Are we running out of new music/movies/art from a metaphysical perspective?

stephen_s

It is difficult to judge at first, but it appears that some music genres (classical and jazz especially) have seen a radically slowed or non-existent output of significant works in recent decades. By significant, I mean works that would be seen in league with the most acclaimed artists in the genre (eg Beethoven, John Coltrane). In a similar way, there is a building popular consensus that Hollywood is not pursuing original ideas as much anymore and is relying on rebooting old stories and franchises. But is this because of a fault of the Hollywood system, or is it because there are few significant movie story ideas left that have not been done?

It seems to me that there are limited possibilities in art (or any field) of what we can discover or create. It appears that the matter and rules of the universe (in concert with human nature) manifests itself into these limited possibilities. When we develop a field or genre, we learn and create at an increasing rate but then eventually "complete" the field (in a boom and bust pattern).

I wrote a brief article called The Big Niche to try and explain this concept.

The relevant questions seem to be:

Do you agree that from experience and observation, we can tell that certain genres or fields appear to become completed?
Does this concept or another concept best explain what is happening?

I'm interested if any of you agree with this line of thinking or have other possible explanations of this phenomena.

I wrote a brief article called The Big Niche to try and explain this concept.

The relevant questions seem to be:

Do you agree that from experience and observation, we can tell that certain genres or fields appear to become completed?
Does this concept or another concept best explain what is happening?

I'm interested if any of you agree with this line of thinking or have other possible explanations of this phenomena.

Thank you for your answer. I reread your article more carefully. I think I can see what you are trying to do, though I am not sure what the utility of it is. I have disagreements based on epistemological and ontological grounds but I would like for start to focus on your example of music as to me it fails to demonstrate, if not contradict, your very point.

As I said in the previous post, there is no real completion of a genre. A completion can only be defined by defining a genre so the reasoning is circular. To give you another example, a huge chunk of modern music such as jazz, blues, rock, pop and the thousands of derivatives like metal, prog rock etc. are all using the same framework that Bach was using so can be conceptualised as being in the same genre. In other words you are creating boundaries by your definition and then offering your boundaries as evidence of completeness. That is not to say that my rebuttal proves that completeness is not possible. Just that the example is not working.

Now, no matter what you do, how much you flex your definition, I can always take you one level of abstraction out until we reach the definition of art I gave you in my previous post. And even further. But If you want, as a start, to focus on art, can you argue completeness from that definition?

If we can agree on that maybe we can debate the core of your argument.

Thanks for taking the time to read the article and continue responding. To progress further, maybe the idea I need to address is distinct points vs gradation.

Would you agree in music that there are limited factors involved in what makes a song? There are probably more than I can name (rhythm, chords, melody, instrumentation, etc), but there is a limit to how many factors are at play. These factors exist in limited distinct manifestations but that have infinite gradation. For example, look at the factor of instruments in an orchestra. There may be infinite ... (read more)

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Are we running out of new music/movies/art from a metaphysical perspective?

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Are we running out of new music/movies/art from a metaphysical perspective?

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