???????Beatles????????

[ganaffe]

About my statement on scientific arrogance: you said you understand what I am saying, but reading your reply, somehow I don?t think you do. Or I don?t understand what you are saying. What I meant to say is this:

Science is arrogance, the claim on the truth of science is arrogant. Like you said:

science once proved that the world was flat and that the sun revolved around the earth.

In those days mankind claimed to know the world was flat. One day some bad motherf r comes along and proves the world is in fact a sphere. On the basis of this event you can draw two conclusions:

1. Science is a good thing cause it has proven the truth to be different from what we thought it was.
2. Science is a bad thing cause for hundreds of years it claimed to know the truth where it was in fact not telling the truth.

I?m inclined to go with the second option: science is arrogant because it claims to know the truth about the shape of the world where it in fact only can say "from what we now know it is most likely that the world is flat" or "from what we now know it is most likely that the world is a sphere".

You give this example:

I once (and only once, unfortunately) saw a program that contended that if a beam of light travels through a particle cooled to within a tenth (I think) of a degree of absolute zero, it slows down. Therefore, the speed of light is no longer a constant and a good deal of physics has to be tossed out the window and rewritten.

Examples like this can be given for almost every factor which sciences claims to be a constant "truth". Every constant factor that is taken for granted in the natural sciences has either proven to be false, or will be. That is not a certainty, that is my conviction. (Btw: every scientist should use exactly those words when writing the conlusions to his research report).

Thus:

Science, to me, is much like perception. It's a good guide to follow in order to function, but it's not absolute...it is subject to change as new information is discovered.

I'd say: Science is perception. It is as imperfect as man, since it is invented by man.

Ah...but wouldn't it also be true to say that I only eat the parts which are USEFUL to me? Just as the mind only selects the parts of reality which are USEFUL to survival and day to day life.

Yep, and going with your concept of the chicken representing reality...and eating representing perception, that is what I said in previous posts: the abstraction of reality in your mind only represents the USEFUL parts of reality to cope with the outside world, i.e those things you need to know about reality to survive and procreate.

What I derive from the above statement is an inherent mistrust of one's own abilities.
To misquote Ayn Rand; "'One can never be certain,' they say and insists that this be considered a certainty."

Yes, I mistrust the ability of humans or any other organism for that matter, of perceveing reality as it is.
Yes, one can never be certain about perception of reality, BUT?
No, I?m not saying one can never be certain of anything. I?m saying one can never be certain about his perception of reality. You can be certain about liking Pink Floyd music. You can be certain of the existence of your mind and thoughts. You can be certain about your grieve for your deceased relatives. Etc. etc.

There are certainties, but they are certainly not given by perception. So the circularity that you point out in my line of reason, is really not there.

Allow me, to skip a few things, we?ve been over this again and again. You give me examples of rocks dropping on my feet to prove their existence, I give you examples of how your physiology and your psychology alter these perceptions to prove that your image of reality is just a crude abstraction to enable you to cope with the outside world? I think we are really stalemate here? either we are constantly talking about different things, or we are never going to convince each other.

Nope, it ain?t just gonna happen, analysing things can help a lot. But you can analyse it to death and still there is no way you can be sure that the object is in fact the same as how you perceive it. You can only make it more plausible by gathering information that you think is factual evidence. But that is nothing but proving likelihood, not proving truth.

And this is just further indication of a belief in the impotence of man...the uselessness of everything.

Again, you are putting words in my mouth which I don?t use. Yes, I am saying that man is not perfect, I am saying that perception is not the most suitable thing to find the truth and the same goes for science, but I?m not saying everything is useless.
The fact that your mind is just a crude image of reality is very useful. If you had to deal with reality in it?s totality you would have to much on your mind to survive. And I?ve been saying science can be very useful for trying to understand reality.

But as I said it is arrogance if a scientist claims to know the truth because his research has proven it. You may call this a cynical view, I am inclined to call it na?ve to think that the truth can be found through the senses.

It indicates a lack of belief in staticism. It suggests that everything is constantly in motion and in a state of flux (which on the atomic and subatomic level may be true, but SOMETHING makes things appear static.)

Yes, I think statistics are largely overrated. (BTW: the fact alone that we use statistics shows that our perceptions are faulty. We use them to overcome the errors in our observations!) They don?t prove anything, they only indicate the likelihood of the appearance of a given event under given, very limited, circumstances. All statistical techniques are based on the use of "reliability margins" (I don?t now the English term for this, this is the best translation I can think off). The word says it: statistics show the reliability of observations, the likelihood of events happening, NOT the truth.

And yes, everything is constantly in motion and in a state of flux, and I?m not talking about atomic or subatomic level. Although I?m glad you introduce this, because the fact that objects like cars and trees are far more resistant to change than a river lies in their atomic and subatomic characteristics. But I think that?s another discussion.

And yes there is something that makes those things appear static, and that something is your mind.
Even your car constantly erodes, gets rusty, that tree is growing, looses it?s leaves, dies of. The fact that you don?t see that change constantly happerning doesn?t mean it?s not there. Again your perception is faulty, it only shows you things that are useful to cope with life.

The following line of reason does not apply to what I am saying:

If nothing can be certain, then it can't be certain that nothing can be certain. Ergo, something can be certain...and the whole statement crumbles to dust.

I am not claiming that nothing can be certain, I am claiming that you cannot be certain of your perception of reality. Just like science, perception only can make things plausible, not certain.

Since the rest of your post is based on the wrong assumption that I am saying that there are no certainties I?ll leave it at this. As I?ve tried to explain above this is not what I am saying. It?s either you not understanding what I am writing, our me not being able to express myself in the right way in the English language, but the fact alone that I had to use the phrase "this is not what I am saying" more then 10 times in my last few posts makes me think of something Popper said:

"it?s so much easier to make someone's ideas to appear wrong, than to make your own ideas to appear right"

And hell, I don?t even know if that?s a good translation of his actual words?

[wolfebrand35]

I believe that The Beatles were the revolution of so much great music we had in the 70's, and also a lot of the good music we have today. In my opinion, they started it all.

[simpledumbpilot]

OK I have been trying to avoid posting in this thread for fear of treading on someones toes but I have finally decided to post it as it is so here goes...

Basically the Beatles are the most over rated nothing to offer band there is! Lets take it from their genesis. Yes they did the Hamburg bit and caught god knows what diseases but lets also look at what else they did during this period, well, nothing other than have their hair cut at someone elses insistance! So lets now move to their return to Britain, what was the first thing they did? Yet again nothing, a succession of church hall gigs amongst other venues followed where they were finally spotted by one budding entrepeneur, namely one Brian Epstein, and why did he take the band under his wing? Because he was gay and fancied John Lennon, history could have been very different if he fancied Gerry Marsden who was equally if not more original than the Beatles of the time; and of course I assume anyone that will try and contest this will already be familiar with the incident where John stripped off and finally gave himself to Brian? If youre not, well then dont reply because youre clearly doing it for reasons other than the facts. And so the beginning of the Beatles pop career begun! Here we have the Tony Sheridan backing band, once again, couldve been Marsden and his band if only Epstein had thought differently! And so we move towards the first Beatles single release, a simple slab of non-intricate pop that could have been played by any band that was part of the Mersey scene, a scene that had already preceeded the Beatles by a year but of course the Beatles had a svengali to push them and thus Beatle-Mania was born, from nothing other than heavy marketing due to an unmittigating desire of one man for another! So now we have it, Beatle mania is born! Where do we go from here?, well, for 3 years we dont go anywhere, we generally milk the cashcow that the brand name is and go and get stoned with Donovans mates! And whilst getting stoned with Dons mates the musician in the band picks up an Indian instrument that hasnt been heard in pop music before! Well, yeah, not on a large scale but it had already featured on many lesser known cross-over records for the last 2 years, but still Harrison will walk away with the credit of creating psychedlia, even tho what he was doing was an after effect of psychedelia finding him! Which now leads us to their Sgt Pepper album, an album that was taking a year to develope and going nowhere and proceeded to go nowhere until a visit to Pink Floyds studio at Abbey Road which then lead to one of the most adventurous albums that we are lead to believe exists! Of course anyone that has done the slightest bit of research into musical history will know that this is not true, but of course that is the specialists view and the everyday person who wont take the time to do this whilst working on their building site will eat up the fodder the tabloids give to them! SO we are now in post SGT Pepper Beatles territory, where does the band go from here? Well the obvious answer was anything that they could record, thats where! The White Album is always greeted with mixed responses and quite rightly so! If they actually cut the desperate attempts to out-weird their previous efforts and work on the individual pieces of music that that each member had presented to the group then this really could have been the album that Sgt Pepper is supposed to be! However, the album became an overbloated work with much throwaway music that, with the exception of 2 of each individuals trumpet blowing sagas, no member would ever perform live! And so we now reach the end of the Beatles, (I really cant be doing with the whole Phil Spector affair, not even the band like it and theres no way in the world that I do) what have they really left behind? Break it down, teeny bop rock n roll, the likes of which Chuck Berry and Little Richard had been doing with far more prowese for at least 6 years prior, lets now move to the psychedelic era, well, bandwagonners of the worldunite!! psychedlia was happening befoe the Beatles, all they did was capitolise on it and use their fame to bring it into the mainstream, that is to say their management did, if the Beatles were truly involved in psychedlia then I think its fair to say that theres little theyd know about it, todays trips are bad enough, the Timothy Leary pure pharmeceauticals of the time were a whole different story, trust me, my Uncle really is a casuallty of this period! And so to the end of the Beatles, Id like to try and express some kind of grief whilst I type this but to be honest I can only express annoyance that I couldnt type the following sentence earlier! It seems a shame now that the Beatles have reached a status where they can be conceived as a great contribution to modern music just by being the Beatles, and the people that make these comments have no idea who they are other than a name that is generally frittered around! Oneday a band that is more worthy of the tile of greatest band on the planet will come along and finally put this boyband, music stealing nonsense, cover hyping, genre stealing, expolitive, media-whore, wet, yet more nonsense band to rest!

[MikeWaters]

Wow thats the biggest load of bull**** that ive ever heard...

[Vlad The Impaler]

OK I have been trying to avoid posting in this thread for fear of treading on someones toes but I have finally decided to post it as it is so here goes...

Basically the Beatles are the most over rated nothing to offer band there is! Etc etc etc etc

I wholeheartedly disagree.....you are entitled to your opinion however but opinions do not change history or facts...only one's view of it/them. I think you are viewing the Beatles, 40 years ago, in terms of music that has happened since and that leads to erroneous conclusions. In fact, we have the music we have today thanks TO bands like the Beatles. History is already made.....not liking the results won't change it.

[mosespa]

Ah...but wouldn't it also be true to say that I only eat the parts which are USEFUL to me? Just as the mind only selects the parts of reality which are USEFUL to survival and day to day life.

Yep, and going with your concept of the chicken representing reality...and eating representing perception, that is what I said in previous posts: the abstraction of reality in your mind only represents the USEFUL parts of reality to cope with the outside world, i.e those things you need to know about reality to survive and procreate.

But you also contend that since "Objective Reality" is not perceived IN TOTAL, that is is NOT perceived at all. In other words, since I cannot eat the chicken IN TOTAL, I cannot eat the chicken at all.

The "Chicken" example is to show that just because something is not absorbed in total does not mean that it is not absorbed at all.

If we (as fragile humans) were subjected to objective reality IN TOTAL, we would probably explode.

I cannot perceive the state of Illinois IN TOTAL...but I CAN perceive the bit of it that I live in...thus, I am perceiving the state of Illinois. Not the whole state, of course, but a portion of it.

Your contention (from earlier posts) is that the state of Illinois cannot be perceived at all since it cannot be perceived in total.

I still disagree with you on that...so does the chicken.

The state of Illinois did not return my calls.

Yes, I mistrust the ability of humans or any other organism for that matter, of perceveing reality as it is.
Yes, one can never be certain about perception of reality, BUT?
No, I?m not saying one can never be certain of anything. I?m saying one can never be certain about his perception of reality. You can be certain about liking Pink Floyd music. You can be certain of the existence of your mind and thoughts. You can be certain about your grieve for your deceased relatives. Etc. etc.

There are certainties, but they are certainly not given by perception. So the circularity that you point out in my line of reason, is really not there.

You mistrust the certainty of perception, but you trust the certainty of abstracts?

You don't trust the physical realm, but you DO trust more etheral realms?

I don't get it.

How can you be certain of the existence of your mind and your thoughts, I wonder? (I'm poking fun at you here...my belief system states that, as Descartes said, I think, therefore, I am. However, it seems that you don't trust your perceptions as far as certainties go. So...since your perceptions are a product of your mind, if you don't trust your perceptions to be "true" to you, how can you trust your mind to be "true" to you? If your perceptions are the abstracted product of a mind that selectively removes data that is not relevant to you, how can you trust that same mind to "think purely" as well? Wouldn't it make sense that the brain you have described in your other posts would just as easily remove information that IT deems useless to you? Even though that information might be useful at some later point? And if you DO agree with that, then, please tell me how you can TRUST that?)

Allow me, to skip a few things, we?ve been over this again and again. You give me examples of rocks dropping on my feet to prove their existence, I give you examples of how your physiology and your psychology alter these perceptions to prove that your image of reality is just a crude abstraction to enable you to cope with the outside world? I think we are really stalemate here? either we are constantly talking about different things, or we are never going to convince each other.

I'm going to go with "we are never going to convince each other." The reason for this is that I cannot see how we are constantly talking about different things.

We are both talking about "Perception VS Objective Reality" and how perceptions enter into it.

I believe that our perceptions can give us "TRUE" information...and you do not.

That's the crux of this whole thing.

There is also so much more involved in all of this...unfortunately, it belongs to that realm which cannot be put into words.

I say this again...we are both right AND we are both wrong.

Yes, I think statistics are largely overrated.

This is a good example, though, of the two of us misunderstanding each other.

When I used the word "staticism," I was not referring to statistics, which I think are largely BS...how can any randomly selected group of people be expected to accurately represent a much larger group of people?

What I was referring to was the condition of things to be static...not in a constant state of flux.

Funnily enough, you still ended up making some good points regarding my intent...

And yes, everything is constantly in motion and in a state of flux, and I?m not talking about atomic or subatomic level. Although I?m glad you introduce this, because the fact that objects like cars and trees are far more resistant to change than a river lies in their atomic and subatomic characteristics. But I think that?s another discussion.

And yes there is something that makes those things appear static, and that something is your mind.
Even your car constantly erodes, gets rusty, that tree is growing, looses it?s leaves, dies of. The fact that you don?t see that change constantly happerning doesn?t mean it?s not there. Again your perception is faulty, it only shows you things that are useful to cope with life.

There are two different things, however, that you are touching on. One (the example using the car) is ENTROPY. Not so much a state of motion as a state of deterioration...which all things are undergoing even as we speak.

This is not (to me, anyway) the same thing as maintaining a specific form.

The notion that things are constantly in motion, constantly changing seems to imply the idea that a car could become a trout.

Of course, this is nonsense, but there is a contingent that says, "Nothing can be certain, everything is changing at all times and perception IS realtiy...so...that car COULD be perceived to be a trout and it would be hard to prove that it isn't."

The following line of reason does not apply to what I am saying:

If nothing can be certain, then it can't be certain that nothing can be certain. Ergo, something can be certain...and the whole statement crumbles to dust.

I am not claiming that nothing can be certain, I am claiming that you cannot be certain of your perception of reality. Just like science, perception only can make things plausible, not certain.

Since the rest of your post is based on the wrong assumption that I am saying that there are no certainties I?ll leave it at this. As I?ve tried to explain above this is not what I am saying. It?s either you not understanding what I am writing, our me not being able to express myself in the right way in the English language, but the fact alone that I had to use the phrase "this is not what I am saying" more then 10 times in my last few posts makes me think of something Popper said:

"it?s so much easier to make someone's ideas to appear wrong, than to make your own ideas to appear right"

And hell, I don?t even know if that?s a good translation of his actual words?

LOL

I will leave with this thought regarding perceptions:

I used to have a girlfriend who fell for a guy who talked a lot of crap about the importance of perceptions and of perception being reality.

This guy ultimately contributed a great deal to the breakup of that relationship...but during one of the long discussions where I tried to show the two of them the inherent dishonesty and betrayal of trust that was going on (I was quite aware of far more than they would admit,) this comment was being made regarding perceptions.

"If a person meets you at a party and perceives you to be a good person, who is to say they are wrong?"

My response was something to the effect of, "the person who has seen you committing wrong."

His response, "but that's just your perception."

My response, "so how can it be wrong?"

The subject changed rather quickly after I cornered him there.

To put that example into a more practical use:

Charles Manson is currently spending the rest of his life in prison over some murders that he conned other people into committing. To society at large, he was a svengali figure who swayed other people into committing violent acts for him. To those who committed the violent acts, he was a father figure...some even called him a messiah.

Who's perceptions are correct? And what is your basis for saying which are correct? And what is the validity of that basis?

I hope this post has made sense...the beer has somewhat clouded my ability to tell...we can discuss THOSE perceptions at a later date.

[warrior]

You had 4 unique individuals that, when combined ,created a whole new sound and contributed sheer genius in their ability to write and play music
done with so much originality it took us by storm and surprise that none of us can ever realy explain what the one thing about them grabbed us. .I cant find any other set of musicians that could ever play and write AND become famous as fast as they did.They were an overnight sucess when those 4 teamed up AND THEY WERE NOT A ONE HIT WONDER.
I feel they wrote quite a few songs that will remain classics..Isnt the song Yesterday one of the most re-recorded re-arainged songs ever? And the song Imagine is timeless...just as they are.
Just my opinion...the music world lost 2 outstanding composers and
wonderful musicians with the death of John and George. R.I.P.

[ganaffe]

the beer has somewhat clouded my ability to tell...we can discuss THOSE perceptions at a later date.

Hey mosespa, I like clouded abilities, so don't worry... I'll react on this subject, just not right now. Think of it as a lunch break.
But I would like to quote the governor of California here: "I'll be back"

[mosespa]

You had 4 unique individuals that, when combined ,created a whole new sound and contributed sheer genius in their ability to write and play music
done with so much originality it took us by storm and surprise that none of us can ever realy explain what the one thing about them grabbed us. .I cant find any other set of musicians that could ever play and write AND become famous as fast as they did.They were an overnight sucess when those 4 teamed up AND THEY WERE NOT A ONE HIT WONDER.
I feel they wrote quite a few songs that will remain classics..Isnt the song Yesterday one of the most re-recorded re-arainged songs ever? And the song Imagine is timeless...just as they are.
Just my opinion...the music world lost 2 outstanding composers and
wonderful musicians with the death of John and George. R.I.P.

Not that I have the authority or anything, but I feel that Warrior has just gotten the last word on The Beatles angle of this discussion.

Anyone who disagrees with the above is just looking for an argument, I feel.

[warrior]

Thanks mosespa...I always thought you as cool....I have read a LOT of your writings and always respected your opinions... ..thats why I am here.

[simpledumbpilot]

Oh god not more!!!...

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,3 ... 19,00.html

I think its probably a hoax tho.

[Charade I am]

I don?t think they are a myth, but they sure are a hell of a band, of course that I mean after their "I wanna hold your hand" era. I think their best album is Abbey Road. They made incredible and wonderful music, and are, imo, on of the best bands ever...being, of course, Pink Floyd the best of all!

__________________
Ha, ha! Charade I am

[Sir. Psychedelic Soul]

the beatles have been put on such a high pedestool that they story has become a myth and an almost impossible thing to acheive...

[Ringorocks]

the beatles have been put on such a high pedestool that they story has become a myth and an almost impossible thing to acheive...

And I dig it.
Imagine som lame-arsed pop boyband or Atomic Kitten-ish girl group being as big as the beatles, just because kids nowadays are sheep, and do not know what they're doing.
But do forgive the mindless masses, they are young and unexperienced, and do not know better.

[olzen]

Yikes! That's gonna give me nightmares!