Schroder sq and the new talea

Before I studied electronics, I used to wonder why no one had adopted the strategy of building a perfect circuit using perfect parts, so there could be no doubt among end users that the product was "perfect". Now that I know something about electronics, I fully realize that there is a large number of ways in which to design a potentially great phono stage. And once that's done, the choice of parts with which to build said phono stage constitutes yet another determinant of the outcome. There can never be any such thing as a perfect anything in audio, as is true of our other very earthly pursuits. Because this is the way I think about it, I may appear dismissive, when I say that the Talea and the Schroeder are just tonearms, albeit very fine examples of the tool. For that matter, the Gladius was just a sword. (By the way, my perception was that the gladius was a factor in Roman dominance in part because its short length, relative to the battle swords of the opposition, allowed it to be particularly maneuverable and therefore lethal in hand to hand combat, not per se because of superior metallurgy.)

As to what my brain is doing when I am not thinking. I can't know, but I do know that it is doing its most important work on unsolved problems, when I am thinking about something other than those problems. That mysterious process must have been at work for Schroeder and Durand when they conceived their respective products and probably still goes on for them. For any of us in creative pursuits, it is always going on.

Dgarr. Thank you for your response. This is, of course, the problem when we try to bound ourselves in literary terms; as in, the linguistic, academic regression that has occurred over the few last decades.

On this literary bug up our brain: Using the thinking mind to dissect metaphor/symbol/sign, etc. can certainly yield interesting sights and can point in some directions, as it has. But considering the moribund state of philosophy as a discipline, much less a search path, I think what we might actually might have been learning lately, collectively, is that this deconstruction is attempting to tell us to have the courage and creativity to move on to the next little road.

Of course, it does make for lots of nice, little published journal articles... ;0)

Lewn, nice post. But, you know, you can know. Your "mysterious" is not as far away from your waking world as you might, well, think.

Atmasph: I glanced at your post again, really like it. The intent thing is interesting. Heidegger looked at a painting of some old shoes by Van Gogh and was sure it was a proletariat-tinged in meaning, but Vincent's letters (to his brother Theo, I can't quit remember) show that it his intent was something else.

When I look at a painting, I first see its composition, the brushstrokes. This is when my cognitive processes are most engaged and I see its meaning in more objective terms. This is the same that we do with our stereos; we look for detail and value the objective when we first sit down (and which is the level that produces our audio language). As we sit and listen and our thinking mind calms its waters - as our waking day, prey-predator oscillating attachment to cognitive control fades - we experience the musical meaning from a deeper, but not separate, symmetry. And still, deeper, as the thought currents become relatively still, from another.

Atmasph, a submission for your consideration: perhaps Heidegger got it objectively wrong on the meaning at the shallower levels of perception, but, perhaps, the meaning at the deeper levels was wholly translated to him? When you create a preamp-tool-art, perhaps the objective intents that you envision are never quite translated in just the way you saw them, but perhaps the ineffable that you embue in that matter/energy contrivance does become more wholly translated. Perhaps, the deeper you go in perception, the more of meaning is translated? Of course, the thinking mind doesn't like this idea. I mean, the sum structure of your ideas about the world, the egoic structure, wants to be everything, right?

Atmasph, I would submit that the experience that makes your preamps like the Van Gogh painting is the meaning that is more wholly translated by it (not to consciousness, but in an event with it) at the deeper symmetries. Maybe this is why people want it but can't say exactly why.

Goldenguy: yes, you have a point...but its a big sandbox.

M-

Asa, ...'try to bound ourselfs in literary terms, as in,
the linquistic, academic regression,etc.'
I had no itention whatever to discuss with you any issue
at all because we seem to be from differnt planets. But
your disapproval of linquistics and the progress made
since,say, the German philosophy including Heidegger is
impossible for me to swallow. When Wittgenstein asked Frege to comment on his Tractatus the first question Frege
asked was: is this meant as a literary or scientific work?
Frege has drawn the separation line between the two. Litarature as art may treat about beauty, or what ever but
is not about the truth. Ie their sentences need not the truth conditions. So these sentences may have whatever meaning they have but they do not need the reference. However scientific sentences need both. In the other post I
mentioned ,uh, the 'value' of Higs particle. We in Europe
spend 2 billion Dollar in order to discovere if this particle exist. I don't believe that anyone will surch for
Pegasus while any poet or writer is free to write a intersting story about the beauty of his wings. There is no sence in science to askribe or 'attribute' whatever qualitys to a non existent object. Even in mathematics you
can not ask the question about peculiar qualitys of sets without any member. But 'your' Heidegger was able to write
a book about 'nothing' or 'nothingness'. The German expression is 'Das Nichts nichtet' and I am not able to put
this in English. I hope Dertonarm will help , his Englisch
is much better then my. I speak 5 different lanquages and
know how difficult literary translation are. I regard Serbo-Kroatian and Dutch both as my 'native' lanquages but I would never dare or try to translete a literary work from one to the other. But there is no such problem at all in translation of scientific works. That is why the science is the same in any part of the world.Why should this be so you think? Well choose your favourite.
Regard,

Nandric, I too have difficulties with Heidegger's philosophy, but mostly on the grounds that philosophy itself is never knowledge. Philosophy is/are merely reasons, and as such, entirely made up to justify a behavior.

IMO vision is what makes a thing like a great tonearm possible. It is hard to say what the source of the vision might be. But you see this all the time in great art, great technology, great accomplishment. A musician may have poor technique, but if he has vision it can take him places that his technique never could. If you see a great tonearm, it is the vision behind it that made it possible.

Vision and intention are the things that make for greatness. Philosophy is the thing that we make up along the way to explain ourselves; in the face of simply Being, philosophy vanishes, but vision and intention remain.

Nandric, thank you for your response. Yes, I saw you out there. That's why I threw the "regression" in there, on the water. I didn't know it would be you, but you are the smartest at the academic lingusitic stuff, so I figured it wouldn't be long. :0)

Yes, I agree, science and mathematics are their own languages too. And, yes, writing and mathematical languages have different referent rules, etc., but that does not mean that they are not still both bounded by the dualistic operation of thought construction.

Deconstruction is an interest in dicing up things. As far as it goes, such dicing up interests is a good thing, as I think I said, but there has been a prolonged over-reliance/attachment that has led to a stagnation. Maybe a little reintegration is needed in our stew. Or maybe, just maybe, a search for the ground of these cognitive constructions (I mean, we've looked everywhere else, right?).

And here's the new flash: Change does not evolutionarily favor no-change mind!

Yes, Nandric, there is a relative language issue between us, but, you know, we are on the same "planet" because we are both HERE NOW. Do you *see* this/me?

On Heidegger: I did not put him in with the regression stuff, purposely; he's in a lower paragraph on the art stuff that was meant primarily for Atmasph. Although, since we are there, did he ever really see what was below the signs and symbols? The cognitively attached mind defines the absence of things - matter-things, thought-things, sign-things, symbol-things, etc. - as a No-thing-ness.

Nandric, again, the same question, no textbooks: what/who are you when you are not thinking? Does it feel like a No-thing-ness place to you?

The same question: what existed before the Big Bang?

A trick question: the "what" that existed before the Big Bang, where is it now? Is it still HERE, NOW?

On the progression on literary deconstruction - sure, the Bloomberg group is as fine as a place to start as any - but, didn't Wittgenstein change his mind later? Isn't there early Wittgenstein and later Wittgenstein?

Here's the koan: can you answer the Big Bang/Mind-beneath-thought questions above without reaching for more Wittgenstein...or Russell, or Popper, or Kuhn, or Freyerabend, or....whoever who is not-you.

When you saw the Early/Later Wittgenstein, did you inflexibly reach?

You said, "Litarature [sic] as art may treat about beauty, or what ever but
is not about the truth. "

Are you saying that the perception of beauty is not a perception of Truth?

Is that because you can not cognitively locate (or dice up) a Beauty-thing?

The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflections,
The water has no mind to receive their images?

M-