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objective vs. subjective rabbit hole

There are many on this site who advocate, reasonably enough, for pleasing one’s own taste, while there are others who emphasize various aspects of judgment that aspire to be "objective." This dialectic plays out in many ways, but perhaps the most obvious is the difference between appeals to subjective preference, which usually stress the importance of listening, vs. those who insist on measurements, by means of which a supposedly "objective" standard could, at least in principle, serve as arbiter between subjective opinions.

It seems to me, after several years of lurking on and contributing to this forum, that this is an essential crux. Do you fall on the side of the inviolability of subjective preference, or do you insist on objective facts in making your audio choices? Or is there some middle ground here that I’m failing to see?

Let me explain why this seems to me a crux here. Subjective preferences are, finally, incontestable. If I prefer blue, and you prefer green, no one can say either of us is "right." This attitude is generous, humane, democratic—and pointless in the context of the evaluation of purchase alternatives. I can’t have a pain in your tooth, and I can’t hear music the way you do (nor, probably, do I share your taste). Since this forum exists, I presume, as a source of advice from knowledgable and experienced "audiophiles" that less "sophisticated" participants can supposedly benefit from, there must be some kind of "objective" (or at least intersubjective) standard to which informed opinions aspire. But what could possibly serve better as such an "objective standard" than measurements—which, and for good reasons, are widely derided as beside the point by the majority of contributors to this forum?

To put the question succinctly: How can you hope to persuade me of any particular claim to audiophilic excellence without appealing to some "objective" criteria that, because they claim to be "objective," are more than just a subjective preference? What, in short, is the point of reading all these posts if not to come to some sort of conclusion about how to improve one’s system?

128x128snilf
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,176 posts
 

Machine/ human integration with what kind of machine?

An A.I. ?

I just distinguish and separate in the above post conventional "artificial intelligence" using Bits and Q-bits and statistical methods in the general Turing paradigm with "conscious machine" as defined by Anirban Bandyopadhyay in a non Turing context of machine design ...

The integration with A.I. is a monstruous business who cut the rooted human of his link with Nature...This is doomed to begin with...This is Frankenstein business passed some limits, like entertain transhumanists cultists...

Interacting with "conscious" machine is completely different business...Because conscious machine are autonomous individuality even if artificial one...We will interact with them WITHOUT integrating with them...They are not a tool like A.I. but a new species of being...This conscious machine contrary to the integration with A.I. will not uproot humans from Nature...

And like i said we can mathematically distinguish the three beings: artificial intelligence is not rooted at all in a universe, it is limited to a " mathematically prepared" corner of this universe and interact in an external way with this universe...

A "concious machine" is rooted in one universe, by definition of his autoprogammed learning sets of time-like fractals set of clocks, it synchronize with a universe internally...

But this synchronization, unlike human spirit, make the machine captive of this universe and identical at the end with it, like my body is part of this universe...My body is a  kind of "conscious machine"  in a way i am not, as human...

Reality is so complex that monism and dualism are true at the same time at different ontological level...

Because  "conscious machine" cannot live simultaneously in many universes and reincarnate at will...Unlike human spirit consciousness , which advanced medical science research reveal now that it probably survive the death of the body then survive even the death of this universe....

 

i will stop here to not annoy some...

deludedaudiophile
493 posts
 

@noske

 

Define capable. The prior paragraph does not support anything, it only asserts, or speculates. Then the prior words here may be examined

Since we are making things up, anything I says is as valid as anything else.  However, I will go with able to perform some function that someone else will pay for such that they may have a non purely government assisted life.

 

The obvious outcome is machine/human integration and an even greater divide between have and have nots.

A non sequiter, methinks, in context. [some words striked out for interference]

It is only a non sequiter to you, and perhaps others, but not to me since I can see a logical progression. In order to be of some productivity, to someone, i.e. in order to keep up, people will need to accept human/machine integration. At the bottom end of the economic pole, will be those who for economic reasons must accept the government supplied augmentations.  For those with the resources, they will be able to buy the best available. The divide between the haves and have nots will hence grow, from purely economic, to intelligence, effective life span, etc.

It will get ugly before it gets better.

 

 

 

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,176 posts
 

It is only a non sequiter to you, and perhaps others, but not to me since I can see a logical progression. In order to be of some productivity, to someone, i.e. in order to keep up, people will need to accept human/machine integration. At the bottom end of the economic pole, will be those who for economic reasons must accept the government supplied augmentations. For those with the resources, they will be able to buy the best available. The divide between the haves and have nots will hence grow, from purely economic, to intelligence, effective life span, etc.

It will get ugly before it gets better.

I am afraid that you are right...

But unlike you i am not optimist at all for the transhumanist program of integration with artificial intelligence, it is a hellish world,  worse than Huxley and Orwell combined...

i am anti-integration, i dont speak about medical prosthetics here, i spoke about the sociological cult that wanted to change the rooting of the human body in nature...I dont even consider the hierarchical power pyramid which this demonic ideology could and would  produce...

 

 

noske
783 posts
 

@deludedaudiophile I can’t help but think this discussion is softly approaching something of a eugenics direction - which has some historical significance in the development of some exceptionally significant mathematical and statistical methods. {edit - I'm can't remember which without doing a non-woke google (impossible), but I think it includes Gaussian and Bayesian methods}

I choose to not partake. Thankyou for clarifying the answer to my question.

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,176 posts
 

I can't help but think this discussion is softly approaching something of a eugenics direction - which has some historical significance in the development of some exceptionally significant mathematical and statistical methods.  

I choose to not partake.  Thankyou for clarifying the answer to my question.

Well said....

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