Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.
On Sat, 19 Mar 2011 23:34:15 +0100 Pierre Massat <pimas...@gmail.com> wrote: > Oh no, not again... > > 2011/3/19 Mathieu Bouchard <ma...@artengine.ca> > > > > > sorry, my following reply sat a long time in my email account. > > > > On Sun, 30 Jan 2011, ailo wrote: > > > > I guess what I meant was, can we define music generally so that everyone > >> can agree on what is the definition of music? > >> > > > > Well, if «everyone» also includes those people who purposefully want you to > > fail at coming up with a unanimous definition, you can't. There are also > > those who just won't listen to you because they are busy preparing the > > answer « it can't be defined. period. » without any explanation (they don't > > enjoy explanations any more than definitions, anyway). > > > > I know I can generalize for myself, but I think I can't do it for > >> everyone else. > >> > > > > There are also problems of common meaning of the words, whereby people will > > accidentally agree or disagree because they have different impressions about > > what you mean with the words that you used for writing the definition. > > > > I suppose people like to avoid it mostly because it can discourage > >> people to do their own thing. > >> > > > > I would rather bet on this phenomenon : > > http://www.google.ca/search?q=%22art+can%27t+be+explained%22 > > > > Which is more of the mystical mindframe of non-explanations and > > epistemological hopelessness. > > > > By extension, the word « art » is often used to mean whatever skill is > > considered unexplainable or mysterious. > > > > If we need to do it for a specific practical purpose, then we have no > >> choice. > >> > > > > A definition of art needs not dictate a single purpose, and a single > > purpose does not dictate a single approach, and a single approach does not > > dictate a single outcome. When you acknowledge a definition of art that just > > tries to be vaguely universal, you still have plenty of decisions to make. > > > > A definition of art needs not to be dumb like « music is whatever Beethoven > > was doing and that can't be done anymore because he died » or « we play both > > kinds of music : Country and Western ». > > > > Words like beauty and ugliness are commonly used. When we say, I like ugly > >> things, does that make these things wrong? [...] > >> > > > > (I didn't know what to reply to the rest of your email.) > > > > _______________________________________________________________________ > > | Mathieu Bouchard ---- tél: +1.514.383.3801 ---- Villeray, Montréal, QC > > _______________________________________________ > > Pd-list@iem.at mailing list > > UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> > > http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list > > > > -- Andy Farnell <padawa...@obiwannabe.co.uk> _______________________________________________ Pd-list@iem.at mailing list UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list