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komponisto comments on Helpless Individuals - Less Wrong
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I'd like to know which specific statements of mine give this impression, because that isn't what I see myself asserting.
From my perspective -- of having to endure a constant stream of casual remarks to the effect that contemporary music sucks, often coming from people who aren't particularly familiar with contemporary music, but think themselves sufficiently informed because they enjoy listening to Mozart to show off their own status -- I'm basically just defending the existence of the music I like. In the process, of course, I expressed enthusiasm for this music, and what I'm seeing here appears to be pushback from violating the social taboo against expressing high levels of enthusiasm (for pretty much anything).
I was looking through your posts, but this one appears to say precisely that.
No, it does not make you smarter than everyone else. Some people have more capacity than others, but you haven't magically hit the sweet spot for all of human music. That is the bit I'm seeing and going "that's ridiculous".
Art works by pressing buttons in someone's head and generating a subjective experience. The artist first, then others because humans in a particular time, place and (sub)culture will have similar enough buttons to be able to talk about them. Inferential distance kicks in when you take the art out of its time, place and (sub)culture, and at that point it may in fact take a degree's worth of bridging to get there (and to a huge number of other places as well).
Art is great for effect in general, not just for your carefully defined personal category of "interestingness" (and I can't find the post right now, but I recall you saying you were using your own personal definition of "IQ" as well). That presses your personal buttons very effectively, but it's not a universal button and - and this is the key point - it's not the greatest of all buttons.
Can simple art be effective? Can there be simple art that is more effective than complicated art? Here I include "simplicity on the far side of complexity" as "simple", though arguably one may not.
But hey - tell me I'm wrong.
That was written after the grandparent, first of all. Secondly, see my reply to you there: it doesn't say that at all, unless you invoke additional premises (such as "utilizing more intellectual resources" implying "objectively better") that I haven't stated.
Do you deny that appreciation of contemporary art music (or even Schoenberg) is Bayesian evidence of high IQ?
For purposes of this specific sub-discussion (regarding empirical predictions), you may assume that I am talking about "the thing measured by IQ tests".
I haven't come close to claiming that my buttons are universal. As for "greatest", well, obviously I think the music I like is the greatest music. But this isn't an information-free statement: there are reasons I like the music I like, and those reasons are not unrelated to musical ability and experience. Obviously, there's a personal component, too -- I like some composers and works better than others of equal sophistication -- but that personal component plays a much smaller role in explaining my "disagreement" with nonspecialists than it does in explaining my disagreements with specialists (which will tend to be much narrower).
Yes, as long as interest comes from somewhere. Superficial "complication" is not the only way to create interest.
Are there universal buttons? That there is any controversy at all over value of music so many thousands of years after its inception, and that music taste is tagged 'personal' (and indeed, uses words like 'taste' and 'preference') suggest there are not.
In the absence of universal buttons, how do we rank 'greatness' of buttons? Again, 'music taste is personal' is an impediment. There are several options:
The first three suffer from all the problems common to majoritarianism solutions - a self-approving effect (where the individuals who prefer 'what the majority prefers' make up the majority). The fourth is a pure evo-psych idea. The fifth is a twist on the fourth, but suffers to some extent from issues relating to cultural relativism ('greatness' of buttons is heavily dependent on current cultural settings).
Some of these systems at first glance seem to rank appeals-to-intelligence quite highly. Possibly appeals-to-desire-for-status could take top spot.
I could see a milder claim of universality that isn't on your list-- a claim that a large majority of people over an extended period of time like (or perhaps love) the music which is claimed to be universal.
It's amusing to see claims that some types of music (usually classical) are wonderful because they're universal, but also that people these days need to learn to like them.