Yes, but inauthenticity of the difference between sexual identity and class, on the the use of cultural narrative to challenge the status quo of the observer is social comment, but only if distinct from language; otherwise, we can assume that culture is capable of intentionality to denote the fatal
flaw, and therefore the failure, of predeconstructivist class of socialism to analyse and read society of the ‘the textual paradigm of discourse’ to denote not, in fact, dematerialism, but postdematerialism of an abundance of constructions concerning a neostructuralist totality that may be revealed in an analysis of cultural narrative that holds between the task of the poet that is deconstruction.

In reality, by the way, speaking as a musician who has been on lots of albums, it's not at all as simple as us thinking, "If the album was sold, that's a person who likes us/who finds the music pleasing," so that we're basically thinking "We sold 500k copies of this. That's 500k people who like it."

Because we know that for example, some people could have bought it on a whim, or because they heard of us and they're taking a chance on it, but then it turns out that they don't like it.

Or, for example, someone who likes it bought a copy to try to interest someone else in it. But maybe the gift-receiver turns out to not like it.

Etc--although this sort of thing was more of a factor prior to the last 10-15 years. The Internet and streaming have changed things a lot. The number of people who buy albums on a whim without ever sampling any of the music is pretty negligible at this point.

At any rate, if we're selling 500k copies of a relase, we can be pretty sure that some of the people who bought it liked it, but we don't know just how many, just what percentage, we don't know just how much they like it aside from what people might say in reviews we might see, how they feel about it compared to other albums we released (ditto the last parenthetical), whether they'd rather we did more similar music or not, etc.

To a large extent it's always a shot in the dark. You know that there's some correlation to the gigs you're doing, the media mentions and airplay you're getting, the advertising you're doing, stylistic development you're undergoing, the amount of appreciation you're getting from fans, etc. and sales, but it's very difficult to ever directly attribute sales shifts to particular things, or to common opinions of the music--unless, for the latter, there's a major consensus about something considered monumentally good or horrible, so that everyone is talking about it. And at any rate, if you have the degree of fame required to know the latter, you can keep sales/a career going pretty indefinitely no matter what you're releasing, because you're popular enough, and had at least past work considered significant enough, that you can just keep riding the coattails of that.

You said: "I visit a music festival and purchase a vinyl disc. This musician might take this as a symbol that this type of music has pleased me, and produce more like it, where in reality it was the cultural act of buying the record itself that was of value for me the receiver,"

So we have:

(a) you visited the music festival, after which
(b) you purchased an album from one of the artists at the festival, and
(c) the musician might take this as a symbol that the music pleased you, BUT you point out that
(d) in reality, this isn't why you purchased the album.

Which implies that the music didn't please you. Yet you purchased the album after hearing the music.

Re your argument, you're substituting a claim about necessary beings with claims about identification. I'm not sure why you'd not realize that the two are not at all the same thing.

You could say that if Jesus is God then Jesus is a necessary being. But that's not at all the identification claim you're asking about.

What you should be looking at instead is arguments about identity/identification a la rigid designators. Personally I think a lot of rigid designator analysis is a mess, but at least it has to do with what you're asking about. See, for example, section 1.1 here ("Names, Ordinary Descriptions, and Identity Statements"): https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rigid-designators/#NamOrdDesIdeSta

Why would they make an album I wouldn’t like? — kudos

You said you might buy an album after hearing the music (live) and not liking it. I was curious why you might do that.

But notably, I can visit Canada. I can put my feet on Canadian soil. — S

Part of the brilliant argument here is that "You're using the word wrong above," "You're simply deluded."

:lol:

Keep in mind it's being asked through the filter of his definition. If it's subjective, then it's not the tree. — tim wood

Why in the world would I think that a tree is subjective/mental?

Why in the world would I think that a perception of a tree, or knowledge of a tree is identical to the tree? What would the words "perception of" or "knowledge of" even be doing there if we believed them to be identical? We'd just say "the tree" in all cases because there would be no difference; just like if you thought that taking or tasting a cookie was identical to a cookie--there would be no need to say "taking/tasting a cookie." Simply saying "a cookie" would already tell you this (at least as long as it is known that the two are identical, supposing they are).

(And if you can't believe that this is material we'd have to cover outside of a short-bus kindergarten class, join the club.))

That your perception of the tree isn't identical to the tree doesn't imply that "Your perception is not of the tree but rather of your own mind," by the way. Just like that your taking a cookie isn't identical to the cookie doesn't imply that you're rather taking your taking (or your hand, or whatever we'd want to say), and not the cookie at all.

"When you take a cookie you're really just taking your hand, because your hand is the only way to take the cookie." <---This should be a pretty obviously stupid argument. And so should "When you perceive a tree you're really just perceiving your mind, because your mind is the only way you perceive the tree."

The ground of all of this appears to be his understanding of subjective/objective, and it's untenable. And this is more than a twice-told tale. It famously exercised Hume and Berkeley, and Kant even more famously resolved it. But Terrapin is apparently innocent of any knowledge of these things. But that's mere ignorance, and we're all ignorant. But he's also been told, so that it really isn't ignorance. What do you call that? — tim wood

You're basically assuming that if someone is familiar with Kant, then they need to agree with Kant, rather than thinking that Kant was very confused and a crappy writer to boot. (And in both, he deserves a lot of blame for the huge mound of guano that is continentalism.)

So which Kant argument do you take to support your representationalism?

Think about and answer these for a moment:

When you taste something, is it your taste that you're tasting?
When you take something, are you taking your taking?
When you give someone something, are you giving them your giving?
If you mash some potatoes, are you mashing your mashing?

Why would it matter to anyone but myself? — kudos

I'm curious why people do things. I'm just curious why you might buy an album of music you don't like.

Just curious why you'd do that.

Maybe it would help to focus on being more comfortable in situations where you're not in control?

where in reality it was the cultural act of buying the record itself that was of value for me the receiver, — kudos

You mean that you might buy an album of an artist you saw at a festival despite not liking the music you heard?

Representationism - whatever that is - is a red herring here. — tim wood

There are different stances in philosophy of perception. The view you're endorsing is one of them. It's known as "representationalism." As you say, "whatever you take to be the tree is just your mental representation." That's representationalism in a nutshell. You believe that what we're actually perceiving, what we're actually aware of, is something mental, where we have no idea how that mental representation actually links up with things external to us (assuming there is anything external to us--under representationalism, there's actually no way to know), because under representationalism, we have no access to things external to us--at least not aside from some possibly "mystery access."

You're treating representationalism as if it's some obvious, common sense default position. It's not. It needs to be justified. So that's what I'm asking for--your justification for believing that "We don't actually see the tree/we're not actually aware of the tree. We're instead only aware of a mental image or 'representation' of the tree."

There must be a reason that you believe that to be the case, no?

When it comes to philosophy of perception, I'm not a representationalist. I believe that representationalism is unsupportable, and any attempts to support it rather wind up undermining it. I'm what's known as a direct or "naive" realist instead.

The main motivating force is that I know I will die at some point of my life and having control as to when and how is quite appealing. — Wallows

It might be worth contemplating why you have such a need for control of everything that you'd rather die sooner while having control of it than live longer while not having control of how you'll die.

In short, why is control even more important than life to you?

What is it in your experiences and dispositions so far that gives you such an overpowering need for control?

Yes, but I'm skeptical of p-zombie argument because I don't think it makes sense for them to make the same arguments about consciousness. — Marchesk

Under physicalism, the argument is incoherent/inconceivable, because the properties of anything are determined by its physical constitution (including dynamic relations of parts). So you couldn't have something that's physically identical yet that has different properties. That's in fact not conceivable (at least outside of doing some very loosey-goosey fantasizing that ignores ontological details--it's akin to saying that it's conceivable that any physical system has any arbitrary property).

Isn't it, specifically, the third sort of hypothetical construct we consider in the zombie discourses? — Cabbage Farmer

I haven't read every post and I didn't see people arguing with you about that, but yes. That's what a p-zombie is.

As if anyone thought that the perception of EM energy (redness) might be identical to the EM energy.

If they arent identical then how can we be referring to the same thing? How does red differ from EM wavelenghts of 680 nm? — Harry Hindu

Obviously "perception of x" is different than "x," no?

Only a narrow band of it. The rest of it has no color for us. — Marchesk

Right. Particular ranges are what we're calling colors.

C'mon, man. Don't do that stereotypical Internet crap. Let's have a serious discussion. What's the reason that you believe representationalism? This is the third time I'm asking you and you just ignore it every time.

Electro-magnetic radiation exists out in the world — Harry Hindu

And that electromagnetic radiation is what we're calling color out in the world.

How does the brain go beyond processing information to become subjectively aware of information? The answer is: It doesn’t. The brain has arrived at a conclusion that is not correct. When we introspect and seem to find that ghostly thing — awareness, consciousness, the way green looks or pain feels — our cognitive machinery is accessing internal models and those models are providing information that is wrong. The machinery is computing an elaborate story about a magical-seeming property. And there is no way for the brain to determine through introspection that the story is wrong, because introspection always accesses the same incorrect information.

"The brain has arrived at a conclusion"
"Introspect and seem to find x"
"Our cognitive machinery accessing internal models"
"An elaborate story"

ALL of those things are the subjective awareness that he's denying. You can't admit all of that by means of explanation and then turn around and deny it.

Re " . . . is not correct" ". . . is wrong" etc., he's talking about the correspondence between subjective experience and other things that aren't themselves subjective experience. That's fine to talk about that, but it has nothing to do with denying subjective experience qua subjective experience.

Also, to know that subjective experience has something wrong, it's necessary to have subjective experience that you believe is getting things right.

For example, the only way to say that the brain is getting "what green looks like" wrong, you need your brain to be capable of getting "what green looks like" right, whereupon you note that there's a discrepancy.

Good post above (your second-to-last post now) that I agree unfortunately doesn't really clear up what Dennett is claiming very well.

And yeah, it's weird that he seems to be embracing representationalism there via Richard Power.

I find it amusing when Power says, "We know that our perceptions or imaginings of trees, faces, etc. are distinct from the objects themselves"--as if that's worth pointing out. As if anyone thought that a perception of a tree might be, in fact, identical to the tree. I know that Dennett has made comments in that vein a number of times as if he's saying something insightful.

I don't know, a lot of it comes across to me like a bunch of very confused imbeciles trying to figure out how to turn on a light switch.

I don't know that much about schools outside of the U.S. (and just for context, I graduated high school in 1980, and then did university kind of piecemeal in the 80s and 90s, when I could schedule it either between or alongside gigs I was doing), but as far as I know, one huge difference is that US undergraduate schooling is very different than elsewhere. In the US, undergraduate schooling is basically "High School II" --that is, like a formulaic sequel to high school. You have to take the same wide range of courses, plus elective requirements, where a lot of those classes have nothing to do with your major. You might only have a couple classes related to your major per semester.

It isn't until grad school that you more exclusively concentrate on your chosen field.

There's an interest in keeping the machine going the way it was going, which is why P2P file-sharing was fought against so much, for example.

Take seeing. You don't see the tree, instead light is incident on your eyes, and then other things happen, resulting in what you and most folks call perception. All of which the tree has nothing to do with. You don't see the tree. — tim wood

You're the one being obtuse. I told you that I do not agree with "you don't see the tree." I said that I believe that claim is ridiculous.

I asked you why you believe that, why you buy representationalism, and you didn't answer. So what's the answer as to why you believe it?

Well, first, lots of artists have been taken advantage of by managers, agents, record companies/studios/dealers/gallery owners etc. You don't have to be in the biz to be aware of that--bios/autobios of artists are replete with these stories. Part of the issue there is that a lot of artists (there are exceptions, of course) don't really have a "business personality." They especially don't want to have to make as big of a time commitment to business issues, being business-minded, as is necessary. I'm one of them, by the way, (And I lucked into having a wife who is business/economics-oriented as a career.)

I wouldn't call what I described "semi-aimless." Wanting to create work that is a combo of self-pleasing and that can gain enough of an audience that one can earn at least part of one's living from what one is doing is a "complete," worthwhile aim in my view. And the latter part of it--gaining enough of an audience to earn at least part of one's living from what one is doing--is not at all easy to do. It's not easy to connect with enough people to the extent needed for that, or at least to get any momentum going--it's a very momentum-oriented thing, in the sense of people tending to react a bit sheep-like. You need to be able to build a "wave" of social response--the difficult thing is trying to get that going, at least in a particular niche, and then lots of people will follow along with the wave (though keep in mind that after you've built a wave, momentum/waves can work negatively just as well).

But even aside from that, there are far more people who desire to make a living with arts & entertainment than can be practically supported. The vast, vast majority of people who try to do it are not going to really get anywhere, because there's just way too much competition for the available opportunities (for making any significant money with it). So that's part of the motivation for at least doing work that pleases oneself. At least that's some reward to it . . . but of course most either give up and don't bother at all after awhile, or it gets pushed way to the side as a hobby akin to fishing or something--you do it a bit when you've got enough free time for it, but "just for fun." Almost everyone has to do something for a living, and that, plus family commitments, etc., get in the way.

Isn't that a trivial observation that takes away from whatever meaning and import the artist managed to incorporate into the work, not forgetting the meaning received and understood by the viewer (which might not be the meaning the artist intended, but that's art for you!!). — Pattern-chaser

Meaning can't be literally "embedded" into anything. What especially artists realize is that one is producing stuff that works as a "meaning catalyst"--for the majority of folks who like to focus on reading meaning into things (as opposed to folks who approach works more on a formalist level), but everyone is going to apply their own meaning, so usually it's to your benefit to keep things a bit more ambiguous/vague, because that aids everyone reading their most significant-to-them interpretations into the work.

The way you do this, though, is by arranging formal elements into structures--by approaching the work on more of a formalist level yourself.

it just seems like lots and lots of work is being produced and received by the public and there isn’t really any clear modern concept of why anyone is really doing it. — kudos

People usually create artworks because they're enough of a fan of the medium that they want to learn how to perform that medium themselves. Most people wind up having desires (fantasies?) of being able to do the medium in a manner that can earn them a couple extra bucks (sometimes as well as earn the attraction of their preferred gender for romantic partners), if not make a living for them, so typically people create stuff that's some combo of:

(a) what they'd like to experience as a fan--where people figure there are bonus points for having relatively unusual tastes so that they're creating stuff that's relative unique,

balanced with

(b) what they believe might attract at least a niche/cult following.

So in short, usually the aim is to produce stuff that's partially designed to please oneself and others with more or less the same tastes, and partially designed to be able to attract (or maintain if one has already attracted) a currently viable audience.

So I'm wondering what you think your perspective gains us? — Pattern-chaser

It tells us what we're actually doing when it comes to creativity.

OK, fair enough. But why? Why describe creativity - an everyday concept centrally associated with ... creating something - as something else? Why distract attention from its prime feature? Why take away from its prime feature, and focus instead on something that communicates a much lesser act than creation? What does your perspective gain us, in this discussion of creativity? :chin: — Pattern-chaser

Again, I wouldn't say I'm describing it as something else, something that's not creativity, something that's different than creativity, and I wouldn't say that I'm describing it as something less than creativity. I'm describing creativity.

So, to use what you mention just above, a tree is an example.

I read several and found nothing interesting, illuminating or relevant to what I understood we were "discussing" there. — Janus

Cool. Guess we can't really proceed then. <shrugs>

But you never, ever, saw a tree in your whole life, and never did anyone else, ever. — tim wood

lol--that's nothing that I'm claiming (and it's rather ridiculous). At any rate, it's not an inconsistency to disagree with something that someone else is claiming. In order for me to be uttering an inconsistency, I have to both be claiming P and not-P.

But the fact is that whatever you take to be the tree, just is your mental representation. — tim wood

No. That's not at all a fact. Representationalism is wrong.

Why do you believe that representationalism is not wrong?

What I was referring to was the issues with invoking "explanations"/hinging any arguments on whether there are "explanations" for something. The comments of mine referenced address the issue in more detail. I don't feel like typing it out in slightly different wording yet again. If you're interested, read some of those posts.

Everything that is so to speak tagged with the idea "Canada". — Matias

That's a bunch of different things. We can't really paint them all with the same brush.

Only inconsistent if you make your division between mental and non-mental. — tim wood

Is it too much to specify an inconsistency?

Just exactly what is it? — tim wood

A pronoun substitution for the objective world. The objective world is the nonmental world. You observe it via your senses. There's no problem there (aside from philosophers who haven't even managed to reach the object permanence stage of psychological development).

Aren't you coming from something of a continental background? My confusion would be because of that. A lot of continental stuff makes very little sense to me.

For example: "The context of the work within a discourse." I have no idea what that's saying.

Re "Does not create pleasure"--for whom? For me? The work creates pleasure for me, sure.

"Creating meaning out of pure survival"? Again, I don't know what the idea would be there.

At any rate, I would say that "creating meaning catalysts" is one motivation, though certainly not the only one. In my view, re my ontology, it's not possible to literally project/display meaning, but one can project/display something that catalyzes meaning creation in other individuals' minds.