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#85780 11/09/02 02:48 PM
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...very glad to see you back here, Brandon!

(thanks for the straight-man line, Jackie!)


#85781 11/09/02 07:00 PM
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Maybe visually as well as auditorily?

Just 'maybe'?


#85782 11/10/02 01:58 AM
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Jackie Offline OP
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Maybe visually as well as auditorily?

Just 'maybe'?

I used that word to try and foster some discussion. I can see the argument that we like auditory patterns from hearing Mama's heartbeat in the womb. But what about visual patterns? Why do most people (I think) either demand, or else abhor, visual regularity? Or auditory either, come to think of it?




#85783 11/10/02 02:58 PM
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In one of the dialogue in Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach (1979) he stipulates that someone with sufficiently fine vision - a Tortoise, for example - could appreciate the beauty of a Bach work simply by examining the visual pattern it generated on the disc...


#85784 11/10/02 05:52 PM
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Jackie Offline OP
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could appreciate the beauty of a Bach work simply by examining the visual pattern it generated on the disc...
Oh, I don't THINK so! SOME beauty, maybe, but not THE beauty.


#85785 11/10/02 06:09 PM
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could appreciate the beauty of a Bach work simply by examining the visual pattern it generated on the disc...
Oh, I don't THINK so! SOME beauty, maybe, but not THE beauty.



Why not? Beauty is subjective, isn't it? I mean, maybe that's all the totortoise would find beautiful about Bach's music. Stranger things have happened, Jackie. You may find this hard, perhaps even nearly impossible, to believe, but apparently there are native speakers of English who don't like Shakespeare's work - is that any easier to accept than an aesthete tortoise?


#85786 11/10/02 06:23 PM
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I'd bet it's the same beauty.

The reason why we can apply any definition, say for instance 'the number 12', is because it fits the pattern. We may not know on surface seeing 144 things is 12 groups of 'them', but it is indeed the groupings in which we are lookiing for to recognize their pattern. This, of course, doesn't explain why I'd rather draw beauty from 144 broken up into 10 groups of eleven plus two groups of 13 plus a single group of five, and then just not count the remaining 2, but.


#85787 11/10/02 06:53 PM
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I like to say the English alphabet backwards, because the way I worked it out it is much more symmetrical than the familiar forwards pattern. (as spoken with the familiar rhythms-at least to me)

forwards:
abcdefg hijklmnop qrs tuv wxyz
7 9 3 3 4

backwards:
zyxwv utsrq ponmlk jihgf edcba
5 5 6 5 5

I appreciate the symmetry, and therein lies the beauty.

for me.





formerly known as etaoin...
#85788 11/11/02 02:33 AM
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Jackie Offline OP
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Good grief, eta, not only did I understand your logic, but I agree with it! Now that's scary!
==========================================================
Why not? Beauty is subjective, isn't it? I'd bet it's the same beauty.
Well, finally! I thought I was going to have to post something unbelievably outrageous before anyone called me on it! I guess this argument being resolved might depend on WHY Bach wrote the work: did he write it for aural appreciation, or for the visual pattern? Both could have value, and no doubt do.


#85789 11/11/02 11:27 AM
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I don't think Bach had surface patterns of CDs in mind when he composed any of his stuff. On the other hand, unlike the works of some other composers I could mention, Bach's compositions do seem to work well in almost any instrumentation.


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