Ya, chuao, basically what I'm saying is that many (most) objectivists are discarding proper empiricism. In modren empiricism, you realise that you do not prove something true with an experiment, you just show it to be not false in that particular case. The most examples of not-false tests you have, the more sure you can be that your theory is true. We are quite sure the theory of gravity is true since it's been tested millions of times in different ways. We are much less sure about superstring theory, as it still has yet to stand to any real tests. We are not sure about the theory of the mind, since evidence is contradictory.
Theories, no matter how well seeming, can be disproven. A Biggie was parity conservation in physics. An absolute tennant of subatomic physics for a long time was the concept of parity, that is that two physical systems, one of which is a
mirror image of the other, must behave in identical fashion. Well turns out this ISN'T the case, even though it seems ot make a great deal of sense and all scientists believed it to be so. Pairty violation has been experimentally demonstrated on many occasion since it's discovery.
I think that with audio, empiricsts are too sure of themselves that everything that is relivant to human hearing has been discovered. From what I've read on it, results are inconclusive. There are tests that show people can't hear anything, tests that show they can, and many that produce no useful data. At this point I think it is premature to claim that we are capable of accurately reducing sound quality to a set of numbers.
If I decide to go to grad school, I may try and do research on this topic, but I think for now it's incorrect to state that we can objectively measure everything important to sound quality.
you do not prove something true with an experiment
...blah blah blah...
Theories, no matter how well seeming, can be disproven.
Well duh, that's by definition. That's why religion is ********, because it's unfalsifiable. But, that does not mean that we do not accept our theories when trying to apply them practically.
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We are not sure about the theory of the mind, since evidence is contradictory.
In my studies in cognitive psychology and neuroscience I have encountered various theories attempting to explain different aspects of the mind, but most certainly no claim for an overall theory of mind, so your statment is pointless. How can there be contradictory evidence to something that doesn't exist?
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An absolute tennant of subatomic physics for a long time was the concept of parity
...blah blah blah...
Of course mistakes happen. But it is impractical to assume the major theory of the day is incorrect. Example: I could assume quantum theory overall is wrong, and decide not to rely on anything derived from it, specifically any and all semiconductor electronics. That would be indeed preposterous. Despite all talk of major paradigm shifts and turning points in science, there are no such in the physical (that is, fundamental, because all others reduce to them) sciences. Overall, what we have are further and further refinements of our models of the world, almost asymptotic to whatever level of 'truth' may be reachable by our cognition. We still use Newton's laws, after all. How many physicists (Penrose notwithstanding) doubt that any future accepted base theory will not be quantum in nature?
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I think that with audio, empiricsts are too sure of themselves that everything that is relivant to human hearing has been discovered. From what I've read on it, results are inconclusive.
I would love for you to show me peer reviewed references where valid results of blind tests have shown a difference is audible when accepted theory says it wouldn't have been.
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I think it is premature to claim that we are capable of accurately reducing sound quality to a set of numbers.
The laws of physics are computational (again, Penrose's ramblings notwithstanding *). The brain is a part of the physical universe. Therefore, the brain and it's actions (mind) are computational, and thus not only reducible to numbers, but to finite precision rational numbers at that. Like it or not, all your thought sequences can be mathematically mapped to a finite automaton **.
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If I decide to go to grad school, I may try and do research on this topic, but I think for now it's incorrect to state that we can objectively measure everything important to sound quality.
Your "for now" clause is subject to the "If I decide to go to grad school". I hope that is accidental, else you are saying that we should all assume "it's incorrect to state that....", at least until you go to grad school. What arrogance!
(I can provide PDF files for any of the following if you can't find copies; sorry for the lack of proper citation format, but this is just a forum after all)
* A number of rebuttals have been published, but the most precise is A Refutation of Penrose's Godelian Case Against Articial Intelligence
** Especially Why I am not a Super Turing Machine
Also see Cognition and the Computational Power of Connectionist Networks
Turing vs Super-Turing
Universal Limits on Computation
Fundamental Physical Limits on Computation
Undecidability Everywhere
On the Computational Capabilities of Physical Systems
Chill dude, I'm not saying I'll be the guy to solve this. You are way too emotinally involved here. I'm simply mentioning that this is something that intrests me and I might study.
As for theories of mind, I can name two big ones, and if you clim either has proof as being the theory mind, I can prove you wrong in about 6 seconds:
1) DCTM, Digital Computational Theory of Mind. This is the theory that the mind works something like a digital device where is processes data in sequence to get a result and is composes of multiple dedicated subsystems.
2) CCTM Connectionist Computational Theory of Mind. This is the theory where the mind works like an weighted neural network, that individual units have no data or processing ability in and of themselves, but the overall network processess data to get the desired result.
Both theories have some merit, though ti seems the mind is generally more connectonist than digital. However regardless, neither is completely correct. For more info see Harnish, Robert M. (2002) Minds, Brains, and Computers, specifically chapters 8, 9, 12, and 13.
As for citations to experiements that are inconclusive or show people able to hear difference in blind tests: If you are truly interested, I'll gather citations, though I do not have them on hand. Regardless, most tests that were done and claim to show no perceptable difference can be challenged as being done improperly. As I meantioned, a quick A/B test might not be sufficient to determine perceptable difference. Perception is complex. You can notice your name spoken in a noisy room with no effort but not so for random other words. All tests that I am aware of that show no difference were done in classic, highly limited A/B style.
So the thing is, theories that are equaly probable given the evidence provided can be advanced. As such you shouldn't put too much stock in to the theory that we currently do objectively measure all that is important to perception. I'm not saying to dismiss it outright, but trying to hold it up as truth is a little premeture, it really doesn't meet the standard of strong inference. For more information refer to Popper, Karl (1959) The Logic of Scientific Discovery.
These 1) and 2) are more helpful analogies than precise theories, and clearly neither is truly the case, the same way that quanta are neither particles nor waves, and we simply use these analogies as they are the closest things that we have sensory experiences with in the macro world. What is the case, however, is that the brain's main evolutionary function in an organism is an information processing device (that is what cognitivism is all about), and so information theory/physics lets us derive severe limits on the mind, regardless whether you are working within the frameworks of analogies such as 1) and 2).
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As for citations to experiements that are inconclusive or show people able to hear difference in blind tests: If you are truly interested, I'll gather citations
My frustration in finding such is the raison d'etre for much of my posts in such threads.
BTW, do you perchance post on Slashdot under a similar alias?
BTW, do you perchance post on Slashdot under a similar alias?
All the time and everywhere I am Sycraft. On Slashdot, I append a suffix since I created an account and lost the password and e-mail address to get it back.
As for the theoris of mind, there are many philsophers that take one or the other seriously. None of them claim it ot be a total explination, but they claim it to be basicallly correct. As, at this point, there is evidence for and against both theories, we can say that there is no one to accept or believe as per strong inference.
I believe we have a similar situation with audio. Subjectivists claims there are things you can hear that are not yet measured without adiquate backing, objectiviststs claim that we can measure everything without adiquate backing.
As for your sig, philsohpy is notquestions that cannot be answered, at least not good and useful philsophy. Philsophy is reasoning out things so that they can be tested by science. I'll again turn to theroies of mind and language, since that is what I've studied the most. The DCTM and CCTM are useful philsophical theories in that they give psychologists a model to test. The philsopher postulates hwo the mind might work, the psychologist can then test it. Same thing in psycholingustics. You can't test how humans deal with language until you have a model to test. Philsophers generate the model, psychologists falsify it.
I have never heard anyone define philosophy the way you did. It is not the job of the philosopher to postulate scientific theories, it is the job of the scientists to both do that and test them -- thus the distinction between theoretical and experimental scientists in some theories (especially physics). Physics theories are generally born in the minds of theoretical physicists, not philosophers. In regards to science, philosophy concerns itself with metaphysics, ontologies, etc., defining what science is, how its methods can be rationally justified, and just what scientific results actually mean. Doing the science is left to the scientists.
500+ Member: Building amps and assuring water resistance.
Distortion Perception
This link has some interesting thoughts on Distortion along with some wav. Files you can Down Load and listen to on your own Rig. These are musical excerpts containing specific amounts of added distortion. http://www.gedlee.com/distortion_perception.htm
But here's the thing: Currently, the empiricists (of which I am one, have my copy of The Logic of Scientific Discovery and everything) rely almost exclusively on scopes, FFTs and so on. Objective measurements, in other words. The reason is because we know that people lie, and even when they don't their perception isn't absolute. Measurements are, my scope never lies to me (provided it's calibrated).
Ok, great, however what we empiricists do NOT know is if we have discovered everything that is important to human hearing. We know frequency response is, so we measure that. We know noise is, so we measure that, etc. But, what if there is a property we DON'T measure, beacuse we aren't aware of or believe it is unimportant, that is important to perception? Well that would mean, despite our claims that two things sound the same because they are identicle on the scope, we are wrong.
One possible example would be the nature of distorion. All I ever see measured is the amount, never the kind. I don't know enough about audio distortion to say for sure, but I would infer that distortion does not distort all harmonics of a note evenly. Thus the distortion itself will have a harmonic shape, just as the note does. The difference between a trumpet at A440 and a claranet at A440 isn't the pitch, the fundimental is 440Hz in both cases. Nor is the difference in the frequency of the harmonics, they are all integer multiples of 440Hz. The difference is in the relitive amplitudes of the harmonics, which are loud, which are soft. THAT is what makes sound to a human, and how we identify speech and so on.
So, maybe the shape of a device's distortion (if indeed distortion has a shape as I postulate) is something that effects our perception. We hear two things with the same THD, but one has a shape that sounds better than the other.
I'm not saying this is for sure that it exists or if it does that it matters, I am simply using it as an example of something that we do not attempt to measure and figure out what is good and bad.
Well, rather than just chase my tail around, the research I think would be interesting to do would be to take two things that are widely regarded to have good, but different sound that ought not, like the op amps, and do a proper, multi-level test on them. If the study shows that there probably IS a difference in sound, I'd then want to do more research to try and find out what causes that difference.
Or maybe (more likely I believe) I'll find that there IS no difference. In that case, we have some real, valid, empirical evidence to argue that. Claiming "it's all in your head" when you don't have evidence of that is kind of going out on a limb. It's probably all in our heads, but we need to do more testing to validate that hypothesis.
I've been mulling this one over and I might see if it's something that some funding and facilities could be gotten for. Need to hash out the design better first though. It's an interesting topic that is pretty much absent from the psychological journals.
You are completely right. There are many different types of harmonics and they all have slightly different effects on how we percieve the reproduced sound. For example it has long been know that odd harmonics are more pleasing to the ear than even harmonics. THD figures mean little, although it's arguable that we can still hear/feel the effects of in-audiable harmonics on sound in the audiable range, much more porgress would be made if the main types of harmonics were measured individually.
This link has some interesting thoughts on Distortion along with some wav. Files you can Down Load and listen to on your own Rig. These are musical excerpts containing specific amounts of added distortion. http://www.gedlee.com/distortion_perception.htm
The presentations are very interesting. For those that didn't RTFA, they define a new metric (the AES presentation) which uses weighting dependent on the masking of the human ear. Unlike the THD/IMD measures, this is a measure of the perceptability of a distortion. With further experiments the metric can be tuned to better represent human perception of nonlinearities.
However, I am willing to bet that if this metric was adopted by the audio community as a THD/IMD replacement, it will still be rejected by the subjectivists just like any other piece of science and rationality that has shown that their 99.999999999999999999% pure silver wiring doesn't make a damn bit of difference.
On the other hand, the proposed metric has a significant shortcoming in that it assumes the nonlinearities are frequency independent, which, as they point out, does not hold in the case of speakers. As speakers are the most distorting mechanism in the audio chain (other than potentially the recording, but that we do not have control of), they are the ones most needing something like this. But we already know that ESL and plasma are the best drivers. My secret daydream is that Dr. Hill will follow up his original creation with full range drivers, and without the helium tank
BTW, what happened to Sycraft, did he run off or what?
MP3 Encoder Tests http://arstechnica.com/wankerdesk/1q00/mp3/mp3-1.html
from this link is the following
“Numbers can only tell you so much. Trying to choose an MP3 encoder by measuring its bandwidth and waveform MSE is like trying to choose a car by only clocking its 0-60 mph”
MP3 Encoding Modeling The history of MP3 encoding and Napster are also covered nice historical look since the article is dated in the late 1980’s http://ntrg.cs.tcd.ie/undergrad/4ba2...oup10/mp3.html
Linear Mode
