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Article 5195 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: rbrown@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Rich Brown Cray Operations)
Subject: Re: Intelligence, awareness, and esthetics
Message-ID: <1992Apr22.160623.26924@ncsa.uiuc.edu>
Summary: T. S. Eliot?  Blech.
Originator: rbrown@mars.ncsa.uiuc.edu
Sender: rbrown@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Rich Brown Cray Operations)
Organization: Nat'l Ctr for Supercomp App (NCSA) @ University of Illinois
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1992 16:06:09 GMT
Lines: 66

I wrote:
>Shannon's _Information_Theory_and_Aesthetic_Perception_ contains some

In article <1992Apr22.115737.27938@nuscc.nus.sg> smoliar@jit.iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar) writes:
>I have just spent the last twenty minutes browsing through library card
>catalogs on Melvyl (including your precious Harvard Union Catalog, Mikhail)
>and was unable to turn up any evidence of this book.  Since Rich has already
>claimed he cannot provide any further information, I hope some kind soul is
>willing to flesh out this reference.  It would be slightly disappointing if
>this who discussion ended up turning around a figment of Rich's imagination!

No, really!  I swear I have read this book!

In article <1992Apr21.212425.9210@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com> shanks@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com (Mark Shanks) writes:
>If, then, the "rate of transfer" is a quantifier of "value", then a modem 
>tone should outdo a Bruckner symphony or a choral work by Arvo Part. This
>is certainly specious reasoning. And on what basis was the "greatness" of
>the conductor determined? Was Toscanini "greater" than Furtwangler? Is
>Matisse a "greater" artist than Brughel? Is haiku "not as great" as Eliot? 
>Too many subjectivities to base an "objective" reading on. 

I may have failed to make clear that Shannon's model included the human ear as
a part of his quantification system...  If I plug my headphones into the modem,
I'm pretty sure that (while I might receive gigabits of info) the overall rate
at which my ear perceives any patterns and my brain recognizes info thereby is
going to be slower than for a symphony.  I simply won't get as much out of it.

I don't want to act as apologist for Shannon's work, but I guess I also failed
to make clear that there were no apriori, nor post facto, determinations of
"greatness".  Just a calculation whose result was a rate of flow through a
channel.

In the case of comparing a recording of Furtwangler conducting the 9th to a
recording of a community orchestra playing the same symphony, some of the
formula's constraints were things like the volume/pitch/duration below which
the human ear can't hear, and the volume/pitch/duration above which no more can
be heard, and the smallest perceivable difference in volume/pitch/duration that
can be detected.  I don't think I should have to point out (but I will) that
these are precisely the things that permit sound to be digitized and put on
CDs -- you make the individual bits convey some info smaller than the smallest
perceivable difference in volume, pitch or duration.  So, Shannon's method
involved calculating a rate of information flow through the (digitized) system,
and it just so happened that Furtwangler's number was higher than the number
produced by the Podunk Community Orchestra.  Shannon claimed only that his
method was an objective way to determine the rate of information transfer from
the source to the sink.  Any "greatness" associated with the higher numbers may
have been only a coincidence.  It just so happened that those conductors and
painters who are generally acknowledged by "experts" in the fields of music and
art to be "great" consistently generated numbers higher than amateurs and
dilletantes.  Go figure.

Personally, I prefer haiku to Eliot.  Part of its charm for me is the swift
suddenness (high rate) with which its information is conveyed to the listener
or reader.  Sparse though the haiku may be, what it contains, it promptly
delivers.  But it might just be a coincidence that haiku seems "great" to me,
and that it transfers its info to me at a high rate...  Reading, or God forbid,
listening to someone else read Eliot seems too much like work.  Lots of info,
but you have to plod through it at a snail's pace.  Sift and winnow.  How
could anybody in his right mind call that "great"?  :-)
                                                    ^^^ (Flame retardant)

-- 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Rich Brown, UNICOS System Administrator
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign


