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Why do some think "music" (not gear, trading, etc.) is the ultimate end?

A recent thread spurred a debate about the word "audiophile." Again. It went round and round in the usual ways.

What I don't understand is why so many take for granted that loving music is superior to loving gear. Or that gear is always -- and must be -- a mere *means* to music, which is the (supposedly) true end.

But if you stop and think about it, why do we love music? It gives us enjoyment.
Isn't that why people love gear? The enjoyment?
Or even, to push the question, buying, selling, changing gear? That's for enjoyment, no?

So, it raises the difficult question: Why do some think that "music" as an "enjoyment" is better than "gear" or "shopping, buying, selling, trading"?

Not everyone believes this, but it is the most prevalent assumption in these discussions -- that "love of music" is the end-which-cannot-be-questioned. 

So, while music is the largest end I'm personally striving for, I do realize that it's because it brings me enjoyment. But the other facets of the hobby do, too. And I'm starting to realize that ranking them is an exercise but not a revelation of the "one" way everything should sort out. It's all pretty subjective and surely doesn't seem like a basis on which I could criticize someone else's enjoyment, right? 

What do you think? On what grounds do you see it argued that "music" is a *superior* or *ultimate* end? Whether you agree or not, what reasons do you think support that conclusion?
hilde45
hilde45's avatar
hilde45 OP
5,448 posts
 
@mahgister I also like the aesthetics of John Dewey -- experience-based, interactive. "Classical" and "Romantic" are old labels meant to capture something, but they hardened and set people apart. That's his thrust, I think. Pirsig was pushing toward something like a more integrated view, a connective, dynamic way of seeing experience rather than pigeonholing ways of seeing. Good work done here: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781403974020

And yes! Have a great holiday.
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,803 posts
 
Thanks hilde45...

Pirsig is an interesting writer and your recommendation is interesting...

Pirsig was pushing toward something like a more integrated view, a connective, dynamic way of seeing experience rather than pigeonholing ways of seeing.

You are right and it is the reason why i name few of my favorite to walk the same walk....

I only push the many writers i did recommend to go more on the same road, and Dewey was indeed one of the great american thinker with Peirce, and few others....

By the way the best friend of Goethe is a thinker in his own way and express very deep thinking about the polarities in his own way in a very simple and deep book : Schiller "on the aesthetic education of man" a pleasure to read...

Happy holiday to you and all....
sokogear
1,121 posts
 
What is this a philosophy, English or history class? If that was the subject of the OP, I surely would not have clicked in. Come on, I’m sure there are a lot of other forums out there that have readers who all want to hear about this stuff, but I would bet 5% or less Audiogoners do.
hilde45's avatar
hilde45 OP
5,448 posts
 
@sokogear There are many threads of an esoteric nature. No one compelled you to come back to this thread, to read it, to reply to it. You are free to leave, anytime. You clicked on it -- so what? You didn’t pay, you’re not contracted to check back. So don’t.

Many people are naturally philosophical and make philosophical observations all the time. I learn from them and I’m interested in hearing them. There have been some on this thread. You may resent the fact that you’re not inclined that way, but no one is forcing you, so...exit if you’re not interested. To each his/her own.
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,803 posts
 
It remind me of my schoolyard teen years, when some objected about listening the words they dont understand or reacted to interest they dont like....My hate of crowd come from these years indeed....

Coming back to the OP matter, gear has no interest to me apart from their contribution to sound quality....
Music is a so deep subject that Stuart Hameroff says with Roger Penrose that the brain is more akin to an orchestra than to a computing device...

I know they are right because in the music the signification and the sound wave body make one complete unity.... This cenesthesy is already the perception of an encompassing reality.... In this sense the music is a multidimensional consciousness potential in the making.... A computation suppose that and his itself only the shadow of a more deep music.....It is not bad poetry when a great mathematician physicist, Michael Berry, call the prime distribution a musical event, not only a mere computational event....

Understanding music is akin to improve our conscious participation in the phenomenas flow in our own body and in the world that are always ONE anyway, and that are made one on another level for the conscious listening experience, and Pirsig outpassing the sterile subject /object customs and barrier is a walk in the right direction indeed....



:)
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