[mike1127]

The ear/brain is subject to illusion. When we describe our perception, often it does not match reality.
 
Gregorio described that some recording engineers or producers have developed their hearing and this helped them make a lot of hits.
 
I want to think carefully about the role of perceptive hearing in artistic creation.
 
Let's take the example of a conductor who can hear every note, both the right notes and the wrong notes, in a thick orchestral texture. Let's say that our conductor has just started conducting a piece, and there are many wrong notes because some of the players are reading the wrong part. Let's further say that some listeners in the audience can easily tell something is wrong, but they can't say what. That's where the skilled conductor comes in. He hears and identifies the instruments playing the wrong notes, so he can quickly tell those players to get the right part. Then everything sounds much better, and even the audience members can easily hear that it's better.
 
In this example, the conductor is using his ear/brain a bit like an instrument such as a very sophisticated spectrum analyzer.
 
I could have started with a simpler example, which is the harmonic dictation I'm learning at school. The teacher plays a chord sequence on the piano and we have to write down the notes.
 
To think carefully about this, I think we need to ask what good this does, to develop my ear/brain this way. It certainly helps me appreciate music more. But what about listeners, who listen to the pieces I compose or perform? They may not have ears so much like spectrum analyzers and so are they really on the same page as me?
 
First let me point out another sense in which a person's ear/brain can be highly developed. This is in the sense that they listen to something and can tell what changes are needed to make it better, aesthetically. Say the producer listens and decides the mix needs to be tweaked. When he's done, everyone can tell it sounds better. What was special about the producer's ear/brain is that he could imagine the potential that was lurking in the mix, ready to be brought out, with the right tweaks.
 
This is an important distinction, because the producer is not using his ear to "analyze" the sound and describe it in objective terms, but rather to "analyze" its aesthetics.
 
It may be that the producer is so sensitive that he is more in touch with the aesthetics of the sound than 99% of listeners. He probably has a richer aesthetic experience. And after I learn harmonic dictation well, I may be more sensitive to harmony than most listeners. I think the importance of these activities is that it gives us a skill that we can use to guide the creation of music---guide it toward a result that anyone can tell is good.
 
 
 
 

 

[K93George]

I do agree you can train yourself but you can never fully take control of your brain, instinct is instinct and audible illusions are the same as optical illusions as far as the brain is concerned.  It comes down to the fact that our brain is constantly comparing data and adding missing detail, or adapting. 

We can handle the terrible quality of a phone call despite lacking a serious amount of the spectrum because we just add the missing detail, we don't need to hear everything.  When someone plays off key that is a tad different, an expereinced individual will pick it up, no illusion, it is off key. 

One with no experience has nothing to go off and will consider it part of the performance, no illusion.  Engineers are highly skilled in what they do, they know what to look for and therefore are actively comparing, and eventually it will be instinctive.  The same way a Life Guard easily spots someone in distress.

I think an illusion in sound would be how we percieve a difference that isn't really there, or don't percieve a difference.  Our brain is an amazing tool, and while we lack the unbiased nature of machines, we have an instinctive edge.  It is a great ability to have if you can be unbiased, your brain will still be adapting though, that YouTube vid with the hiss?  If you tend to ignore it your brain will make it vanish!  Magic

 

[Uncle Erik]

My take is that humans are lousy at hard, physical measurements. How far away are you from the wall you're facing? You might be able to approximate it, but a measuring tape is a lot more accurate. Are you able to approximate speed in a car, or is your speedometer better at doing that?

No one makes the argument that a human can approximate distance better than a ruler can.

Humans are good at interpreting data and determining how a test can be conducted.

But, face it, we're horrible at fine distinctions and measurements. There's too much to distract and we're just awful with illusions and things that throw us off.

For several thousand years, humans have relied on measuring devices to check our distorted and inaccurate perceptions.

An oscilloscope or DMM isn't any different from a ruler or measuring tape. No one doubts a ruler telling us that 12" of wood is really 12" of wood. Neither should we doubt a DMM telling us that a $500 cable is the same as a $1 cable.

Faulty human perceptions are faulty. We have to use tools to tell the difference berween the real and imaginary. We are not capable of making that distinction ourselves.

 

[K93George]

I don't think anyone is saying that the brain is better a tool then machines when it comes to accuracy, that was never our purpose.  The only reason illusions work are because of the brains nature to add detail/ adapt, percieve...

As for the cable example, well.  When an individual buys a $300 gold plated TOSLINK cable, they bought it because they suspected a difference.  We have ways to deal with failure like that, either we admit what we did was stupid and feel bad, or percieve a difference that isn't there (denial).

One thing I still can't get over is that cone illusion, I am telling you that the tile is NOT the same shade as the other tile.  No matter what, despite seeing the proof the brain just wants to continue to assume it is not the same.  It applies known knowledge and we are left with a fake image

With all that said, I would much rather rely on perception and be able to understand voices in a noisy enviroment/ add detail to phone calls etc then struggling to understand even the best spoken words (voice software?) "sorry, could you please repeat that".  We were designed/ adapted (depending on your view) to survive, not be accurate with such things.  That is why we invented tools to help us of course.

 

[tuahogary]

 
Quote:

I don't think anyone is saying that the brain is better a tool then machines when it comes to accuracy, that was never our purpose.  The only reason illusions work are because of the brains nature to add detail/ adapt, percieve...

As for the cable example, well.  When an individual buys a $300 gold plated TOSLINK cable, they bought it because they suspected a difference.  We have ways to deal with failure like that, either we admit what we did was stupid and feel bad, or percieve a difference that isn't there (denial).

One thing I still can't get over is that cone illusion, I am telling you that the tile is NOT the same shade as the other tile.  No matter what, despite seeing the proof the brain just wants to continue to assume it is not the same.  It applies known knowledge and we are left with a fake image

With all that said, I would much rather rely on perception and be able to understand voices in a noisy enviroment/ add detail to phone calls etc then struggling to understand even the best spoken words (voice software?) "sorry, could you please repeat that".  We were designed/ adapted (depending on your view) to survive, not be accurate with such things.  That is why we invented tools to help us of course.

Interesting point(s). At the end of the day it's our ears and brains that listen to the music we enjoy, so there is little point at relying on a machine to tell us what's good and what's bad. If our brain perceived the two shades of grey as different then so be it, no matter how hard we try and what the facts tell us, we have no other way of perceiving it. Another illusion that always gets me is the Ames room. Illusion is what gives us the ability to perceive depth in 2D images, so we can essentially see a pattern of lines as a 3D cube. Don't you think it's a bit silly to keep telling yourself that the two shades of grey are different and refusing to believe what you see? Just accept it as it is. In a controlled image like that we know we're being fooled, but how can you know that the things you see in everyday life - like that two shades of shadow on the wall are the same / different?
 
A machine can prove me wrong about what I listen to, but it cannot change how I listen and tell me what to listen to.
 
Edit: Just a little more thoughts

 

[K93George]

Very nice tuahogary,

I almost forgot about the "Ames room", that is another great one.  I am in total agreement with you, the brain was never made a "critical" device.  I will percieve things how I like, perception is vital to well-being.  The way we perceive not only external stimuli but an event is seriously important, it is needed for basic survival.

How do you perceive war?  What is your perception on that child on the street who has no home?  "Its his fault, or it isn't his fault and I should intervene"  I am going off topic so I will stop but food for thought, perception is important, whether it is sensory perception or other forms of perception, we need it!  It is greater then machine accuracy and always will be.

Also, check out Binaural beats!  It is amazing how a 300Hz tone in one ear and 310Hz in another will generate 10Hz!  Your brain can develop sounds down to 4Hz or so, all thanks to perception.

 

[gregorio]

Let's take the example of a conductor who can hear every note, both the right notes and the wrong notes, in a thick orchestral texture. Let's say that our conductor has just started conducting a piece, and there are many wrong notes because some of the players are reading the wrong part. Let's further say that some listeners in the audience can easily tell something is wrong, but they can't say what. That's where the skilled conductor comes in. He hears and identifies the instruments playing the wrong notes, so he can quickly tell those players to get the right part. Then everything sounds much better, and even the audience members can easily hear that it's better.
 
In this example, the conductor is using his ear/brain a bit like an instrument such as a very sophisticated spectrum analyzer.

Not really, because you are talking about using perception to measure perception and those who have trained their perception are better at measuring perception than those who haven't. Notes and pitch are a construct of perception with no linear relation to frequencies of sound waves. For example take a fundamental of a note with a pitch which equates to 440Hz (the orchestra tuning note), an octave above that would be 880Hz, so an octave = 440Hz. Go up another octave, the frequency is now 1760Hz, so this next octave = 880Hz. Even though this last octave jump contains twice as many frequencies as the previous octave, it is perceived as having exactly the same relation as to the previous octave jump. In other words, there are always 12 semitones in every octave but there are always a different number of frequencies in every octave. Also of course, a musical note does not just contain a fundamental frequency but a whole bunch of harmonics. We don't hear in a linear fashion. So a spectrum analyzer is going to have a tough job of equating the reality of the frequencies present to the perception of musical notes. On the other hand, if we are interested in the frequencies themselves, then the conductor's perception, no matter how well trained, is orders of magnitude less accurate than a spectrum analyser.

I do agree you can train yourself but you can never fully take control of your brain, instinct is instinct and audible illusions are the same as optical illusions as far as the brain is concerned.  It comes down to the fact that our brain is constantly comparing data and adding missing detail, or adapting.

Modern neuroscience is of the opinion that the vast majority of the "detail" supplied by our senses is discarded by the brain (due to processing limitations) and what's left is then restructured into a perception. I totally agree with your basic premise though. What's interesting is it seems than no amount of training can overcome the instinct. From my own experience of 30 years of professional aural training, I am still just as susceptible to aural illusion as the next person. I am usually able to identify that I'm hearing an illusion, I would probably know exactly how that illusion was created and in some cases I may even be able to identify exactly what settings on what equipment was used to create the illusion but I still hear and fall for the illusion!

Perception is incredibly useful. Without audio perception my job would not exist! Sound is just variations in the frequencies of waves travelling through the air. Change the frequency of just one of those waves and all we have is a different frequency but because of perception that change in frequency can be perceived as a different chord, a happy or a sad chord, etc. And it's not just true with music, pretty much everything you hear on TV, in film or on the radio has been manipulated in some way to affect how you perceive it. Without perception there would be no qualitative judgement, no good or bad, no music, no film and no art.

Traditionally, the production of a recording would require two people, a producer and a mix engineer. The producer would make artistic/aesthetic decisions based on his/her perception and relay them to the mix engineer who would then apply some electronic processing to modify the frequencies in some way to create the illusion of that artistic decision. In a simplistic sense we could say that a producer in interested in the musical notes, while the mix engineer is interested in the sound wave frequencies. Commonly today however, the producer and mix engineer are the same person.

G

 

[mike1127]

Quote:

Quote:

Let's take the example of a conductor who can hear every note, both the right notes and the wrong notes, in a thick orchestral texture. Let's say that our conductor has just started conducting a piece, and there are many wrong notes because some of the players are reading the wrong part. Let's further say that some listeners in the audience can easily tell something is wrong, but they can't say what. That's where the skilled conductor comes in. He hears and identifies the instruments playing the wrong notes, so he can quickly tell those players to get the right part. Then everything sounds much better, and even the audience members can easily hear that it's better.
 
In this example, the conductor is using his ear/brain a bit like an instrument such as a very sophisticated spectrum analyzer.

Not really, because you are talking about using perception to measure perception and those who have trained their perception are better at measuring perception than those who haven't. Notes and pitch are a construct of perception with no linear relation to frequencies of sound waves.

Gregorio,
You aren't responding to my main points. I used the term "spectrum analyzer" only as very rough analogy-- what I meant to convey is that the conductor is using his ear to determine something objective. In other words, he is determining which instruments are playing the wrong notes. That is an objectively verifiable fact.
 
Further, my point was to help clarify the topic by making a careful distinction between "good ears" as objective measures of reality, and good ears as perceivers of aesthetics. I felt that your statement about producers making hit records wasn't clear on this point. I would have thought that making hit records was not about objective determinations but about aesthetic determinations.
 
I also asked the question: what is the point of having "better ears" than your audience-- my answer being, to act as a guide toward a result that your audicence can perceive.
 
I am curious if you have any thoughts on the main points of my post.
 
Quote:

For example take a fundamental of a note with a pitch which equates to 440Hz (the orchestra tuning note), an octave above that would be 880Hz, so an octave = 440Hz. Go up another octave, the frequency is now 1760Hz, so this next octave = 880Hz. Even though this last octave jump contains twice as many frequencies as the previous octave, it is perceived as having exactly the same relation as to the previous octave jump. In other words, there are always 12 semitones in every octave but there are always a different number of frequencies in every octave. Also of course, a musical note does not just contain a fundamental frequency but a whole bunch of harmonics. We don't hear in a linear fashion. So a spectrum analyzer is going to have a tough job of equating the reality of the frequencies present to the perception of musical notes. On the other hand, if we are interested in the frequencies themselves, then the conductor's perception, no matter how well trained, is orders of magnitude less accurate than a spectrum analyser.

 
I think I get what you are saying, but I'm not sure bringing in the logarithmic perception of pitch is the best example. Yes, a spectrum analyzer can do things an ear/brain can't. But I don't think that's related to logarithmic perception of pitch. That's because within the realm of what each can do, overtones and fundamentals aren't the fundamental limitation.
 
I.e., it is trivial to program a spectrum analyzer to analyze overtones and fundamentals. This is what tuning devices do.
 
Are you familiar with programs like Finale that transcribe music by analyzing the sound file?
 
And, you could train someone with absolute pitch fairly easily to calculate the linear difference between two pitches by relating the perceived out-of-tuneness via a quick mental calculation into a linear number--- now if you say he can't do it as accurately as a machine, yes of course, but he could do it-- logarithmic pitch perception is not the issue.
 
I'm not contradicting your point, just saying my opinion is that logarithmic pitch perception is not the best example.
 
I think my example of a conductor determining wrong notes is more apropos. In a thick texture, that is truly difficult to analyze via machine. And, I'm also making the point that the conductor is making a verifiable objective statement.

 

[mike1127]

Quote:

Modern neuroscience is of the opinion that the vast majority of the "detail" supplied by our senses is discarded by the brain (due to processing limitations) and what's left is then restructured into a perception. I totally agree with your basic premise though. What's interesting is it seems than no amount of training can overcome the instinct. From my own experience of 30 years of professional aural training, I am still just as susceptible to aural illusion as the next person. I am usually able to identify that I'm hearing an illusion, I would probably know exactly how that illusion was created and in some cases I may even be able to identify exactly what settings on what equipment was used to create the illusion but I still hear and fall for the illusion!
 

I would like to try to clarify a distinction here. Let me make a distinction between two ways in which the brain fails to determine objective reality.
 
Sense A: One sense in which perception is non-objective is that the entering sound waves only partially contribute to what is perceived. The rest comes from things like context (what has happened just before), your emotional state, etc.
 
Sense B: The other sense in which perception is non-objective is demonstrated by illusions--what we think we are seeing/hearing is not what we are actually seeing/hearing.
 
Do you agree with this distinction?
 
It seems to me that professionals who develop their hearing can reduce the influence of Sense A-- that is, their perception is reliably a function of (1) the sound, and (2) the normal processing of the brain but processing which is repeatable and reliable -- i.e. they are not random in how they perceive it, and they are not influenced by context.
 
Sense B would be the case even if a person's perception was directly tied to the input sound with no other variables (nothing varying from listen to listen).
 

 

[mike1127]

Quote:

My take is that humans are lousy at hard, physical measurements. How far away are you from the wall you're facing? You might be able to approximate it, but a measuring tape is a lot more accurate. Are you able to approximate speed in a car, or is your speedometer better at doing that?

No one makes the argument that a human can approximate distance better than a ruler can.

Humans are good at interpreting data and determining how a test can be conducted.

But, face it, we're horrible at fine distinctions and measurements. There's too much to distract and we're just awful with illusions and things that throw us off.

For several thousand years, humans have relied on measuring devices to check our distorted and inaccurate perceptions.

An oscilloscope or DMM isn't any different from a ruler or measuring tape. No one doubts a ruler telling us that 12" of wood is really 12" of wood. Neither should we doubt a DMM telling us that a $500 cable is the same as a $1 cable.

Faulty human perceptions are faulty. We have to use tools to tell the difference berween the real and imaginary. We are not capable of making that distinction ourselves.

I basically agree with you, but I'm also making an additional point.
 
First of all, just forget about cables. Let's consider microphones, speakers, mic placement and mixing, and speaker placement and room acoustics.
 
That stuff affects what the result sounds like.
 
Say we've got two configurations (two different mic placements, mixing, speakers, etc)-- call them configuration A and B.
 
Now let's consider what we can know about A and B (i.e. referring to epistemology-- what we think we know and how we know it)
 
We can measure them until the cows come home, but the primary way to know how they perform is to listen-- and, as far as I'm concerned the primary reason they exist is to be listened to. Even when we find useful measurements, we only know the measurements are useful by correlating them against what we hear.
 
EDIT:
Quote:

But, face it, we're horrible at fine distinctions and measurements. There's too much to distract and we're just awful with illusions and things that throw us off.

This is not quite true. Musicians learn to "take dictation"; that is, listen to music and write down the notes that are played. This is quite a complex problem for a measurement device, especially if you get into thick textures.
 
Taking dictation is an example of using your ear/brain to "measure" objectively verifiable facts.
 
 
Now, regarding illusions-- in the realm of dictation, there are many aspects that have an illusory quality. You can seem to hear notes that aren't present; or, some notes can get largely buried behind other notes. However, that does not need to stop a human from making an objective determination. The human understands the situations like this, so they can still write down the correct notes.
 
Regarding your example of measuring distance from a wall-- consider that pool players can "calculate" angles and distances VERY precisely-- they may not put it into numbers, but they can make very fine distinctions and precise actions.
 
With practice.
 
They practice and they get more accurate. Just as classically-trained musicians practice like hell.
 
Quote:

No one makes the argument that a human can approximate distance better than a ruler can.

Sure, but I think the thing that gets lost when you say something like this, is that perceiving music is all about things that humans are good at perceiving. Perceiving musical qualities does not require translating loudnesses and frequencies into numbers. However, it can involve very precise distinctions.
 
Again there are aspects of objective perception that can be developed with practice. A good conductor can listen and tell you the tempo within 1 beat/minute. But more important, that conductor perceives dozens of ways that the tempo interrelates with articulation, phrasing, and hall ambience.
 
 
 
 

 

[gregorio]

MIKE - "Are you familiar with programs like Finale that transcribe music by analyzing the sound file?".:- I am. In my experience they are very accurate when dealing with relatively simple waveforms and monophonic instruments but become increasingly inaccurate (compared to a talented trained musician) as the waveforms become more complex. For example, many drums and percussion instruments easily fool these types of program because of they can't easily work out the fundamental pitch from the balance of odd and even harmonics. Much the same sort of trouble that an electronic tuning device has. Although it's often difficult for a spectrum analyser to pick out the pitch (human concept) in this situation, conversely it would be impossible, even for someone with absolute pitch who is highly trained, to be able to identify all the frequencies produced in the sound of a drum hit, whereas this would be trivial for a spectrum analyser.

I don't really see your senses A and B in your last post as being separate issues, I see B as being a consequence of A. In other words, an illusion is a proof or a consequence of the fact that the sound waves entering your ears are only partially responsible for what you perceive as hearing.

If we take a world class mastering engineer as an extreme example of someone with highly trained hearing. Then I don't think a mastering engineer has any more capability to hear than anyone else. The difference with a mastering engineer is that he is able to focus in on aspects of the sound waves entering his ear which the rest of us would routinely discard. For example 20 years ago I made the switch from professional orchestral musician to recording engineer/producer/mix engineer. To start with I couldn't "hear" reverb, as an acoustic musician reverb was part of my sound, as an sound engineer they are completely separate concepts. Someone sat me down in a studio and played me a flat sound, then the sound with reverb and then I got it. Obviously I was hearing the reverb all the time, I just couldn't isolate it. After 20 years I can pick out a great deal of different effects, to quite a fine degree. For example I can now break down reverb into Predelay, Early Reflections and a bunch of other parameters. I'm not saying this to show off, top mastering engineers are way better, I'm just using my experience an example. I can now employ my perception and knowledge of reverb, along with my knowledge and experience of how sound works and is perceived, to manufacture artificial acoustic spaces, thereby creating illusions for others. In other words, I am using my perception, along with scientific knowledge and measurements, to create illusions which I trust (hope) are perceived by others. As a rule, my perception is the final arbiter, with the caveat that I have to work within a framework of technical specifications and measurements.

I think this has answered your questions, there were quite a few of them and I'm not sure I fully understood them all. If not, ask away.

G

 

[upstateguy]

Quote:

<snip>
 
First of all, just forget about cables.
 
<snip>

 
Why do you want to forget about a simple thing like cables?  They are easily measured.
 
In Sound Science, we don't we try to distract and confuse with discussions of microphones, speakers, mic placement and mixing, speaker placement, room acoustics, orchestra conductors, and classroom exercises, in an attempt to prove you can use your ear/brain to "measure" objectively verifiable facts.
 
Here in Sound Science, we prefer to read the meter or the scope to get our objectively verifiable facts.

 

[mike1127]

 
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by gregorio /img/forum/go_quote.gif

MIKE - "Are you familiar with programs like Finale that transcribe music by analyzing the sound file?".:- I am. In my experience they are very accurate when dealing with relatively simple waveforms and monophonic instruments but become increasingly inaccurate (compared to a talented trained musician) as the waveforms become more complex. For example, many drums and percussion instruments easily fool these types of program because of they can't easily work out the fundamental pitch from the balance of odd and even harmonics. Much the same sort of trouble that an electronic tuning device has. Although it's often difficult for a spectrum analyser to pick out the pitch (human concept) in this situation, conversely it would be impossible, even for someone with absolute pitch who is highly trained, to be able to identify all the frequencies produced in the sound of a drum hit, whereas this would be trivial for a spectrum analyser.

 
Well I think we agree on the essence of this. My central point here is that ears and brains can determine things about the objective world, and in some cases do so better than instruments or computers.
 
 
 
Quote:

I don't really see your senses A and B in your last post as being separate issues, I see B as being a consequence of A. In other words, an illusion is a proof or a consequence of the fact that the sound waves entering your ears are only partially responsible for what you perceive as hearing.

 
Okay let me try to further clarify. I agree that the brain doesn't use most of the available information in forming a perception. Maybe we should move this into the realm of optical illusion to make it clearer.
 
Let's say we have some kind of illusion in which a spinning disk with black-and-white patterns produces the illusion of color. That doesn't happen because a person doesn't take in all the information. Rather, that is a consequence of low-level processing in the nervous system.
 
You can take an experienced artist or video editor, and they would take in oodles more information than the average person, but they would still see color.
 
So, you write above that an illusion is proof that sound waves (or light waves) are only partially responsible for what we perceive. I don't think that statement is precise enough. I see it as more precise to say that most illusions (that I am aware of) from the nature of unconscious processing. Taking in more information doesn't alter the nature of the unconscious processing.
 
The McGregor effect or whatever it is called-- it's a consequence of how light waves and sound waves are processed at a level too low for us to be aware of it.
 
Now let's distinguish this from a situation like a live concert, where your perception of the music---that is your perception of the sound waves---is influenced by oodles of other things, everything from the lights to your state of consciousness. What you write above--"the sound is only partially responsible" -- is a description of this situation. But this is fundamentally different.
 
Now, you've talked about musicians or engineers developing their perception and perhaps not being subject to illusions. I don't know if this is how you would put it. What this makes me think about is someone skilled at harmonic dictation. There are lots of sorta-kinda illusory situations in harmony-- one hears notes that aren't there, or can't directly perceive notes that are masked by other notes-- but the person knows that going into it. They know what these situations sound like. So they compensate, in essence, and get it right.
 
What I imagine is that a really experienced video editor might just get to the point where they watch the McGregor effect and know exactly what's going on because they can sense some subtleties at a deep level. Maybe they still experience it as an illusion, but they also are familiar with that situation so they can compensate and tell you what's really happening.
 
 

 

[mike1127]

Quote:

Why do you want to forget about a simple thing like cables?  They are easily measured.

Because if cables are absolutely perfect, it doesn't help you very much in making and playing back a recording. You still need your microphones and speakers and configurations therewith which most people would agree exert far more influence on the result.
 

 

[gregorio]

<This is not quite true. Musicians learn to "take dictation"; that is, listen to music and write down the notes that are played. This is quite a complex problem for a measurement device, especially if you get into thick textures.
 
Taking dictation is an example of using your ear/brain to "measure" objectively verifiable facts.

I think the confusion here is with your understanding of "Objectively verifiable facts". In your example of dictation of musical notes, musical notes are not absolute values, they are approximations based on human perception. Which is why measuring equipment often struggles to provide acceptable results, measuring equipment is good at dealing with absolute values and generally poor at approximations and human perception. In my opinion when you state "Objectively verifiable facts" what you really mean is "objectively verifiable perceptions". Human beings are much better at measuring approximations and perceptions, while meters, scopes and other measuring tools are much better at measuring the precise nature of sound waves.

G