From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!orca!javelin.sim.es.com!biesel Thu Apr 30 15:22:34 EDT 1992
Article 5242 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!orca!javelin.sim.es.com!biesel
>From: biesel@javelin.sim.es.com (Heiner Biesel)
Subject: Re: Intelligence, awareness, and esthetics
Message-ID: <1992Apr24.153412.15904@javelin.sim.es.com>
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corporation
References: <1992Apr23.121553.6713@nuscc.nus.sg> <1992Apr23.153550.2375@javelin.sim.es.com> <VANCE.92Apr23105018@kyoto.speech.sri.com> <1992Apr23.235522.25154@nuscc.nus.sg>
Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1992 15:34:12 GMT
Lines: 76

smoliar@jit.iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar) writes:

>In article <VANCE.92Apr23105018@kyoto.speech.sri.com> vance@speech.sri.com
>(Vance Maverick) writes:
>>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.
>>
>Indeed, the whole point of 0'00" is that if the mind is already disposed to
>HAVE an "esthetic response" (ANY "esthetic response"), there is no need for
>the composer to impose choices in the selection of those events which trigger
>that response.  Vance is absolutely right in questioning the definite article,
>which is the point I was trying to make about the subjectivity of the
>situation.  

I wrote "...*the* esthetic response..." to distinguish this response from
other possible responses, such as being startled by a sudden change in
volume, or any number of other non-esthetic responses to a work of art. I did
not write "... *an* esthetic response", because I wanted to refer to a specific
response triggered by the work and the musical experience of the individual.

>"Information" has more to do with the received signal than
>the transmitted one.  0'00" demonstrates that, if you are in the "right"
>mental state, so to speak, you can receive anything.

>>   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.

>Vance, it is always easier for you to get down and dirty than it is for me.  In
>trying to think of the shortest information-laden moment, the first example I
>came up with was the Tristan chord.  This has been used very powerfully by many
>other composers with the intention of provoking no end of different (always
>context-dependent) responses.  To see how broad the difference can be, we can
>compare the tragic passion of the reference in the final movement of Berg's
>"Lyric Suite" with the bald satire of ALBERT HERRING.  Both references are
>equally effective and cannot be compared on any gross scale of artistic merit
>(let alone information content).

...[ ]...

>...I would be very surprised
>if all that could be captured in Shannon's theory.  (I still have not seen
>any more concrete reference to that book, by the way.)

Nor have I.

However, I'd like to pursue a course suggested by the Shannon reference.
Aside from the specific instances referred to by Stephen and others, it
seems that music generally relies upon a subtle balance between the
expected and known, and carefully structured and integrated novelty.
This is true both of music in general - viz the variuos classical forms -
and of individual composers in particular. We know it's Mozart when we hear
it. Why? Chordal progressions, etc. offer a clue, but are far from the whole
story. Is it in principle possible to analyze the style of a composer to
the point where new compositions indistinguishable from the original could
be produced by a machine? What is the rigth balance between novelty and
allusion?

Regards,
       Heiner biesel@thrall.sim.es.com


