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wrote:
Steven Sullivan wrote:
But activities practiced by pyscho-acousticians are not necessarily
successful at predicting and controlling the subjective world.

Certainly psychoacoustics strives to be *predictive* as well as
*descriptive*, as does any science. Certainly psychoacoustics
has achieved some predictive successes. Are you aware of them?

I know you've mentioned before that science is employed in the design
of audiophile equipment

not always consistently, alas.

--as though there were some inherent
contradiction in enjoying that equipment while "rejecting the science."

There is a certain self-blinkering going on when someone enjoys the
fruits of scientific method while insisting that it doesn't apply
to *them*.

I don't agree with this. This would only be true if the scientific
method were first of all, something perfectly defined and universal,
and second of all the best way to study everything. But to clarify my
own perspective, I don't think the scientific method is a single,
well-defined thing. Usually it invovles people working with falsifiable
theories, empirical data, mathematic models, logic and so on. But I
don't think that someone doing all the those things is necessarily on
the right track.

Yes, yes, we know you think this. The problem is, you have no
independent evidence that your beliefs are *true*. Worse, can you even
devise a way to show that they are *false*?

These conclusions can be based on sound chains of reasoning, or bad ones.

I would agree that it would be an unsound chain of reasoning to say
that a difference in the sound existed, as a result of hearing a
difference in a sighted test.

However, sometimes it might happen to be true that a difference
existed.

In other words, it may be illogical to insist that a differenece
existed. While at the same time, maybe one did.

Well, given that this is exactly the 'objectivist' view, I'd hardly
disagree.

Now, how would you go about demonstrating that the difference was
real?

--

-S