Vaniver comments on Being Wrong about Your Own Subjective Experience - Less Wrong

37 Post author: lukeprog 24 April 2011 08:24PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (187)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: [deleted] 25 April 2011 09:01:20PM 0 points [-]

(Maybe Bell could play a much harder piece, while the mediocre player would flounder utterly, and maybe to someone with violin training his tone and expression would be noticeably better, but not to the average Joe hurrying through the Washington Metro.)

If I remember correctly, Bell did play some truly challenging pieces. No one noticed, except that one guy.

Comment author: Vaniver 26 April 2011 03:51:22AM 4 points [-]

If I remember correctly, Bell did play some truly challenging pieces. No one noticed, except that one guy.

A few of the people who worked there noticed; of particular interest is the shoe-shine lady, who has the police on speed dial to remove street musicians, but decided to let Bell play because he was pretty good.

Comment author: SilasBarta 26 April 2011 06:49:15PM 0 points [-]

I thought he was allowed to stay there because the experimenters made an arrangment with the operators of that area beforehand? (Not sure if people were updating on the fact that a musician was strangely not being removed.)

Comment author: Vaniver 26 April 2011 07:27:00PM 3 points [-]

If that is true, it was not mentioned in the article. The relevant section:

On her speed dial, she has phone numbers for both the mall cops and the Metro cops. The musicians seldom last long.

What about Joshua Bell?

He was too loud, too, Souza says. Then she looks down at her rag, sniffs. She hates to say anything positive about these damned musicians, but: "He was pretty good, that guy. It was the first time I didn't call the police."