of one's basic values, to a consequent emotion. The pattern is: from perception - to conceptual understanding - to appraisal - to emotion.

The pattern of the process involved in music is: from perception - to emotion - to appraisal - to conceptual understanding.

She thought a "depersonalized" emotion was evoked, and then one's sense of life emotions react. The "understanding" she's talking of is a person's supposed associative sequence to circumstances in which a person would feel like the emotions evoked. That would be unique for each person and isn't an issue of the music's referencing the associations.

The only relevant thing is that Rand believed/asserted that the second step, "to emotion," was universal -- that all men experienced the same "depersonalized emotion" in the same piece of music. That is what I am taking issue with. It is bullshit.

If you read her suggested requirements of analysis, she wasn't talking about some set of chords having some sort of specific evoking power.

Yes, she was. She was stating that a piece of music would convey the same "depersonalized emotion" to everyone. She didn't know what she was talking about. All people do not experience the same depersonalized emotion. She was just making shit up. She was doing so because she wanted music to qualify as art according to her criteria, and she was opposed to reconsidering her criteria.

I think she didn't believe that music can tell a story - or that it ever would become able to tell a story. And "'defiance' and 'victory' and such" aren't stories.

I agree that "defiance" alone is not a story, nor is "victory" alone. But combining several such emotion-concepts does create a story.

You need events for a story.

Yes. A great example of events would be "sorrow -> tranquility -> hopefulness stirring -> resolve -> striving -> joy of victory." That's a story made up of events.

Which means you need entities acting. See the previous post. "Music does not deal with entities."

You also need entities acting in order to have "defiance" or "victory," etc. Or are you saying that a non-entity can be defiant or victorious? Exactly what was being defiant or victorious in Rand's descriptions of music as portraying those things if not entities? Rand didn't think of these questions.

So, again, we're dealing with the fact that Rand didn't know what she was talking about, yet made rigid assertions and tried to impose strict rules on the arts, and then randomly ignored them herself when it was convenient or necessary.

A big part of her problem was her fixation on her own epistemological theory and her insistence on entire, whole, complete, discrete entities. Apparently, she just personally didn't like the idea of attributes or characteristics independent of entities, and therefore went into angry denial mode when others reported that they could fill in the blanks themselves and grasp entities where there were only suggested actions or other mere hints that an entity might be implied to exist.

It's really too bad that she was so irrationally angry about abstract visual art, because I think that it could have been a key to her reconciling her aesthetic contradictions. She could have learned much from Kandinsky if she could have gotten past her hatred of him and his ilk. We humans don't need "entities." We can get by on isolated attributes in art. And when we do so, we all don't have to experience the same implied entities or actions. The subjectivity of differing interpretations of an artwork's subject and meaning are a feature, not a bug. The subjective, open-endedness of art is, has always been, and will always be, its glorious nature, and denying that fact and fighting against it only makes one look like a fool -- it makes one concoct all sorts of contradictions, double standards and other nonsense.

She vilified in some contexts regarding some forms of response but by no means in all cases.`

Please give an example of Rand not vilifying someone who claimed to experience in art what she did not.

J

[Jonathan]

Greg, here's a piece of music:

Identify its subject and meaning, and the view of morality that it communicates.

J

That's not music.

Music is harmonic sound.

(...and you don't even realize how silly you're behaving. )

Grow up, Jonathan.

Greg

Greg, the idea would be to read the sheet music and play it on an instrument. See, then you'd hear the music. Or just skip the playing of it and just "hear" it in your head while reading it, as any moderately experienced musician can do.

Ah! That's the problem, isn't it? You can't read music, can you? Or play any instruments? Heh. Why am I not surprised?

J

Your childish attitude will not serve you well in life, Jonathan, because it's the attitude of a failure. I play piano and compose music.

When can you post a complete song as played by the composer or performer then I will tell you what it communicates to me. Each of us will very likely hear two completely different messages as befits our two different views. And one subjective view will always agree with objective morality more than the other.

Greg

So, you don't get anything out of the music sample that I posted?

And what do you mean by the complete song as played by the composer or performer? It sounds to me as if you're saying that you need access to lyrics in order to identify the music's alleged meaning.

J

[Brant Gaede]

Maybe art is creative consequences that can't be objectified.

--Brant