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Article 5224 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: vance@speech.sri.com (Vance Maverick)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Intelligence, awareness, and esthetics
Message-ID: <VANCE.92Apr23105018@kyoto.speech.sri.com>
Date: 23 Apr 92 17:50:18 GMT
References: <1992Apr21.212425.9210@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com>
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	<1992Apr22.153550.19640@javelin.sim.es.com>
	<1992Apr23.121553.6713@nuscc.nus.sg>
	<1992Apr23.153550.2375@javelin.sim.es.com>
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In-reply-to: biesel@javelin.sim.es.com's message of 23 Apr 92 15:35:50 GMT

In article <1992Apr23.153550.2375@javelin.sim.es.com> biesel@javelin.sim.es.com (Heiner Biesel) writes:

   [...] these kinds of minimalist works raise another question
   in the context of the Shannon measures. Is there some minimum amount of
   information transfer required to produce the esthetic response to a work
   of art?

The determinate article "the" before "esthetic response" is probably
a bad idea -- I don't think it's a natural kind, so to speak.  But for
Cage's listeners, 0:00 would certainly do it.

   If so, how small can it get? We all know the effect of an in-joke:
   a single word or phrase can provoke a complex response when it alludes
   to a known and shared situation. Does the effect occur in art?

Absolutely, and we can find some very short examples without even
invoking the avant-garde.  Probably if I thought a little harder, I
could come up with a classical example, but what leaps most
insistently to mind at the moment is the first chord of the Led
Zeppelin cover of "I Can't Quit You, Babe" -- I laughed out loud when
I heard it first.  Their listeners know in a broad way what to expect:
massively amplified late-60's British blues-rock shading over into
what we now call heavy metal -- but something about the spacing of the
chord takes the idea right over the top, and it's funny.

	Vance


