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christina comments on Generalizing From One Example - Less Wrong
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Wait - there are people who can't do this? How do they get ear-worms? If you imagine Boris Karlof singing "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch", and the voice in your head doesn't sound like Boris Karlof, what does it sound like? How can you do a Ronald Reagan impression if you can't hear what Ronald Reagan sounds like in your head?
I get terrible, terrible ear-worms. I once heard parts of the first 2 movements of Beethoven's 5th nonstop for almost a week.
I've introspected about this a lot - yes, introspection bad - trying to figure out how many parts I can hear at once. At first I thought I could hear 3 to 4 parts at once (4 only when the song was very familiar or the parts were very different). But I can't hear even 2 parts begin at precisely the same moment. It seems to require very rapid, barely-perceptible, attentional switching between parts, on the order of tens of milliseconds, to change the note.
Mozart could reproduce complex polyphony after hearing it once, so he must have been able to hear and imagine all the parts. Although I'm sure he had very good compression and predictive accuracy to help him reconstruct it.
Hi, Phil .
Seems like some people don't get them (incidentally, I'd never heard the term ear-worm used for it before now--I always thought of that as song-stuck-in-my head--yours is a good succinct term for it). I get them, though. Songs don't get stuck in my head too often, however, and I find I can easily make them go away by playing a few songs on a radio or mp3 player that are different from the song that's stuck there.
I addition, most of the time I can control the auditory channel in my thoughts, so I can use this to listen to songs I feel like hearing, and change these as desired. I can also use this to listen to other people's voices in my head, or to waves on an ocean beach, etc. I don't get perfect fidelity of remembered songs, but I can get both instrumentals and vocals. The lower the fidelity of the remembered song, the more the vocals sound like me(if I were a much better singer doing a passable karaoke of it).
Incidentally, why would introspection be bad? As an introvert, I desire large amounts of introspection. In addition, I think that understanding one's self is essential for knowing what one really wants in life, which in turn is essential for creating plans that will maximize your satisfaction of life. Some examples of this would be choosing the best major for yourself in college, choosing what employment you will seek, and choosing your overall approach to life. I feel this is always one part understanding myself and one part understanding the world.