Archive for the ‘Philosophy’ Category

Musical Innovation and Progress; Or: On the Meaning and Implications of Musical Change

Today I happened to notice something I wrote back in 2010 at the end of a post about perfect pitch: “… perfect pitch is a tool which, depending on one’s perspective, may or may not be a benefit or liability to musicians and music in general, but is most likely irrelevant either way in the grand scheme of musical [...]

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Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget, Part II: Bachelardian Neoteny

“If you get deep enough, you get trapped. Stop calling yourself a user. You are being used.” – Jaron Lanier, on Facebook ——————— Last week, I explored some of my reactions to the first half of Jaron Lanier’s You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto (originally published in 2010; mine is the 2011 edition, which [...]

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Update: Lanier, Jodorowsky, de Beauvoir, Airbender, et al.

Last week I finished up another semester of classes and have a few weeks free, so I have some time to work on some other projects, including getting some posts done for this blog. I don’t have a particular topic for this one, so I’ll just sit and type for a while, touching on some of the [...]

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Update: Verbum Sap, Chemical Bath, Gaius Baltar, Et Alii

Hello world. Here’s an update of my current goings-on… plus the usual tangential forays into n’importe quoi. Verbum Sap Back in 2001, I recorded an album entitled Verbum Sap that I shelved for reasons that I won’t get into just yet. I’m excited to announce that I’m finally mixing it for release, with a planned drop [...]

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The Question Intelligent Design Can’t Answer

This morning, I started writing about a podcast episode I enjoyed that touched on the theme of reductionism. In doing so, I was reminded of Intelligent Design exponent Michael Behe’s notion of irreducible complexity, which lead me to an extensive aside about Intelligent Design that I’m now going to publish as a brief post in [...]

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Group Agency, Voting, Same-Sex Marriage

“Callin’ it your job don’t make it right, boss.” –Cool Hand Luke I. Overview: Philip Pettit on Group Agency The other day, I heard a fascinating interview with philosopher Philip Pettit on the Philosophy Bites podcast. The topic was group agency (the subject and title of Pettit’s as-yet unreleased new book), described thus on the podcast’s [...]

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Edgard Varèse: The Liberation of Sound

Earlier today I posted Milton Babbitt’s “Who Cares if You Listen?” as an example of an avant-garde attitude that I don’t care for. As an antidote to that, here is a beautiful article by the visionary avant-garde composer Edgard Varèse (often referred to as the Father of Electronic Music). To me, this writing is an expression of [...]

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