Album Rating: 4.5

Sure, that’s weird though. It probably already happens on a smaller scale, people predict what people want based on trends/specific chords/sounds etc. at least in pop music.

Objectivity is the arrogance of mind thinking that it has figured something out. A cultish way of thinking. Don't know if I really believe that, but it's an interesting thought.

Album Rating: 4.5

Not really, people who talk about music online are outliers. Most people are very similar. This is why small focus groups give us enough data to know whether or not we can have success marketing to a large group of people.



On the topic of free will, I don’t know if we have it or not. I think some degree of biological determinism makes logical sense, but probably yields a small range of possible decisions within which we can make a “free” choice. Free will or choice has very little to do with whether or not you like something though

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Yeah I hate the whole concept of objectivity in music tbh.

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People hate the concept of objectivity in music because we’ve all met people who try to claim their preference is objectively true. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a utility analyzing some objective characteristics of a piece of music when comparing to another. And I originally brought this line of discussion up only to assert that such objective, measurable characteristics do exist AND it is possible to discuss them, whereas Flug appeared to claim that there were not.

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ironically, you have no choice but to believe in libertarian free will

This objectively has guitars

DISCUSS

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I know you’re being cheeky but a statement that reductive shows the utter ridiculousness of the position that there’s no such thing as objectivity (or by extension objective truth)

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Objectivity ends when you then discuss or comment on anything about the objective facts you state so as a concept in journalism it's not very important

Album Rating: 4.0

The whole objectivity debate dissolves if you look at words the right way. Any statement is either true, false, or underspecified (or recursive, then it can also be paradoxical). "This has guitars" is true. "I like / don't like this" is also true unless you're lying. "This is good" is underspecified. Specify what "good" means, and it'll become true or false. If "good" means "lots of people like it", it's true. If "good" means "I like it" then it depends on what you like.



Do that with every statement and there is no need to differentiate between what is objective and subjective. You can call everything "objective" if you want, or just use "subjective" to mean the statements about your preference. But the labels aren't needed to decide whether something is true or false (or underspecified).

Oh shit this came out of nowhere.

iNSTA POS must check immediately

Album Rating: 4.5

That is true, but we haven’t been using the terms to determine whether one set of statements about a piece of music are true or false, but rather just generally to communicate what types of information we’re using to assess or discuss music. The measurable characteristics vs our preferences. Sure, we could use different words like empirical and preference.

Album Rating: 4.5

siiverspawn, out of genuine curiosity, why do you say we have no choice but to believe in libertarian free will, and what academic background are you approaching the question from (eg philosophy)? I’ve never been able to reason a clear answer to the question of free will but coming from a biology background I lean towards biological determinism.

"So as a concept in journalism it's not very important"

It should be, imo journalistic integrity hinges on it in fact

Too right

Album Rating: 4.0

Ah, well I was trying to make a somewhat flippant semi-joke about the libertarian free will comment. Free will (in any meaningful sense, certainly libertarian free will) doesn't exist, so no-one has a real choice in anything, and that includes night bringer having no choice but to believe in libertarian free will right now.



There are a bunch of answers as to why it (libertarian free will) doesn't exist, the question is really over-determined. It contradicts determinism, for one. And I don't think there is any quantum randomness, but even if there is, introducing randomness doesn't give you libertarian free will either. If you have exactly 50% to do X and 50% to do Y, then that's not what people mean when they say free will.



And then you can also observe the lack of free-will first hand if you learn how to meditate. I'm not claiming to be good enough to have definitely observed the absence of free will, but certainly free will looks less and less like a thing the more you pay attention. And the people who have actual mindfulness all report that there is no free will.



If that's not enough, there are also thought experiments that are pretty convincing. Like, think of a any album right now before you continue to read. Could you have picked anything you don't know? Clearly not. Okay, what about the albums you do know? You most likely know Abby Road. Could you have picked that one? No, because it didn't even come to your mind. Out of all the albums that you know, you probably thought of less than a dozen when I asked. Now think of another album, and notice how titles just come tumbling into your head. You have no control over what you think of, and clearly you have no freedom to choose anything you're not thinking of (which is the vast majority). And even among the ones you are thinking of, whatever you ended up choosing was for a concrete reason. You can easily find something in the past that, if changed, would have made you pick differently, through no choice of your own.



Really I don't think the notion of libertarian free will is even coherent, let alone true.

I choose to say you’re talking fucking waffle

My cat has some strong opinions against that post silver

Unfortunately all i can make out is "mrreow"