The Death of Artists?

[uncloned]

I find it a religious man makes everything fit into his predefined context, which to me is the most narrow way you can look on anything.

Those are narrow minded people period.

Any agnostic, atheist, or theist who claims to have all the answers is full of it in my opinion.

To worship a god so that one can enter heaven?

This is why I dislike organized religion which backs this point of view. Again this is so shallow.

One should live a good and positive life for its own sake.

[Sam_Zen]

hmm. is a discussion about this subject possible without generalisation ?

[uncloned]

probably not - which is why its usually avoided I guess.

[g]

Then again, I'd rather debate religion than speaker cables...  :shock:

[uncloned]

I'd rather debate speaker cables - it has a the possibility of an unbiased  answer.

[Sam_Zen]

I don't like people who think speaker cables can solve everything

[uncloned]

How dare you not believe in the omnipotence of speaker cables!!  

[Sam_Zen]

Because I see the conspiracy behind the speaker cables.. Just check "selbac rekaeps" and you'll know what I mean..
Speaker cables are often red and black... Need I say more ? :devilsmoking:

Maybe yes. I worship Life and Love. And that's it.

[psishock]

very interesting topics, so lets start commenting stuff:

ihmo the human body is nothing more than a biological robot, programed to have self-born "programs" instincts (that can be overridden if needed), has sensory and living organs. One of the main self-born instinct is, the urge to store every information and experience that he encounters over life, so one can use these accumulated information to live his life more successfully. Self-consciousness is an ability, that is archived trough the intelligence. Personality is an effect of the gathered experience, and the developed intelligence (intelligence is, how well can u use, combine the gathered experience, to do or decide something).

A biological organism has no purpose.

Describe "purpose" to me. So lets imagine you did that, or someone else will tell you the purpose of the life. What if you wont be satisfied with that purpose? You will most likely chose the one that suits you the best (as you already do). And that *is* the purpose of each individual life. Its not fixed for anyone, one can choose a goal, or more goals and that will exactly become the purpose of his life. You can chose also to not do anything at all, live as you like, then die, totally up to the individual. Nobody can (or should) force a life purpose on you, no "god", no "ufo"-s. It may be so, that humanity was "made" originally with a purpose, you can chose to follow that if you found that questionable goal out, or you have the choice, to chose and try to archive some other ones. That is why this "purpose" term cannot be generalized, because we are all individuals. The sooner will more people realize this, the easier they can progress. It is a very simple logic, if you truly think about it.

Religions. Some religions are good for mind peace, or for teaching moral behavior to the masses, but i cannot agree with the ones that are trying to explain stuff that nobody can be perfectly sure of (or more worse, claiming that they know everything exactly to the smallest detail), without any evidence or logic. Im not a religious person as you most likely know, but i dont have anything against the ones who are, and are bases on basic human morals and deeds that can help build a constructive society. But i really dont like the idea of totally censuring/misinforming people, just to cover "story holes". Explain them that there are many things that we cannot be sure of at this moment, or cannot be explain atm, these fields needs more research (people can choose their life goal for instance, to research these stuff). Explain them the facts and the knowledge in pure black and white, as they are, teach them, don't misinform them. That will give them best, widest possible the options to choose from, and they can decide what will they do with their life, without any destructive influence. "Joining" one of the religion that claims to have the answer for anything in the life may sounds safe and cool, you dont have to thing about most of the stuff in the life, because they are already "explained", but its just not the right way, its misinforming them, people need to use their brains and think for themselves. Just feeling "safe", wont archive any progress at all.

Music can be used for many stuffs, as words or drawings also, for instance. Some people are using it for describing environments, or objects, there are ones that are using it strictly to please the largest amount of masses possible, it is basically a form of business to them. I am mainly using it as a tool to project my personality or my momentary mood, but there are times when im using it as a playground, or a field where i can experiment interesting new combinations.

I can imagine, that the computer could easily create music in the future, that would please the masses, because mainstream music has the largest amount of "samples" to learn from, and usually have the easiest (repetitive) structures. These musics are all very much alike, and people actually are expecting them to be alike, because they are demanding features that are familiar to them. This music has no self "value", neither to people, because usually people dont even care who is the artist, or even about the music itself. They are only listening these, to bring themselves to a familiar mood. If they example would not listen to a 100 given song, but you would give them 100 other ones, the listeners will have the exact same experience, so basically they wouldnt care about the "skipped" ones. This is the perfect example of the "worthless" music or "worthless" musician. All sounds alike, on purpose of course, but they become "business product" with this, that people will chew on, and throw them after they get another fresher one. This is why i thing computers could relay these "artist", because they already dont have any personality, and their musics are already simple "copy paste, do some minor variations and changes" business product.

Unique musics in other hand, that require very careful arrangements and/or are made for different purposes, are different cup of tea. There are musics that are really unique and we're listening to them over and over cause they all give a very special atmosphere, and they don't age. This type of music is made with unique, individual ways of composing and tries to give something special, meaningful to the listener. Now if a computer technology would develop so much intelligence with computing, and gather as much experience as a human do over his life, most likely it would be able to compose these kind of special pieces too, but at this moment we seems to be very far from it, the brain has much better architecture for these stuff. And we shouldn't forget that creativity needs an insane amount of data processing/combining power, and various data storing ability, to work effectively.

So finally, the musicians, that are making unique musics with a lot of experience and expressions involved in their pieces dont have to afraid that a machine will "outperform" them. A musician who makes music only for monetary purposes, and using general structures and making totally similar products each time, could be afraid possibly, that soon a good programmed machine could take away their "job", and do it exactly as good, as humans are producing stuff (as some kind of machines) at this moment.

sorry for the large wall of text. ^_^

[Sam_Zen]

Some line breaks would help..
But, the hammer on the head, Psi !

[uncloned]

I can imagine, that the computer could easily create music in the future, that would please the masses, because mainstream music has the largest amount of "samples" to learn from, and usually have the easiest (repetitive) structures. These musics are all very much alike, and people actually are expecting them to be alike, because they are demanding features that are familiar to them. This music has no self "value", neither to people, because usually people dont even care who is the artist, or even about the music itself.

This is so true!

[PPH]

Teleological rantings are starting to appear.

[psishock]

You got me wrong then PPH. I wasn't ranting religion nor mainstream music, only giving my opinion from stuff, everybody have the free will to decide what will he learn from them.

About "mainstream" music, i've based it on my careful observation. I've many time asked my friends for a tracklist on some nice 1-2hour mixes, or a name of a very appealing cool track or artist name. They just said openly they dont have it, and they dont really care. A song or two may sound interesting to them, but overall they listen to these music to bring them on a wanted nice familiar mood. They cannot care less about the name or the artist, as soon as they find some fresh pieces, they tend to forget the "old" ones, and start to listen to new ones. I've had a long chatter with them too about this, they denied at first that they truly think, these artist and songs are worthless to them, but when i've faced the facts to them, they suddenly realized and admitted it. That's why i've said, this behavior tells me, this music (or artist) have absolutely no value to them, if they miss listening to some few ones, or they dont hear about some artist at all, they dont mind, coz they will listen to 100 more similar ones who will give the exact same experience to them. Try to understand what am i trying to say.

About religions, well as you've read that i don't have a slightest problem with them, i only strongly disagree with misinforming and censoring, i believe that these stuff have destructive and blinding nature to people (politics and product advertisements tend to have these as well), so if some religions have these, they'll definitely wont see my open acceptation or support. But still, you will not see me go and start ranting to them.

[g]

Teleological

Hey I didn't know that word so I looked it up. Thanks!

[Louigi Verona]

Once again we have completely opposite views. I find it a religious man makes everything fit into his predefined context, which to me is the most narrow way you can look on anything.

What is this larger context you speak of?

Simple to explain.
A person who is an atheist cannot have no beliefs whatsoever. If a person proclaims himself an atheist, what he really wants to say is this: "I believe that the world is limited to what I see around myself, it is limited to what the sciences say and there is nothing more to the world than what we see - there are no supernatural powers, our universe did not originate from an entity which you call God but is rather the sum of blind forces of nature."

The concrete examples may vary, but this is the general stance. And this vision is not based on facts, it is only a belief. Facts do not tell us anything about any external powers or the origin of the Universe.

A religious person agrees that the world we see around is indeed there, but he believes that there is something more. He is not only open to perceive other possibilities, at times he actually experiences them.

The so-called materialistic point of view can be compared to a person who says that he does not believe the Universe is endless cause he can clearly see the borders outlined by the horizon.


But there is also another type of atheist, actually more common. This person says this: "I do not believe that the world and the place of a person in it is such as religious books and religions of the world say, but I do believe and feel that there is much more to the world than what we can touch, I feel a greater purpose behind my life". Such people usually speak about a personal God which they believe in.

I think at some point a lot of people come to such a position. And sometimes people who really were going to churches and everything and then sort of stopped and thought they do not believe anymore but then life would lead them back, to a more personal kind of religion.

But I think that a lot about religious institutions is regarded in too superficial a manner. A lot is misunderstood as people try to judge what is written in religious books from their everyday life logic - and thus come to such a form of opposing religion. But if you do take your time to study things, you will see that a lot of the rituals are not just some useless things, but very profound processes which have good reasons and which actually can help a person who seeks certain inner peace. Just like you should not approach arts with the logic of, say, a business, you should not approach religious questions with the logic of your everyday life in the material world.

This is not all that can be said on the subject. But, just like with any discussion, there are two ways you can go - either you can view your opponents opinion in a superficial manner, applying stereotypes and generalizations, simplifying what he is trying to say or else you might try to understand his point of view and all of the intricate details that come with it; and if not agree with the opinion than at least understand what points are your difference points.