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#241
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 26 Jul 2005 00:48:25 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Keith Hughes wrote: We are taking a third-person perspective. To stick with the toe-stubbing example, it is we who grasp the thought that one episode is more painful than the other, not Karl. It's not irrelevant because we are talking about problems of comparison of longer excerpts. Sure it's irrelevant. How do *you* know how Karl feels pain? You make a classic scientific error. He may have damaged nerves in his toe and feel little sensation. You are *assuming* something about the *perception* of another person. Just to clarify where we are in the argument, I am defending a skeptical position: I am saying for all I know, somebody, call him Karl, could be unable to distinguish two sources in a same/different discrimination test and yet derive greater pleasure in normal listening from one source than the other. And I am asking, what is the evidence that that isn't possible? So it is no part of my claim that I *know* that Karl derives greater pleasure from one source than another (or, in the example that serves as an analogy, feels greater pain). What I am saying is that nothing, as far as I know, rules it out, and if you think there is something that does then I would like to know what it is, to understand how and why it rules it out. You imply that it is a mistake to "assume" something about the perception of another person. But, when you presuppose that having damaged nerves may cause a loss of sensation, isn't that precisely what you do? Mark |
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#242
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Steven Sullivan wrote:
No comparative or evaluative listening can be "scientific", simply because one is listening to one or the other at one moment, comparing that to the memory of the other. That will be astonishing and certainly paradigm-changing news to the scientific fields of perceptual psychology in general and psychoacoustics in particular. I urge you to publish your findings in a peer-reviewed journal ASAP. I think you would agree what is being 'studied' is merely people's accounts of what they remember they think they heard... It is merely an oral report of the subject's experience, when he is asked to compare in his memory the sounds of two different items... What's being 'tested' (if anything) is his aural memory...NOT his hearing acuity... The test is therefore scientifically invalid, as it does not test hearing as such... In other words, ABX testing is no more valuable than long-term evaluation. It is scientifically worthless. See above. |
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#243
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 26 Jul 2005 00:48:25 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: The principal value of thought exercises is to exercise thought, and I don't think that's at all irrelevant to understanding. (I think we agree about a lot, but diverge on the claim, "You cannot just say 'well, OK but just *suppose* ....'" Why can't I say that?) You can certainly say it. What you can *not* do is have any reasonable expectation that anyone will take you seriously. If you don't take me seriously, whether that's significant to me will depend on why you don't. I'm happy to know the reasons, and I'm sure I'd have a lot to learn from them. However, if you don't take my idea seriously because of a principle like, "If such-and-such is true about a person's perception, then necessarily the person knows that it's true," that's a dubious principle. Suppose you go to a baseball game and you hear the Star Spangled Banner. Say it is played in the standard way; there are no wrong notes; you are attentive to it; you are an average, not musically trained, listener and do not have perfect pitch; and everything else about the situation is normal. You will hear each note of the melody as having a particular pitch. That is, for each note, there will be some pitch such that you hear the note as having that pitch. So, in particular, there is some pitch x such that you will hear the 2nd note of the melody as having the pitch x, and there is some pitch y such that you will hear the 10th note of the melody as having the pitch y. In a normal situation, the pitch of the 2nd note is the same as the pitch of the 10th note (at least approximately). Moreover, your hearing is normal, so the pitch you hear each note as having is (at least approximately) the pitch it actually has. So x = y. In other words, the following will be true: (1) The pitch you hear the 2nd note as having = the pitch you hear the 10th note as having. That will be something true about your perception. Since you are a normal listener, however, you are apt not to know that (1) is true. You are apt to know this only if you know that the pitches of the two notes are the same, and normally a person has to take an ear training course to be able to tell this. (Even then, the person has to listen for it.) This is a counterexample to the idea that something can be true about your perception only if you know it to be true. So if that's a principle on the basis of which you don't take my suggestion about audio tests seriously, it's not much of a reason. Mark |
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#244
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 26 Jul 2005 00:48:25 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: There is a third possibility in addition to thinking that A and B are identical and thinking that they are different, which is not to judge the matter either way. Can it not be the case that a person enjoys A more than he enjoys B while failing to judge them either the same or different? What if he simply does not consider the matter? What if he doesn't care? What if *we* don't care? Not sure I understand your question, but I thought this group was in part about something called the objectivist/subjectivist debate, and it's not irrelevant to spell out the basic assumptions behind the views. For what it's worth, I'm trying to articulate the anti-ABX intuition. It's basically that one source (e.g., SACD) can have a subtly different psychological effect than another (e.g., CD) on a given listener, even if he cannot discriminate them in a test in which the question is "do these sound the same or different?" And I am interested to know what the objectivist response to that should be. It's surely *not* "that's an incoherent suggestion, because a person's perceptions cannot be different unless he knows them to be different," because that claim relies on a confusion between what information is presented in perception and what things are true *about* the perception. If the shorthand answer is "statistics,"[1] I would be grateful for a reference so I can see what sort of data you are talking about, what sorts of experiments you mean and *how* the statistics get us to your conclusion. Likewise, if I may refer here to someone else's postings, I appreciate Bob's explanation of the matter in terms of JNDs and neural signals, but I think it raises further questions and again a reference would be helpful, something that affords a fuller technical knowledge and understanding than I have been able to achieve so far. So that's why we should care, because we're trying to articulate basic assumptions. Mark [1] Message-ID: , Date: 26 Jul 2005 18:11:33 GMT Local: Tues,Jul 26 2005 2:11 pm. Footnote per group guidelines. |
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#245
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Keith Hughes wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote: Keith Hughes wrote: snip The minute you say "from one source than he does another", a distinction, or differentiation more accurately, is implicit. If you have a different reaction, or degree of reaction, to A vs. B, then you've made a distinction between them. I am making a distinction, looking at the situation from outside, but Karl need not have a view about whether he liked A better than B in order for it to be the case that he derived greater pleasure from one than the other. (I'll say more about this below.) You *cannot* look at it from the outside. That's the point. Karl's satisfaction must be apprehended *by him* or it simply does not exist ... There is a difference between (1) a similarity between perceptions and (2) the perception of a similarity. The information presented in one perception might be the same as the information presented in another, but it is a further mental operation to determine *that* they are the same information. That they are the same is, typically, further information, not already contained in either perception. It is one thing for the loudness of sound A to be the same as the loudness of sound B; it is another thing for the subject to perceive them *as* the same, or to perceive *that* the sounds have the same loudness. The latter is more difficult to do the more the sounds are separated in time. Mark |
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#246
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Mark DeBellis wrote:
Not sure I understand your question, but I thought this group was in part about something called the objectivist/subjectivist debate, No, it's not. It's a discussion of audio reproduction. This objective/subjective nonsense (and it is nonsense, because real experts in the field of psychoacoustics do not even think about it) only comes up when a subjectivist like you makes some preposterously pseudo-scientific statement and gets called on it. We'd all be much happier if that never happened. and it's not irrelevant to spell out the basic assumptions behind the views. For what it's worth, I'm trying to articulate the anti-ABX intuition. Thanks. RAHE's been missing that. It's basically that one source (e.g., SACD) can have a subtly different psychological effect than another (e.g., CD) on a given listener, even if he cannot discriminate them in a test in which the question is "do these sound the same or different?" And I am interested to know what the objectivist response to that should be. It's surely *not* "that's an incoherent suggestion, because a person's perceptions cannot be different unless he knows them to be different," because that claim relies on a confusion between what information is presented in perception and what things are true *about* the perception. If the shorthand answer is "statistics,"[1] I would be grateful for a reference so I can see what sort of data you are talking about, what sorts of experiments you mean and *how* the statistics get us to your conclusion. Likewise, if I may refer here to someone else's postings, I appreciate Bob's explanation of the matter in terms of JNDs and neural signals, but I think it raises further questions and again a reference would be helpful, something that affords a fuller technical knowledge and understanding than I have been able to achieve so far. So that's why we should care, because we're trying to articulate basic assumptions. Some of us are quite frankly tired of articulating basic assumptions, especially to people who want to argue with us without even trying to understand the subject they are arguing about. This is not a newsgroup about scientific research. If it's scientific research you want, I suggest you go find some scientists. I and others have tried to give you a basic layman's understanding of why psychoacousticians rely on the kinds of tests they rely on, and hence why those tests have a general applicability that would certainly extend to such minor questions as amp and cable sound. It appears to me that your mistaken preconceptions about these subjects is interfering with your ability to engage and understand what we're trying to say to you. I will suggest again that you avail yourself of the resources of a nearby institution of higher education, and come back when you want to talk about audio. bob |
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#247
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Mark DeBellis wrote:
Keith Hughes wrote: Mark DeBellis wrote: Keith Hughes wrote: snip I am making a distinction, looking at the situation from outside, but Karl need not have a view about whether he liked A better than B in order for it to be the case that he derived greater pleasure from one than the other. (I'll say more about this below.) You *cannot* look at it from the outside. That's the point. Karl's satisfaction must be apprehended *by him* or it simply does not exist ... There is a difference between (1) a similarity between perceptions and (2) the perception of a similarity. Precisely. The information presented in one perception might be the same as the information presented in another, but it is a further mental operation to determine *that* they are the same information. How can you understand that without understanding its significance to the subject at hand, i.e. having a basis for establishing a preference, or a differential 'satisfaction' response? *Karl*, not you or I, must perform that further mental operation (i.e. comparison/differentiation as we've been discussing all along) or he cannot have any basis for preference. I'll ask you once again: cite a single example of how a preference can be established, or a differentiation made, without a comparison of the form X vs. Y. This is the crux of the argument you refuse to understand. You want to formulate all sorts of analogies to try and create an illusion that somehow a preference doesn't need to have a same / different identification as its basis. But you cannot cite one example of how that could happen can you? Take a look at the etymology of "prefer" or "differentiate", you'll see that they are *predicated* on identification of difference. Look at the etymology of "satisfaction" and you'll find that, in this context, it is a measure of pleasure or contentment. Thus to have greater satisfaction from A than B directly connotes a preference for B, which again requires differentiation. That they are the same is, typically, further information, not already contained in either perception. Yes indeed. You cannot process that information, only Karl can. Karl didn't, so Karl can't differentiate, and thus Karl cannot have a preference. Karl did not compare, so Karl does not know if he had more satisfaction from A or B, and *you* as the external observer cannot perform that task for him. You lack the requisite data, or at the very least, lack an observational tool *of sufficient precision* with which to make that determination. It is one thing for the loudness of sound A to be the same as the loudness of sound B; it is another thing for the subject to perceive them *as* the same, or to perceive *that* the sounds have the same loudness. If by "loudness" you mean decibel level, then this is not news. Can a 10hz 80db sound be perceived differently than a 10khz sound at 80db? Of course - just physiology. If, however, by "loudness" you mean the perception of loudness then your statement is wrong, by definition. The latter is more difficult to do the more the sounds are separated in time. Exactly so, although the data suggests 'impossible' is more accurate than 'more difficult'. Which of course is why your "Karl perceived long ago but forgot" analogy so conspicuously fails. Your analogies all rely on suppositions of what could happen if the test were conducted as poorly as humanly possible. Or rely on phenomenological parsing. Does it not strike you as an act of desperation to resort to imagining ways a test could be conducted incorrectly to achieve the results you want? Or that you must resort to phenomenology, which while it *may* be relevant to perception in general, has no utility when the suject is the linkage of perception *to* objective reality? It strikes me so. Keith Hughes |
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#248
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#249
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Mark DeBellis wrote:
Keith Hughes wrote: Mark DeBellis wrote: Keith Hughes wrote: snip I am making a distinction, looking at the situation from outside, but Karl need not have a view about whether he liked A better than B in order for it to be the case that he derived greater pleasure from one than the other. (I'll say more about this below.) You *cannot* look at it from the outside. That's the point. Karl's satisfaction must be apprehended *by him* or it simply does not exist, and there is no mechanism by which an "outside" observer can ascertain that Karl liked one better than the other. You are trying to create a scenario where *your* interpretation of Karls internal reality supplants his actual perception, and then base an argument on what you presume Karl's response would have been had he had a response. This is fantasy, not theoretical supposition. I think I see where you are coming from, but I don't think your conclusion follows. You are talking about Karl's satisfaction also, so you are looking at it from the outside just as much as I am. If you actually believe that statement, you clearly have misunderstood *everything* I've said. YES I'm talking about Karls satisfaction, but I'm saying that neither You, nor I, nor anyone on the outside can possibly quantify his satisfaction. How can that possibly be construed as "looking at it from the outside just as much as I am" ??? *IF* you could objectively measure his satisfaction, if would have to be contemporaneous with each presentation, on a scale that would be repeatable *for Karl*, so you could compare the two levels. This is completely contrary to the scenario you proposed. Moreover, even if it is true that Karl's sensation does not exist unless he apprehends it, there can be relational properties his sensation has that he does not apprehend, for example, occurring 10 minutes earlier than some other sensation, or having a greater subjective strength than some other sensation. False premise. There can be no relational properties to non-existant perceptions. Just exactly *what* would the susequent perceptions relate to? It is just false that there is "no mechanism" by which someone else can tell if a person likes A more than he likes B. One can observe the person's behavior. Which is irrelevant in the extreme to your use of "Karl" in the first place. You're using Karls perception to support your argument. When the question arises as to whether Karls perception could be as you want to stipulate, given the constraints of the rest of the scenario, you then want to create a whole observational layer wherein you can say "well we can observe Karls behaviour to tell what he thinks even if he doesn't know it himself". Karl is the one who has to be able to tell two presentations apart (or verify sameness) to have relevance to the subject of audio tests. In a partial loudness test, for e.g., you can measure response, from the outside, but your basis for "Karl" was relative to satisfaction. Now we can either measure Karl's response in two time proximate presentations, where memory plays a minor role (remember *satisfaction*, not aural memory), but where observation of response obviated by the ability to simply question Karl directly. So here you through in the red-herring of the "suppose the first presentation was last year, and he forgot, he still had two different levels of satisfaction". Well, for that we can say: 1. You can't compare responses (even if you had a valid methodology) because the first presentation was before the start of the comparison test, ergo useless. 2. To purposely design such a test would be an example of abject incompetence. Common sense says that we can have some conception of, Absolutely. Thanks for clarifying the issue. Since when does "some conception of" connote sufficient precision such that an observer could determine the relative enjoyment a subject experience between Presentation A and Presentation B, when A and B are very similar (if not, the test would be pointless)? and information about, the mental states of others. Common sense says that if a person scratches his finger one day, forgets about it, and stubs his toe the next, the pain on the first occasion is likely to have been less than the pain on the second occasion. *Only* if the persons mental state is the same. You don't know that. I *think* you are saying that to suppose this is actually meaningless, on the basis of some sort of sophisticated philosophical consideration, Uhmm...you brough philosophy into this discussion, not I, with your reference to the objective reality of Karls perceptions that exists outside of his apprehension of those perceptions. maybe about the impossibility of knowing "other minds"? If so, I think that philosophy has led us astray here. Common sense is right. Common sense is indeed right...it does not, however, support your position. Common sense suggests that when comparing someones response to different stimuli, the stimuli are presented in a time proximate manner to minimize affective variations in the person tested. Changes that could skew the data. Common sense then tells us that if that approach doesn't support our argument, we don't then generate suppositions about what would happen if we stipulated that the test be done wrongly (time-distal presentations) and further that the subject can't remember the first presentation, and then postulate that there is some objective truth of perception that has an existance outside of the perceivers awareness that we *could* have measured. Common sense would say you construct the test correctly, and quit speculating about what could/would/might happen if it were done incorrectly. One of the writers who I think supports my view of this is Ludwig Wittgenstein, in Philosophical Investigations. I would say that most philosophers nowadays would not take such an extreme operationalist view as you do. Your view, as I understand it, is that it makes no sense to say sensations A and B enter into a certain relation unless the subject perceives them as so related Exactly correct *when the test relies on the subject making that distinction*. How hard is that to understand? , and I think most philosophers would deny that. Well, to that I would say A) philosophy is not concerned with collection of objective data, and B) that you say "most philosophers" means you recognize that differing, educated, opinions exists. This is the same as "the same". Two presentations are the same, or they are different. If, for whatever reason, you do not distinguish between the two, then for your internal reality, they are the same. You do not have to make a conscious evaluation of "sameness", the absence of conscious "difference" is the same thing. So you are saying that if you fail to judge whether A and B are the same, then you cannot enjoy one more than you enjoy the other? Try to stay in context, things make more sense. If you fail to judge whether A and B are the same, then you did not judge whether you enjoyed one more than the other, and your result, relative to an audio test is the same as if you determined them to be the same, i.e. you did not discern a difference. Again, that just seems to fly in the face of common sense. I enjoy a hamburger on one occasion, I stub my toe on another, and it never occurs to me to think of the two together in one thought. I never actually compare them. You are saying that it's not the case that one was pleasurable and the other painful? Methinks your penchant for analogies somewhat outstrips your talent in creating relevance. You continue to range far afield from anything remotely resembling the context of the disussion. A more accurate, but no more relevant, analogy would be stubbing your toe *while eating the burger*. The two perceptions are time-proximate, and common sense says you would clearly differentiate them, not as "the burger was more pleasurable than the toe stub", but as having a pleasurable experience interrupted by an unpleasureable one. Clearly remembering the distinction would prove trivial, or do you want to now suppose what would happen if you forgot one? snip Simple logic, and use of English. Greater than...what? Cite one, grammatically correct, example of where you can say "X is greater than" without supplying a reference quantity. It is false to say that if he didn't know that he enjoyed one more than the other, then he didn't enjoy one more than the other. That's because the logical form of the statement "He enjoyed one more than (he enjoyed) the other" is, more or less: He enjoyed one thing to degree x; he enjoyed the other to degree y; and x is greater than y. Clearly inaccurate. You're assuming one has to assign a magnitude to each of two quantities to compare same or different. One only has to be able to juxtapose the two entities for comparison. In the last clause, x and y do not occur in the scope of "enjoyed" or any other mental predicate applied to Karl. Again, wrong conclusion from wrong premise. Yes, "greater" implies a comparison, but it isn't necessarily a comparison undertaken by the subject of whom the enjoyment is predicated. It *must* be if the suject is making the distinction. If I understand you right, you are saying that applying a word like "greater" to Karl's sensations is meaningless unless Karl makes an actual comparison. Yes that's basically true. Remember the context! If Karl doesn't make the comparison (we're talking satisfaction remember, not an objective quantity you can measure) then no one else can. But the links between language and direct observation aren't one-to-one like that. If you believe this, then you might as well stop trying to communicate. The language(s) has been derived for the sole purpose of communicating objective data (and later, subjective data - but that's still a bit murky IMO). Comparison has a clearly understood meaning, and you cannot have a comparison between ONE 'thing'. Clearly, you need to compare one 'thing' with another 'thing'. Again, point to *ONE* instance where this is not the case, any field, any parameter, anything at all. We make this assumption all the time when we talk about loudness; to say that one sound is louder than another does not imply that anyone has actually heard and compared them. You're confusion objectively measured reality with assumption. When we talk about loudness, we know *exactly* what objective, real world phenomenon we're discussion. We're assuming nothing. That you believe this to be assumption is illuminating. You *might* make the statement that the neuronal excitation resulting from the scratch was less than resulting from the toe stubbing, but you cannot interpret, FOR HIM, the relative level of his apprehension of pain. Don't confuse level of stimulus with level of perception - while they may be proportional at times, at other times, given other physical and emotional inputs, they may have no correlation whatsoever. The statement isn't about neuronal excitation; it's about pain. You need to read more carefully. The point is you cannot measure pain directly, but you *could* measure neuronal excitation as an indicator. Exactly then what are you saying about the status of *? It couldn't be true, it's not meaningful, I'm not in a position to assert that it's true, no one can know that it's true; what exactly are you saying about it? See above. If by "you cannot interpret, FOR HIM, the relative level of his apprehension of pain" you mean that I'm unable to state a true proposition of the form "The pain Karl suffered on occasion x was greater than the pain he suffered on occasion y," that's simply false, You are clearly ignorant of the physiological/psychological mechanisms for pain. Do you think people in shock from trauma experience pain the same as those not in shock? and contrary to common sense. Don't doctors make such judgments all the time? And don't they compare the pain someone *would* suffer in one hypothetical situation to the pain they would suffer in another? Here there is no question of an actual comparison on the patient's part, since it is possible pains, not actual pains, that are being compared by the doctor. Again you want to posit an extreme example and use it to support another claim entirely. We're talking about discrimination of small differences, not excitation of x neurons (a scratch) and excitation of 100000x neurons (cut off finger). Yes, you can make general comparisons of responses to grossly different physical stimuli, so what? That's why arguing by analogy is seldom efficacious, constructing a suitable analogy is not only difficult, but requires a complete understanding of the system/idea/unit for which it is the analogue. For * to be true, Karl doesn't have to know it's true or do a comparison. By this morning, let's say for the sake of argument, he'd forgotten all about yesterday. There is a difference between something's being true (about Karl) and Karl's knowing it to be true. No, there is not, not when Karls perception is the subject at hand. Well, I guess we just disagree there. One example would be where Karl sees a blue color patch (and, as expected, it looks blue to him) but then forgets what color it was. Now he sees another patch and it also looks blue. There is the same perceived color, but he doesn't know that they are the same. Wrong again. Ask Karl what two colors he saw. Blue. Same. Test over. He made the comparison at each time of viewing, and identified the color as blue. How does this support your position? He compared each perception against his internal references for color, and made an ID. Or Karl's visual experience of the blue patch can last 2 seconds but he loses track of time. He does not know how long it lasted. (Or would you say it can last 2 seconds only if he knows that it does?) Both silly and irrelevant. *YOU* do not, cannot, and will never have the capacity by which to judge Karl's perception of events. You are trying to project what *you* believe to be an absolute level (in this case pain) of response, based on *your* personal psychological/physiological makeup, onto Karl and assume that holds true for all circumstances. This is untenable. How does the truth of * has anything to do with *me* or my projections? It is true independently of whether I exist, certainly. No, it exists only relative to Karls experience. *You* are trying to say that you can judge Karls perceptions...even the ones he doesn't have. But I disagree with your claim that people other than Karl never have the capacity to make true judgments about his perceptual states. Drop the "states", unless you mean that as a dodge. We're not talking about a mental state, we're talking about Karls basic perception - not at all the same. snip I'm aware. How is this different? Answer...it's not. All Karl has to do is repeat *EXACTLY* what he did above. He say's to himself, "Hmmmm, I like A better than B, logic dictates that they must be different". And he's already shown he can decide which he likes better. It is a matter of the most rudimetary logic to extrapolate the "I like A more than B" to A is different than B. Sure, replicate one kind of test within the other! Are you purposely misunderstanding me? Look, Karl performs one test in which he was repeatedly able to say that A was 2-level satisfaction, and B was 9-level satisfaction. He can differentiate the two. Give Karl a pencil and paper, replicate the ratings test within the same/different protocol, and all will be well. No recording is needed. *HE CAN DIFFERENTIATE THE TWO* - He already showed that. But you have illustrated my point. The way the same/different test is set up, it's not likely that Karl will do this, nor is he encouraged to do this. Karl's attention is focused differently in the two tests; the demands are different. We are talking about two different psychological experiments, and the mechanisms a subject will employ in following their instructions are likely to be different, even if it would be possible for someone, bending over backwards, to satisfy one protocol by performing the other. In either test, he can tell he likes one better. He's already shown that. He will not be able to determine that they are the same when he likes one better. His brain doesn't get rewired for each test. snip ...just don't snip the part about supposing a set of results, while stipulating a methodology that precludes any chance of achieving those results, and then pretending that the method has rigor. Sorry if you felt I should retain this in the quotations (so here it is) Retain what you choose, but to snip the basis for a statement is rather poor form. Keith Hughes |
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#250
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On 29 Jul 2005 15:47:24 GMT, "Mark DeBellis"
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 26 Jul 2005 00:48:25 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: There is a third possibility in addition to thinking that A and B are identical and thinking that they are different, which is not to judge the matter either way. Can it not be the case that a person enjoys A more than he enjoys B while failing to judge them either the same or different? What if he simply does not consider the matter? What if he doesn't care? What if *we* don't care? Not sure I understand your question, but I thought this group was in part about something called the objectivist/subjectivist debate, and it's not irrelevant to spell out the basic assumptions behind the views. No, I was simply trying to point out that you have posted thousands of lines of agonising about how we know what we know, apparently without ever considering that it's very simple just to go try it for yourself. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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#251
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The point is that a so-called 'DBT test' of a listener is not a test of
'hearing' at all. It cannot be. The ONLY valid listening tests are long-term 'satisfaction' tests based on 'living with' a component for many weeks or months. If any differences are present, they will show up over a period of time. What you call a 'DBT' (which is actually NOT a DBT, of course) is useless. A true DBT, as used in a drug evaluation, has objectively measurable results. The tumors shrink, or they don't. The infection is cured, or it is not, etc. If I claim that cable A sounds better to me than cable B, no DBT test is capable of disproving that, because the so-called DBT cannot present the two at the same time. Steven Sullivan wrote: wrote: Steven Sullivan wrote: No comparative or evaluative listening can be "scientific", simply because one is listening to one or the other at one moment, comparing that to the memory of the other. That will be astonishing and certainly paradigm-changing news to the scientific fields of perceptual psychology in general and psychoacoustics in particular. I urge you to publish your findings in a peer-reviewed journal ASAP. I think you would agree what is being 'studied' is merely people's accounts of what they remember they think they heard... Do you agree that comparative listening is the basis of many, many *scientific* studies of and conclusions about psychoacoustics extant in the *scientific* literature over the past century or so? You CANNOT compare two sounds except sequentially. It is merely an oral report of the subject's experience, when he is asked to compare in his memory the sounds of two different items... What's being 'tested' (if anything) is his aural memory...NOT his hearing acuity... The test is therefore scientifically invalid, as it does not test hearing as such... Your sophistry is noted -- but the practicing scientists of the world will, alas be unconvinced by it, I fear. So, they have found a way to listen to two cables at once? A DBT of a claim of difference is a test of 'hearing acuity' only to the extent that it tests whether the 'hearing' on which the claim of difference is based, was real at all. Remember that the subject *already claims* to hear a difference -- the 'acuity' is already established to that extent. If the subject claims to hear no difference, there's nothing to test. It is *not* a test of whether, with more training, a subject might begin to reliably hear a difference...though it could be, if the goal is to discern whether a difference exists, or at what level a real difference is discernable. In psychoacoustic studies, this is often the case, and thus training is often involved. -- -S "You know what love really is? It's like you've swallowed a great big secret. A warm wonderful secret that nobody else knows about." - 'Blame it on Rio' |
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#252
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Just a few more things that didn't fit well into either of the
previous posts. On 31 Jul 2005 15:33:45 GMT, Keith Hughes wrote: If you actually believe that statement, you clearly have misunderstood *everything* I've said. YES I'm talking about Karls satisfaction, but I'm saying that neither You, nor I, nor anyone on the outside can possibly quantify his satisfaction. Why should we think that? In daily life, we do this all the time. *IF* you could objectively measure his satisfaction, if would have to be contemporaneous with each presentation, on a scale that would be repeatable *for Karl*, so you could compare the two levels. This is completely contrary to the scenario you proposed. Why couldn't we have evidence that, together with the rest of our theory, implied that experience A provides more pleasure for Karl than B does, in the absence of an actual comparison on his part? If, for example, we saw that the level of a certain chemical in his brain were generally correlated with his comparative judgments, that might be one sort of evidence. Or we could have behavioral evidence that one experience was more pleasurable than another. We make such judgments on the basis of behavior (including verbal behavior) all the time. Our practice here may not be rigorous or precise in the way psychological tests are, but it doesn't need to be for the skeptic's intuition to grab hold. Moreover, even if it is true that Karl's sensation does not exist unless he apprehends it, there can be relational properties his sensation has that he does not apprehend, for example, occurring 10 minutes earlier than some other sensation, or having a greater subjective strength than some other sensation. False premise. There can be no relational properties to non-existant perceptions. Just exactly *what* would the susequent perceptions relate to? I'm not saying here that his perception, or sensation, is nonexistent. I'm just saying that even if there is a correct principle of the form, "Karl can't have a sensation unless he is aware of it," it doesn't extend to awareness of every fact *about* the sensation. It is just false that there is "no mechanism" by which someone else can tell if a person likes A more than he likes B. One can observe the person's behavior. Which is irrelevant in the extreme to your use of "Karl" in the first place. You're using Karls perception to support your argument. When the question arises as to whether Karls perception could be as you want to stipulate, given the constraints of the rest of the scenario, you then want to create a whole observational layer wherein you can say "well we can observe Karls behaviour to tell what he thinks even if he doesn't know it himself". No, to know things *about* his perception that he may not himself know, such as how his perceptions are related to one another; not "what he thinks." Karl is the one who has to be able to tell two presentations apart (or verify sameness) to have relevance to the subject of audio tests. Why should we think that? Why can't objective, scientific procedures play a role, say? In any event, the relevance to audio tests is indirect he the skeptic is worried that audio tests *miss* some difference between Karl's perceptions, however that difference is to be determined. In a partial loudness test, for e.g., you can measure response, from the outside, but your basis for "Karl" was relative to satisfaction. I am not sure I understand here, because in a previous post, in response to my claim that "It is one thing for the loudness of sound A to be the same as the loudness of sound B; it is another thing for the subject to perceive them *as* the same, or to perceive *that* the sounds have the same loudness," you wrote, "If ... by 'loudness' you mean the perception of loudness then your statement is wrong, by definition." (Message-ID: , Date: 31 Jul 2005 15:27:49 GMT) So I am not sure whether you think loudness and satisfaction are on an equal footing, for present purposes, or not. Now we can either measure Karl's response in two time proximate presentations, where memory plays a minor role (remember *satisfaction*, not aural memory), but where observation of response obviated by the ability to simply question Karl directly. So here you through in the red-herring of the "suppose the first presentation was last year, and he forgot, he still had two different levels of satisfaction". Well, for that we can say: 1. You can't compare responses (even if you had a valid methodology) because the first presentation was before the start of the comparison test, ergo useless. 2. To purposely design such a test would be an example of abject incompetence. Again, not every true psychological statement we can make about a person is in the context of a test. Common sense says that if a person scratches his finger one day, forgets about it, and stubs his toe the next, the pain on the first occasion is likely to have been less than the pain on the second occasion. *Only* if the persons mental state is the same. You don't know that. I don't need to know that in order for it to be a coherent thought that the pain of one might be less than the pain of the other. And that's all the skeptic needs. You are clearly ignorant of the physiological/psychological mechanisms for pain. Do you think people in shock from trauma experience pain the same as those not in shock? I am not making the naive mistake you say I am making, and what I say does not give grounds for thinking that I do. Well, I guess we just disagree there. One example would be where Karl sees a blue color patch (and, as expected, it looks blue to him) but then forgets what color it was. Now he sees another patch and it also looks blue. There is the same perceived color, but he doesn't know that they are the same. Wrong again. Ask Karl what two colors he saw. Blue. Same. Test over. He made the comparison at each time of viewing, and identified the color as blue. How does this support your position? He compared each perception against his internal references for color, and made an ID. He "forgets what color it was." So the result won't be as you say. Mark |
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wrote in message
... Steven Sullivan wrote: No comparative or evaluative listening can be "scientific", simply because one is listening to one or the other at one moment, comparing that to the memory of the other. That will be astonishing and certainly paradigm-changing news to the scientific fields of perceptual psychology in general and psychoacoustics in particular. I urge you to publish your findings in a peer-reviewed journal ASAP. I think you would agree what is being 'studied' is merely people's accounts of what they remember they think they heard... It is merely an oral report of the subject's experience, when he is asked to compare in his memory the sounds of two different items... What's being 'tested' (if anything) is his aural memory...NOT his hearing acuity... The test is therefore scientifically invalid, as it does not test hearing as such... In other words, ABX testing is no more valuable than long-term evaluation. It is scientifically worthless. See above. Then why is it relied in other areas of audio reproduction? Hearing aids and cel phones bein 2 such. Are these people wasting their time and money? |
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On 31 Jul 2005 15:27:49 GMT, Keith Hughes
wrote: Mark DeBellis wrote: There is a difference between (1) a similarity between perceptions and (2) the perception of a similarity. Precisely. snip The information presented in one perception might be the same as the information presented in another, but it is a further mental operation to determine *that* they are the same information. How can you understand that without understanding its significance to the subject at hand, i.e. having a basis for establishing a preference, or a differential 'satisfaction' response? *Karl*, not you or I, must perform that further mental operation (i.e. comparison/differentiation as we've been discussing all along) or he cannot have any basis for preference. "Karl enjoys A more than B" is ambiguous between (1) Karl enjoys A to degree x; he enjoys B to degree y; and x is greater than y, and (2) Karl judges that A affords greater pleasure than B. What the skeptic is worried about is (1). He thinks that Karl might derive greater pleasure from A than he does from B. He does not conflate this with (2). So I am not saying that Karl has a preference, if by preference you mean (2). Take a look at the etymology of "prefer" or "differentiate", you'll see that they are *predicated* on identification of difference. Look at the etymology of "satisfaction" and you'll find that, in this context, it is a measure of pleasure or contentment. Thus to have greater satisfaction from A than B directly connotes a preference for B, which again requires differentiation. Nothing in the etymology of meaning of "pleasure" (or "satisfaction") entails that pleasurable states can be observed or measured only by the subject. Psychologists theorize about, and measure, perception and sensation, including pleasure. That they are the same is, typically, further information, not already contained in either perception. Yes indeed. You cannot process that information, only Karl can. Whether or not I can have access to that information, I'm not claiming to have it. Perception A presents certain information to Karl. Perception B also presents information to Karl. Either they are the same information or they are different. Karl doesn't know which. The skeptic worries, they might be different. It is one thing for the loudness of sound A to be the same as the loudness of sound B; it is another thing for the subject to perceive them *as* the same, or to perceive *that* the sounds have the same loudness. If ... by "loudness" you mean the perception of loudness then your statement is wrong, by definition. OK, let's focus on loudness for a moment, in order to factor out any differences that might exist between loudness and satisfaction. Exactly why is my statement wrong? You will agree that in most cases in which a person hears a sound, the sound is perceived as having a certain loudness. That is, on that occasion, for that listener, there is a certain degree of loudness that the listener hears the sound as having. (Loudness in this sense can be measured by psychologists, on the phon scale for example. And by a degree of loudness I don't mean a point with infinite exactitude; a fuzzy interval would do fine. No measurement is exact.) Suppose our friend Karl hears sound A, then a long string of random noise, then sound B. There will be a degree of loudness he hears sound A as having, call it x, and a degree of loudness he hears B as having, call it y. Now in a situation like this, if A and B are separated enough, it is not unusual (yes?) for the subject not to be able to judge whether A sounded louder than B, or B than A, or that they were the same. Let's assume that that's the case with Karl. So his answer to the question "Which, if either, sounded louder to you?" will be "I don't know"; he doesn't make a conscious differentiation between them. Now are you saying that it follows from this that x and y *must* be the same degree of loudness? Mark |
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On 31 Jul 2005 15:33:45 GMT, Keith Hughes
wrote: Mark DeBellis wrote: Common sense says that we can have some conception of, and information about, the mental states of others. Absolutely. Thanks for clarifying the issue. Since when does "some conception of" connote sufficient precision such that an observer could determine the relative enjoyment a subject experience between Presentation A and Presentation B, when A and B are very similar (if not, the test would be pointless)? Not every statement about a person's psychology is reducible to a test. Here I think you are insisting on too tight a connection between theory and observation. Some writers who discuss this topic (with regard to science generally, not just psychology) are Carl Hempel and W. V. O. Quine. They explain why the requirement of a sentence-by-sentence relation between statements in science and reports of immediate experience is needlessly restrictive. As Quine puts it, "our statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience not individually but as a coporate body." For more see Hempel, "Empiricist Criteria of Cognitive Significance" in Aspects of Scientific Explanation, and Quine, "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" in From a Logical Point of View. Another good book is Hempel, Philosophy of Natural Science (but I can't find it on my shelf right now to see if he discusses this directly). Common sense is indeed right...it does not, however, support your position. Common sense suggests that when comparing someones response to different stimuli, the stimuli are presented in a time proximate manner to minimize affective variations in the person tested. That might be a sensible constraint on testing, but evidence for people's mental states is not restricted to what can be obtained in tests. And what counts as "wrong" for a test -- time-distal presentation -- might be normal in other contexts, since listening to music is not (typically) a test. snip I'm aware. How is this different? Answer...it's not. All Karl has to do is repeat *EXACTLY* what he did above. He say's to himself, "Hmmmm, I like A better than B, logic dictates that they must be different". And he's already shown he can decide which he likes better. It is a matter of the most rudimetary logic to extrapolate the "I like A more than B" to A is different than B. Sure, replicate one kind of test within the other! Are you purposely misunderstanding me? Look, Karl performs one test in which he was repeatedly able to say that A was 2-level satisfaction, and B was 9-level satisfaction. He can differentiate the two. Give Karl a pencil and paper, replicate the ratings test within the same/different protocol, and all will be well. No recording is needed. *HE CAN DIFFERENTIATE THE TWO* - He already showed that. In one test, Karl rates his satisfaction. He can differentiate A and B in that test. In the other test, Karl is asked, "Do these sound the same or different to you?" He is asked to compare how A and B *sound*. These are different tasks and psychologically different situations. So when you say, "All Karl has to do is repeat *EXACTLY* what he did above," that is putting the procedure of one test into another. It is asking Karl to rate his satisfaction in response to each, to compare his answers, and to use *that* as the basis of the differentiation. There is no a priori assurance that if Karl completes the second test in the normal, straightforward way, the result will be the same as in the first test. Retain what you choose, but to snip the basis for a statement is rather poor form. No offense meant, but my own view is that it's OK to quote a person's conclusion in order to show what it is one is responding to, and that it can be unwieldy to replicate all the supporting material. If the conventions for this group are otherwise I'll be happy to be apprised of it. But I think my way helps to focus. Mark |
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On 31 Jul 2005 15:33:45 GMT, Keith Hughes
wrote: Mark DeBellis wrote: There is a difference between something's being true (about Karl) and Karl's knowing it to be true. No, there is not, not when Karls perception is the subject at hand. Well, I guess we just disagree there. One example would be where Karl sees a blue color patch (and, as expected, it looks blue to him) but then forgets what color it was. Now he sees another patch and it also looks blue. There is the same perceived color, but he doesn't know that they are the same. Wrong again. Ask Karl what two colors he saw. Blue. Same. Test over. He made the comparison at each time of viewing, and identified the color as blue. How does this support your position? He compared each perception against his internal references for color, and made an ID. Maybe it is worth just a bit more on this example? I am saying that if Karl is asked, after the second presentation, were the colors on the two occasions the same, he won't know that they were. That's because he forgot what color the first one was before he saw the second one. Yes? He identified blue each time, but at no point was he able to judge *that* the colors were the same. The two perceptions didn't get combined in the right way to produce a judgment of identity or similarity. (You're denying that this can happen?) Which is an example of the kind of thing the audio skeptic is worrying about vis-a-vis pleasure. Mark |
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On 31 Jul 2005 15:33:45 GMT, Keith Hughes
wrote: Mark DeBellis wrote: I *think* you are saying that to suppose this is actually meaningless, on the basis of some sort of sophisticated philosophical consideration, Uhmm...you brough philosophy into this discussion, not I, with your reference to the objective reality of Karls perceptions that exists outside of his apprehension of those perceptions. Well, there is a philosophical dimension to this. It *sounds* to me like you are saying that when the skeptic worries that Karl's perceptions might differ in some way though he does not apprehend a difference, the skeptic's supposition is meaningless. And I think you hold that it is meaningless because there is no way, other than through Karl's apprehension of a difference, to verify the claim that they are different. If that's your view, then it seems to me it faces two objections: (1) Your view (if I understand it) presupposes the "verification theory of meaning," which is that the meaning of a sentence is its method of verification. The problems with this idea have been discussed at length by Hempel, Quine, and others. Basically the main problem is that sentences don't get their meaning one at a time from empirical consequences; rather a theory gets its meaning as a whole from the totality of data that support it. (2) We have all sorts of evidence in daily life that one perception differs from another, evidence that does not rest on an actual comparison made by the subject. Psychology, too, has objective ways of categorizing perceptions, and then the question of whether one perception falls into the same category as another, or a different category, detaches from whether the subject actually apprehends them as the same or different in the given situation. Mark |
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Mark DeBellis wrote:
On 31 Jul 2005 15:27:49 GMT, Keith Hughes wrote: Mark DeBellis wrote: There is a difference between (1) a similarity between perceptions and (2) the perception of a similarity. Precisely. snip The information presented in one perception might be the same as the information presented in another, but it is a further mental operation to determine *that* they are the same information. How can you understand that without understanding its significance to the subject at hand, i.e. having a basis for establishing a preference, or a differential 'satisfaction' response? *Karl*, not you or I, must perform that further mental operation (i.e. comparison/differentiation as we've been discussing all along) or he cannot have any basis for preference. "Karl enjoys A more than B" is ambiguous between Karls relative enjoyment is the basis of *YOUR* supposition. Why is that ambiguous *to you*? (1) Karl enjoys A to degree x; he enjoys B to degree y; and x is greater than y, and (2) Karl judges that A affords greater pleasure than B. Well, first the "is greater than y" is erroneous in that is has no antecedent. What the skeptic is worried about is (1). He thinks that Karl might derive greater pleasure from A than he does from B. He does not conflate this with (2). So I am not saying that Karl has a preference, if by preference you mean (2). Why do you keep running away from the context of this whole discussion? There is no 'conflation' about it. You're postulating, from the first, that Karl can derive more enjoyment from one presentation than another (your A and B), but that does not mean he can tell them apart. THAT is the context. Please try and stay with it. Take a look at the etymology of "prefer" or "differentiate", you'll see that they are *predicated* on identification of difference. Look at the etymology of "satisfaction" and you'll find that, in this context, it is a measure of pleasure or contentment. Thus to have greater satisfaction from A than B directly connotes a preference for B, which again requires differentiation. Nothing in the etymology of meaning of "pleasure" (or "satisfaction") entails that pleasurable states can be observed or measured only by the subject. Psychologists theorize about, and measure, perception and sensation, including pleasure. When *you* can experience Karls pleasure, not theorize, not speculate, not infer, or postulate about it, then you can state that you have sufficient knowledge to judge small, subtle, differences in Karls level of pleasure. The tools available for outside observations of the type you describe, are similar using a yardstick to measure microns. Do you dispute this? If so, where is your evidence? That they are the same is, typically, further information, not already contained in either perception. Yes indeed. You cannot process that information, only Karl can. Whether or not I can have access to that information, I'm not claiming to have it. Clearly you are claiming that! You just did in the previous paragraph. Perception A presents certain information to Karl. Perception B also presents information to Karl. Either they are the same information or they are different. Karl doesn't know which. The skeptic worries, they might be different. No, the agenda driven suspect such, when Karls inability to differentiate contravenes their suppositions. "Skeptics" want solid data to support theories about observations. You are confusing skepticism with speculation. It is one thing for the loudness of sound A to be the same as the loudness of sound B; it is another thing for the subject to perceive them *as* the same, or to perceive *that* the sounds have the same loudness. Yes, we've covered this ground before. And again, you can't have Karls perception, much as you'd like to pretend you can, or that you have tools of sufficient resolution to 'measure' it from the outside. If ... by "loudness" you mean the perception of loudness then your statement is wrong, by definition. OK, let's focus on loudness for a moment, in order to factor out any differences that might exist between loudness and satisfaction. Exactly why is my statement wrong? Well, first let's focus on what I said, not on the parsed piece you'd like to respond to. I said: "If by "loudness" you mean decibel level, then this is not news. Can a 10hz 80db sound be perceived differently than a 10khz sound at 80db? Of course - just physiology. If, however, by "loudness" you mean the perception of loudness then your statement is wrong, by definition." So, if A and B are the same loudness, but different frequencies, then Karl can certaily perceive them differently. And in that case, there is no argument. If you're talking about 'perception' of sound, then you are in essence saying the perceived sound of A is the same as the perceived sound of B, but they are then not perceived the same, and your statement is internally inconsistent. Your habit of switching context, and cherrypicking statements out of context against which you want to argue is really rather tiresome. You will agree that in most cases in which a person hears a sound, the sound is perceived as having a certain loudness. That is, on that occasion, for that listener, there is a certain degree of loudness that the listener hears the sound as having. (Loudness in this sense can be measured by psychologists, on the phon scale for example. And by a degree of loudness I don't mean a point with infinite exactitude; a fuzzy interval would do fine. No measurement is exact.) Suppose our friend Karl hears sound A, then a long string of random noise, then sound B. There will be a degree of loudness he hears sound A as having, call it x, and a degree of loudness he hears B as having, call it y. All measurements are exact, within their error tolerance. For measurements for which the tolerance is not known (such as the type you are generally referring to), the data is of little, if any value. Now in a situation like this, if A and B are separated enough, it is not unusual (yes?) for the subject not to be able to judge whether A sounded louder than B, or B than A, or that they were the same. Let's assume that that's the case with Karl. So his answer to the question "Which, if either, sounded louder to you?" will be "I don't know"; he doesn't make a conscious differentiation between them. There's a huge Duh! in there. Time-proximate testing - have you not heard that enough? This is a clear example of a fatally flawed test. And, it has *no* relevance to your original supposition, i.e. that there is some unknown mechanism by which Karl could rate A and B different subjectively (on a 1-10 scale, as you proposed), and yet is unable to tell that A and B are different. In neither case would such a ridiculously flawed test protocol be used by anyone versed in test methodology. Now are you saying that it follows from this that x and y *must* be the same degree of loudness? How many times must I say the same thing for you to actually hear it (metaphorically of course)??? Flawed test methdology = flawed data = invalid test upon which no conclusion can be drawn. Got it? Keith Hughes |
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Mark DeBellis wrote:
On 31 Jul 2005 15:33:45 GMT, Keith Hughes wrote: Mark DeBellis wrote: There is a difference between something's being true (about Karl) and Karl's knowing it to be true. No, there is not, not when Karls perception is the subject at hand. Well, I guess we just disagree there. One example would be where Karl sees a blue color patch (and, as expected, it looks blue to him) but then forgets what color it was. Now he sees another patch and it also looks blue. There is the same perceived color, but he doesn't know that they are the same. Wrong again. Ask Karl what two colors he saw. Blue. Same. Test over. He made the comparison at each time of viewing, and identified the color as blue. How does this support your position? He compared each perception against his internal references for color, and made an ID. Maybe it is worth just a bit more on this example? I am saying that if Karl is asked, after the second presentation, were the colors on the two occasions the same, he won't know that they were. That's because he forgot what color the first one was before he saw the second one. Yes? You see, this is what I mean when I say you make suppositions, then try to use them for data. This is a clear example. You say: "That's because he forgot what color the first one was before he saw the second one. Yes?" as though it were an actual fact, and want to then argue as though we were discussing a real event, not some fictitous supposition for which neither the relevance, nor the likelihood of its happening, have been addressed. However, I would have to answer that *No* he won't have forgotten "blue" because he has a clear internal definition, and made a positive ID. How do you think *you* know Blue when you see it?? He'll know both are Blue. He may well lose the ability to discriminate degrees within his internal range of "blue", after time elapses. This is why the analogy is so flawed, relative to the original context. Karl *has* internal references, or sensory constructs, for colors. Constructs that have no direct analogs in the type of sound differentiation you're talking about. Without those references, Karl could not determine "blue". He identified blue each time, but at no point was he able to judge *that* the colors were the same. The two perceptions didn't get combined in the right way to produce a judgment of identity or similarity. (You're denying that this can happen?) In this context, certainly I'm denying it. Karl has an internal reference for Blue. He identified A as Blue, and B as Blue. No he did not compare A and B directly, but so what? He identified them, separately, as "BLUE", and in doing so, defined the perceptions as same, or similar. That's what identifying them as Blue *means*. Which is an example of the kind of thing the audio skeptic is worrying about vis-a-vis pleasure. Well, if this is the type of thing you're worrying about, I can't help you. Skeptics look askance at unsupported theories, they don't create unsupported theories, then look for ways to invalidate data that contradicts their theory. Keith Hughes |
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On 1 Aug 2005 15:29:06 GMT, Stewart Pinkerton
wrote: On 29 Jul 2005 15:47:24 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 26 Jul 2005 00:48:25 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: There is a third possibility in addition to thinking that A and B are identical and thinking that they are different, which is not to judge the matter either way. Can it not be the case that a person enjoys A more than he enjoys B while failing to judge them either the same or different? What if he simply does not consider the matter? What if he doesn't care? What if *we* don't care? Not sure I understand your question, but I thought this group was in part about something called the objectivist/subjectivist debate, and it's not irrelevant to spell out the basic assumptions behind the views. No, I was simply trying to point out that you have posted thousands of lines of agonising about how we know what we know, Various things are said to be known. "How do you know?" is not a reasonable question? apparently without ever considering that it's very simple just to go try it for yourself. Not sure I get you here. Try what? An ABX test? Not sure what a single result would establish. Mark |
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Keith Hughes wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote: You will agree that in most cases in which a person hears a sound, the sound is perceived as having a certain loudness. That is, on that occasion, for that listener, there is a certain degree of loudness that the listener hears the sound as having. (Loudness in this sense can be measured by psychologists, on the phon scale for example. And by a degree of loudness I don't mean a point with infinite exactitude; a fuzzy interval would do fine. No measurement is exact.) Suppose our friend Karl hears sound A, then a long string of random noise, then sound B. There will be a degree of loudness he hears sound A as having, call it x, and a degree of loudness he hears B as having, call it y. ... Now in a situation like this, if A and B are separated enough, it is not unusual (yes?) for the subject not to be able to judge whether A sounded louder than B, or B than A, or that they were the same. Let's assume that that's the case with Karl. So his answer to the question "Which, if either, sounded louder to you?" will be "I don't know"; he doesn't make a conscious differentiation between them. There's a huge Duh! in there. Time-proximate testing - have you not heard that enough? This is a clear example of a fatally flawed test. And, it has *no* relevance to your original supposition, i.e. that there is some unknown mechanism by which Karl could rate A and B different subjectively (on a 1-10 scale, as you proposed), and yet is unable to tell that A and B are different. In neither case would such a ridiculously flawed test protocol be used by anyone versed in test methodology. Now are you saying that it follows from this that x and y *must* be the same degree of loudness? How many times must I say the same thing for you to actually hear it (metaphorically of course)??? Flawed test methdology = flawed data = invalid test upon which no conclusion can be drawn. Got it? Would you agree, then, with this: in such a situation, for all we know, x and y could be different degrees of loudness? Mark |
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On 2 Aug 2005 15:51:31 GMT, Keith Hughes
wrote: Mark DeBellis wrote: He identified blue each time, but at no point was he able to judge *that* the colors were the same. The two perceptions didn't get combined in the right way to produce a judgment of identity or similarity. (You're denying that this can happen?) In this context, certainly I'm denying it. Karl has an internal reference for Blue. He identified A as Blue, and B as Blue. No he did not compare A and B directly, but so what? He identified them, separately, as "BLUE", and in doing so, defined the perceptions as same, or similar. That's what identifying them as Blue *means*. Identifying them *as the same* goes beyond categorizing each, separately, in the same way. Patently, if you ask someone on consecutive mornings, what color tie is this, he could answer "blue" both times, but not be able to tell you, on the second day, that the ties were the same color (because on the second day he doesn't remember what color he saw on the first). If your view predicts otherwise, then it is psychologically implausible. Your view conflates (1) that the same "internal reference" is brought to bear in both identifications with (2) the subject's judging the things in question to be the same. The word "same" is used for both, but in one case it is a relation between the internal references applied by the subject, in the other it is a category ("the same") that is brought to bear by the subject himself. There is a difference between similarity of perceptions and the perception of a similarity. Mark |
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Mark DeBellis wrote:
Keith Hughes wrote: Mark DeBellis wrote: You will agree that in most cases in which a person hears a sound, the sound is perceived as having a certain loudness. That is, on that occasion, for that listener, there is a certain degree of loudness that the listener hears the sound as having. (Loudness in this sense can be measured by psychologists, on the phon scale for example. And by a degree of loudness I don't mean a point with infinite exactitude; a fuzzy interval would do fine. No measurement is exact.) Suppose our friend Karl hears sound A, then a long string of random noise, then sound B. There will be a degree of loudness he hears sound A as having, call it x, and a degree of loudness he hears B as having, call it y. ... Now in a situation like this, if A and B are separated enough, it is not unusual (yes?) for the subject not to be able to judge whether A sounded louder than B, or B than A, or that they were the same. Let's assume that that's the case with Karl. So his answer to the question "Which, if either, sounded louder to you?" will be "I don't know"; he doesn't make a conscious differentiation between them. There's a huge Duh! in there. Time-proximate testing - have you not heard that enough? This is a clear example of a fatally flawed test. And, it has *no* relevance to your original supposition, i.e. that there is some unknown mechanism by which Karl could rate A and B different subjectively (on a 1-10 scale, as you proposed), and yet is unable to tell that A and B are different. In neither case would such a ridiculously flawed test protocol be used by anyone versed in test methodology. Now are you saying that it follows from this that x and y *must* be the same degree of loudness? How many times must I say the same thing for you to actually hear it (metaphorically of course)??? Flawed test methdology = flawed data = invalid test upon which no conclusion can be drawn. Got it? Would you agree, then, with this: in such a situation, for all we know, x and y could be different degrees of loudness? Of course I would agree. Your question reduces to "if we use the wrong methdology, i.e. time distal presentations of signals with partial loudness difference, is the result, positive or negative, significant?", and the answer is clearly no. Again, this has no relevance to the issue of proposing a scenario based in flawed methology, and trying to use the supposed results as a basis for supporting an implausible postulate. Keith Hughes |
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#268
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Mark DeBellis wrote:
On 2 Aug 2005 15:51:31 GMT, Keith Hughes wrote: Mark DeBellis wrote: He identified blue each time, but at no point was he able to judge *that* the colors were the same. The two perceptions didn't get combined in the right way to produce a judgment of identity or similarity. (You're denying that this can happen?) In this context, certainly I'm denying it. Karl has an internal reference for Blue. He identified A as Blue, and B as Blue. No he did not compare A and B directly, but so what? He identified them, separately, as "BLUE", and in doing so, defined the perceptions as same, or similar. That's what identifying them as Blue *means*. Identifying them *as the same* goes beyond categorizing each, separately, in the same way. Not in the context in which you couched the Karl scenario. You are trying to postulate that Karl, listening for 'satisfaction', uses a totally difference perceptual mechanism than when listening for 'difference', and further that there is *no* overlap in the acquired data (your problem with the misperception, IMO, that it's a "test within a test" to say that the ability to differentiate satisfaction will clearly result in an ability to differentiate the two systems). In "this" scenario, Karl clearly uses the *same* mechanism, for each perception of Blue, which in no way is analogous to the perceptual bifurcation you wish to imply. Patently, if you ask someone on consecutive mornings, what color tie is this, he could answer "blue" both times, but not be able to tell you, on the second day, that the ties were the same color (because on the second day he doesn't remember what color he saw on the first). Which is, again, irrelevant in the context you supposed. You showed the same tie each day, he recognized Blue each day, and from that (for this to be relevant to your Karl analogy), you presume could have "seen" using two different mechanisms on the *sole* basis that there's no evidence that he didn't. This is simply looking for a cause with no demonstrable effect in evidence. To call this skepticism is a misnomer. If your view predicts otherwise, then it is psychologically implausible. Your view then is that Karl recognizing A as Blue, and B as Blue *does not* mean that the perceptions were "the same, or similar"? This is baseless, and physiologically, as well as psychologically implausible. Your view conflates (1) that the same "internal reference" is brought to bear in both identifications with (2) the subject's judging the things in question to be the same. The word "same" is used for both, but in one case it is a relation between the internal references applied by the subject, in the other it is a category ("the same") that is brought to bear by the subject himself. When you refuse to remain within the contextual boundaries of the discussion, continued failure to understand relevant arguments is inevitable. You've proposed an analogy, as I discussed above, to try and support your speculation that some undefined mechanism could allow Karl to enjoy A more than B, without being able to tell them apart. Now, I've pointed out to you that to enjoy A more than B *is* differentiation, to which you reply, "yes but he forgot A", and "he didn't compare them", or "we can tell what Karl thinks, and know his perceptions outside of his apprehension of them", and "we can look at his behavior", etc., etc., getting deeper and deeper into a flawed analogy. You are now arguing *only* within the context of the *analogy*, supposing new and more convoluted possibilities, all of which are divorced from the original context. I'll ask you once more, since you are clearly loath to respond: Cite *one* example, or *one* mechanism, whereby you can judge A to be more/less/greater than/less than/more enjoyable than/less enjoyable than, B without making a distinction, or differentiation between A and B. This is the only question of relevance, yet you never respond to it. It's because you can't can you? (Hint: another flawed analogy is *NOT* an answer, merely a dodge) If you can't, your whole premise is demonstrably baseless. If you cannot answer this simple question, then you clearly have *NO* basis for your supposition (of differential mechanisms for perception of preference/satisfaction vs. difference) other than your "desire" for it to be so, and a desire to argue how "it" (this mechanism) could possibly exist (despite no evidence to suggest it might). To call that "skepticism" is simply inaccurate. Keith Hughes |
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#269
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Steven Sullivan wrote:
wrote: The point is that a so-called 'DBT test' of a listener is not a test of 'hearing' at all. It cannot be. The ONLY valid listening tests are long-term 'satisfaction' tests based on 'living with' a component for many weeks or months. If any differences are present, they will show up over a period of time. That cannot be a valid test, by your definition, either. It too relies on audio memory. It's not a 'test'. It's the basis of a purchase decision. What you call a 'DBT' (which is actually NOT a DBT, of course) is useless. Go tell it to scientists. Though I fear they won't believe you. 'Scientists'? What 'scientists' do you mean? 'Scientists' sounds very impressive, but all the 'scientists' I know measure things. 'What I heard a few seconds ago' cannot be measured. There is NO scientific way to test my preferences. There is only listening and buying/not buying. A true DBT, as used in a drug evaluation, has objectively measurable results. The tumors shrink, or they don't. The infection is cured, or it is not, etc. Nonsense. Those results are *always* *statistical*. Yes. The drug has a statistically OBSERVABLE effect. Reduction of tumor growth, reduction of infection, etc. They measure tendencies. A single shrunken tumor, for example, would NOT yield a 'positive' conclusion in a drug evaluation. Moreover, not all drugs yield simple yes or no answers...pain relief, for example, can be graded from 'no relief' all the way to 'complete relief'. It is almost *never* the case that a treatment either cures a disease, or doesn't. 'Effectiveness' has to be defined in each experiment. Audio DBTs are statistical too. A single listener's claim of difference A 'claim of difference' based on audition alone is both unsupportable and irrefutable. It is entirely subjective. can be tested by running a statistically robust number of trials, e.g., the listener heard a difference X out of Y times when different sources were in the chain. A more general conclusion about difference comes from performing the DBT on multiple testees. No, it tests no such thing whatsoever. If I claim that cable A sounds better to me than cable B, no DBT test is capable of disproving that, because the so-called DBT cannot present the two at the same time. Nor can the same person be given a drug, and no drug, at the same time. Simultaneity is NOT a prerequisite for a scientific comparison. Not the same problem. In testing lenses, for example, I can look at two or more images together and compare them simultaneously! I can hand you two or more prints, or project two or more slides taken with Leica lenses or other (inferior) brands of lenses, and you can observe the differences simultaneously. But you're write, no one can 'disprove' that cable A sounds better than cable B to you...it can only indicate the likelihood that that's due to something *real*, versus simply being a result of *belief*. Btw, do you have any background in science? Of course. I'm a philosophy major. Philosophy of Science is a speciality of mine. |
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#270
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On 2 Aug 2005 15:52:16 GMT, Mark DeBellis wrote:
On 1 Aug 2005 15:29:06 GMT, Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 29 Jul 2005 15:47:24 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 26 Jul 2005 00:48:25 GMT, "Mark DeBellis" wrote: There is a third possibility in addition to thinking that A and B are identical and thinking that they are different, which is not to judge the matter either way. Can it not be the case that a person enjoys A more than he enjoys B while failing to judge them either the same or different? What if he simply does not consider the matter? What if he doesn't care? What if *we* don't care? Not sure I understand your question, but I thought this group was in part about something called the objectivist/subjectivist debate, and it's not irrelevant to spell out the basic assumptions behind the views. No, I was simply trying to point out that you have posted thousands of lines of agonising about how we know what we know, Various things are said to be known. "How do you know?" is not a reasonable question? Thousands of lines of agonising about it, without ever trying to find out for yourself, is indicative of ego over interest. apparently without ever considering that it's very simple just to go try it for yourself. Not sure I get you here. Try what? An ABX test? Not sure what a single result would establish. Nothing - that's why you should try 20 results. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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#272
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Keith Hughes wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote: Keith Hughes wrote: Mark DeBellis wrote: You will agree that in most cases in which a person hears a sound, the sound is perceived as having a certain loudness. That is, on that occasion, for that listener, there is a certain degree of loudness that the listener hears the sound as having. (Loudness in this sense can be measured by psychologists, on the phon scale for example. And by a degree of loudness I don't mean a point with infinite exactitude; a fuzzy interval would do fine. No measurement is exact.) Suppose our friend Karl hears sound A, then a long string of random noise, then sound B. There will be a degree of loudness he hears sound A as having, call it x, and a degree of loudness he hears B as having, call it y. ... Now in a situation like this, if A and B are separated enough, it is not unusual (yes?) for the subject not to be able to judge whether A sounded louder than B, or B than A, or that they were the same. Let's assume that that's the case with Karl. So his answer to the question "Which, if either, sounded louder to you?" will be "I don't know"; he doesn't make a conscious differentiation between them. There's a huge Duh! in there. Time-proximate testing - have you not heard that enough? This is a clear example of a fatally flawed test. And, it has *no* relevance to your original supposition, i.e. that there is some unknown mechanism by which Karl could rate A and B different subjectively (on a 1-10 scale, as you proposed), and yet is unable to tell that A and B are different. In neither case would such a ridiculously flawed test protocol be used by anyone versed in test methodology. Now are you saying that it follows from this that x and y *must* be the same degree of loudness? How many times must I say the same thing for you to actually hear it (metaphorically of course)??? Flawed test methdology = flawed data = invalid test upon which no conclusion can be drawn. Got it? Would you agree, then, with this: in such a situation, for all we know, x and y could be different degrees of loudness? Of course I would agree. Your question reduces to "if we use the wrong methdology, i.e. time distal presentations of signals with partial loudness difference, is the result, positive or negative, significant?", and the answer is clearly no. Again, this has no relevance to the issue of proposing a scenario based in flawed methology, and trying to use the supposed results as a basis for supporting an implausible postulate. OK. I think we may be talking somewhat at cross purposes here. The way I am using the example is perhaps different from what is contained in your paraphrase. First, to rephrase the point slightly: given that someone hears sound A, then a long string of noise, then B, and that the person cannot tell whether A and B were the same or different, then for all we know, it could be the case that there is a degree of loudness x such that the person hears A as having x but does not hear B as having x. (In other words, we don't know, on the basis of what is given, that the latter *isn't* the case.) Examples like this could be multiplied. So, given that someone hears sound A, then an intervening melody, then B, and that the person cannot tell whether A and B were the same or different, then for all we know, it could be the case that there is a pitch x such that the person hears A as having x but does not hear B as having x. The general form of this is: given that someone hears sound A and then B, where they are sufficiently separated to make it the case that the person cannot tell whether A and B are the same or different, then for all we know, it could be the case that there is some property x such that the person hears A as having x but does not hear B as having x. The audio skeptic is asserting something of this general form. He observes that Karl cannot discriminate between SACD and CD versions of a song in an ABX test (any such test, quick-switch or otherwise). What he claims is, for all we know, the following could be the case: (1) there is some property x such that when Karl listens to the SACD version in its entirety he hears it as having property x but when he listens to the CD version in its entirety he does not hear it as having property x, and (2) there are properties of musical passages that are perceived only when the subject hears an entire piece or song, not short excerpts, but which fade in memory on consecutive time-distal presentations, preventing effective comparison, and (3) x is one such property. Please note that all of (1), (2), and (3) are included in the scope of "for all we know." The reason why (2) and (3) are included is because they may be relevant to explaining why the difference doesn't get picked up in the tests. The skeptic is not asserting that he knows that there is such a property x, or that he knows the nature of that property. He is simply saying that for all we know, there could be such a property. What we know doesn't entail that there isn't. Is the skeptic wrong? Do we know that there is no such property? If so, how do we know that? Mark |
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#273
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Keith Hughes wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote: On 2 Aug 2005 15:51:31 GMT, Keith Hughes wrote: Mark DeBellis wrote: He identified blue each time, but at no point was he able to judge *that* the colors were the same. The two perceptions didn't get combined in the right way to produce a judgment of identity or similarity. (You're denying that this can happen?) In this context, certainly I'm denying it. Karl has an internal reference for Blue. He identified A as Blue, and B as Blue. No he did not compare A and B directly, but so what? He identified them, separately, as "BLUE", and in doing so, defined the perceptions as same, or similar. That's what identifying them as Blue *means*. Identifying them *as the same* goes beyond categorizing each, separately, in the same way. Not in the context in which you couched the Karl scenario. You are trying to postulate that Karl, listening for 'satisfaction', uses a totally difference perceptual mechanism I'm not postulating that the mechanisms are totally different, only observing that the testing situations are psychologically different in significant respects. than when listening for 'difference', and further that there is *no* overlap in the acquired data (your problem with the misperception, IMO, that it's a "test within a test" to say that the ability to differentiate satisfaction will clearly result in an ability to differentiate the two systems). I'm not getting what you're saying in parentheses. And, about this "test within a test" issue, could you please explain your idea that "All Karl has to do is repeat *EXACTLY* what he did above. He say's to himself, 'Hmmmm, I like A better than B, logic dictates that they must be different'" (Date: 26 Jul 2005 18:10:52 GMT, Message-ID: ). It sounds to me like that is simply saying to enact the method of one test within another. If it isn't, then what do you mean? In "this" scenario, Karl clearly uses the *same* mechanism, for each perception of Blue, which in no way is analogous to the perceptual bifurcation you wish to imply. The question is how the judgment that both are blue is related to the individual perceptions of blue. But you are right that the examples are different. The reason for the simplification in the "blue" example is to focus on the point that similarity of perceptions isn't the same as perception of similarity. Patently, if you ask someone on consecutive mornings, what color tie is this, he could answer "blue" both times, but not be able to tell you, on the second day, that the ties were the same color (because on the second day he doesn't remember what color he saw on the first). Which is, again, irrelevant in the context you supposed. You showed the same tie each day, he recognized Blue each day, and from that (for this to be relevant to your Karl analogy), you presume could have "seen" using two different mechanisms I'm not assuming that two different mechanisms are involved. It could be two instances of the same mechanism. on the *sole* basis that there's no evidence that he didn't. This is simply looking for a cause with no demonstrable effect in evidence. To call this skepticism is a misnomer. If your view predicts otherwise, then it is psychologically implausible. Your view then is that Karl recognizing A as Blue, and B as Blue *does not* mean that the perceptions were "the same, or similar"? No, that's not my view. The perceptions are "the same, or similar." But it doesn't follow from this that Karl can judge that A and B are the same. This is baseless, and physiologically, as well as psychologically implausible. Your view conflates (1) that the same "internal reference" is brought to bear in both identifications with (2) the subject's judging the things in question to be the same. The word "same" is used for both, but in one case it is a relation between the internal references applied by the subject, in the other it is a category ("the same") that is brought to bear by the subject himself. When you refuse to remain within the contextual boundaries of the discussion, continued failure to understand relevant arguments is inevitable. You've proposed an analogy, as I discussed above, to try and support your speculation that some undefined mechanism could allow Karl to enjoy A more than B, without being able to tell them apart. Now, I've pointed out to you that to enjoy A more than B *is* differentiation, to which you reply, "yes but he forgot A", and "he didn't compare them", or "we can tell what Karl thinks, and know his perceptions outside of his apprehension of them", and "we can look at his behavior", etc., etc., getting deeper and deeper into a flawed analogy. You are now arguing *only* within the context of the *analogy*, supposing new and more convoluted possibilities, all of which are divorced from the original context. I'll ask you once more, since you are clearly loath to respond: Cite *one* example, or *one* mechanism, whereby you can judge A to be more/less/greater than/less than/more enjoyable than/less enjoyable than, B without making a distinction, or differentiation between A and B. Of course there is no such example, because judging that there is a difference is a way of making a distinction. However, responding to A one way and responding to B in a different way is not equivalent to judging that A and B are different. (In other words, there might be more than one sense in which a person can be said to "make a distinction.") This is the only question of relevance, yet you never respond to it. It's because you can't can you? (Hint: another flawed analogy is *NOT* an answer, merely a dodge) If you can't, your whole premise is demonstrably baseless. If you cannot answer this simple question, then you clearly have *NO* basis for your supposition (of differential mechanisms for perception of preference/satisfaction vs. difference) other than your "desire" for it to be so, and a desire to argue how "it" (this mechanism) could possibly exist (despite no evidence to suggest it might). To call that "skepticism" is simply inaccurate. Mark |
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#274
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Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 2 Aug 2005 15:52:16 GMT, Mark DeBellis wrote: Various things are said to be known. "How do you know?" is not a reasonable question? Thousands of lines of agonising about it, without ever trying to find out for yourself, is indicative of ego over interest. Thanks for the diagnosis. apparently without ever considering that it's very simple just to go try it for yourself. Not sure I get you here. Try what? An ABX test? Not sure what a single result would establish. Nothing - that's why you should try 20 results. OK, so I take 20 ABX tests and I can't tell SACD and CD apart in those tests. We know what to infer from this without theory? Mark |
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#275
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The only 'test' in the scientific sense that would have any value would
be to have a subject wear something resembling the equipment used for lie detection. The subject's bodily functions would be monitored while he listens to two or more different cables, to a succession of musical selections repeated several times with each cable. The order of presentation would be randomized, so that he is not always listeing to a given cable first. If there is a difference in the 'excitement' provided by one cable over another, it may show up in the readings. Presumably, a more-excited subject's physiological responses (heart rate, breathing, galvanic skin response, etc.) would be elevated. If the product is indeed more 'exciting', it should cause measurable differences in the subject's responses. http://www.trans4mind.com/psychotechnics/gsr.html |
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#276
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#277
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Keith Hughes wrote:
Mark DeBellis wrote: You will agree that in most cases in which a person hears a sound, the sound is perceived as having a certain loudness. That is, on that occasion, for that listener, there is a certain degree of loudness that the listener hears the sound as having. (Loudness in this sense can be measured by psychologists, on the phon scale for example. And by a degree of loudness I don't mean a point with infinite exactitude; a fuzzy interval would do fine. No measurement is exact.) Suppose our friend Karl hears sound A, then a long string of random noise, then sound B. There will be a degree of loudness he hears sound A as having, call it x, and a degree of loudness he hears B as having, call it y. ... Now in a situation like this, if A and B are separated enough, it is not unusual (yes?) for the subject not to be able to judge whether A sounded louder than B, or B than A, or that they were the same. Let's assume that that's the case with Karl. So his answer to the question "Which, if either, sounded louder to you?" will be "I don't know" ... How many times must I say the same thing for you to actually hear it (metaphorically of course)??? Flawed test methdology = flawed data = invalid test upon which no conclusion can be drawn. Got it? In an earlier post, in response to my claim that "There is a difference between something's being true (about Karl) and Karl's knowing it to be true," you said, "No, there is not, not when Karls perception is the subject at hand."[1] Here is an illustration of what I mean: Either x and y (see above) are the same or they are different. If they are the same, Karl doesn't know they are the same; hence, that they are the same will be a fact about his perception he does not know to be true. If they are different, Karl doesn't know they are different; hence, that they are different will be a fact about his perception he does not know to be true. Either way, there will be some fact about his perception he does not know to be true. Mark [1]Date: 26 Jul 2005 18:10:52 GMT, Message-ID: |
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#278
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Mark DeBellis wrote:
Keith Hughes wrote: Mark DeBellis wrote: On 2 Aug 2005 15:51:31 GMT, Keith Hughes wrote: Mark DeBellis wrote: He identified blue each time, but at no point was he able to judge *that* the colors were the same. The two perceptions didn't get combined in the right way to produce a judgment of identity or similarity. (You're denying that this can happen?) In this context, certainly I'm denying it. Karl has an internal reference for Blue. He identified A as Blue, and B as Blue. No he did not compare A and B directly, but so what? He identified them, separately, as "BLUE", and in doing so, defined the perceptions as same, or similar. That's what identifying them as Blue *means*. Identifying them *as the same* goes beyond categorizing each, separately, in the same way. Not in the context in which you couched the Karl scenario. You are trying to postulate that Karl, listening for 'satisfaction', uses a totally difference perceptual mechanism I'm not postulating that the mechanisms are totally different, only observing that the testing situations are psychologically different in significant respects. No, you are not "observing" that the situations are significantly different, you are hypothesizing, sans evidence, that there *could* be a difference. Not at all the same thing. than when listening for 'difference', and further that there is *no* overlap in the acquired data (your problem with the misperception, IMO, that it's a "test within a test" to say that the ability to differentiate satisfaction will clearly result in an ability to differentiate the two systems). I'm not getting what you're saying in parentheses. And, about this "test within a test" issue, could you please explain your idea that "All Karl has to do is repeat *EXACTLY* what he did above. He say's to himself, 'Hmmmm, I like A better than B, logic dictates that they must be different'" (Date: 26 Jul 2005 18:10:52 GMT, Message-ID: ). It sounds to me like that is simply saying to enact the method of one test within another. If it isn't, then what do you mean? I'm unsure how you can be missing this point. Let's take it one step at a time: 1. Karl is presented with some form of probe signal, "A", followed by a second, "B". He's asked to rate them for enjoyment. 2. Karl enjoys A significantly more than he enjoys B. Karl *must* know, at that point, that A and B are *not* the same. This is simple logic; if AB = 1 (true), then A=B = 0 (false). This is the most basic form of a truth table. 3. 1. Karl is presented with probe signal A, followed by B. He's asked to determine if they are the same, or different. Barring stipulation of intrusive test restrictions (re. listening times, manners, order of presentation, time dista presentations, etc. - which *NO ONE* has *ever* suggested here to my knowledge), Karl will evaluate the two, and will, as he has already demonstrated to be the case, enjoy A more than B. Once again, the logic is irrefutable. If he enjoys one more than the other, he *knows* they are not the same. In "this" scenario, Karl clearly uses the *same* mechanism, for each perception of Blue, which in no way is analogous to the perceptual bifurcation you wish to imply. The question is how the judgment that both are blue is related to the individual perceptions of blue. But you are right that the examples are different. The reason for the simplification in the "blue" example is to focus on the point that similarity of perceptions isn't the same as perception of similarity. It is not a 'simplification', it is a flawed analogy that in no way models the behavior under discussion. Patently, if you ask someone on consecutive mornings, what color tie is this, he could answer "blue" both times, but not be able to tell you, on the second day, that the ties were the same color (because on the second day he doesn't remember what color he saw on the first). Which is, again, irrelevant in the context you supposed. You showed the same tie each day, he recognized Blue each day, and from that (for this to be relevant to your Karl analogy), you presume could have "seen" using two different mechanisms I'm not assuming that two different mechanisms are involved. It could be two instances of the same mechanism. You absolutely are - in the context of the actual discussion. Otherwise you would not think that the situations are 'psychologically different'. Since the 'situation' cannot, in and of itself, be psychologically different ("it" has no psyche, after all), you must be saying that the situation elicits a different psychological response (i.e. different in a mechanistic sense) from the subject. on the *sole* basis that there's no evidence that he didn't. This is simply looking for a cause with no demonstrable effect in evidence. To call this skepticism is a misnomer. If your view predicts otherwise, then it is psychologically implausible. Your view then is that Karl recognizing A as Blue, and B as Blue *does not* mean that the perceptions were "the same, or similar"? No, that's not my view. The perceptions are "the same, or similar." But it doesn't follow from this that Karl can judge that A and B are the same. Again you ignore the context. Karl does not *necessarily* have to make the determination that A and B are the same, but within the context of the discussion, he *must*. He will be asked if they are the same or different, forcing the comparison, and he will evaluate A vs. B, with the result that A=blue, B=blue, therefore either A=B, or A~B. To refute this you must assert that either Karl has *no* internal construct containing the identification "Blue" against which Karl could associate A and B, or that Karl has multiple constructs associated with "Blue" (*not* shades of Blue, but Blue - that is the context) that he cannot discriminate between, and about which he is unaware. Both cases are implausible in the extreme. This is baseless, and physiologically, as well as psychologically implausible. Your view conflates (1) that the same "internal reference" is brought to bear in both identifications with (2) the subject's judging the things in question to be the same. The word "same" is used for both, but in one case it is a relation between the internal references applied by the subject, in the other it is a category ("the same") that is brought to bear by the subject himself. When you refuse to remain within the contextual boundaries of the discussion, continued failure to understand relevant arguments is inevitable. You've proposed an analogy, as I discussed above, to try and support your speculation that some undefined mechanism could allow Karl to enjoy A more than B, without being able to tell them apart. Now, I've pointed out to you that to enjoy A more than B *is* differentiation, to which you reply, "yes but he forgot A", and "he didn't compare them", or "we can tell what Karl thinks, and know his perceptions outside of his apprehension of them", and "we can look at his behavior", etc., etc., getting deeper and deeper into a flawed analogy. You are now arguing *only* within the context of the *analogy*, supposing new and more convoluted possibilities, all of which are divorced from the original context. I'll ask you once more, since you are clearly loath to respond: Cite *one* example, or *one* mechanism, whereby you can judge A to be more/less/greater than/less than/more enjoyable than/less enjoyable than, B without making a distinction, or differentiation between A and B. Of course there is no such example, Finally! because judging that there is a difference is a way of making a distinction. No kidding. Thus enjoying A more than B is identifying difference, and a distinction between A and B is established. However, responding to A one way and responding to B in a different way is not equivalent to judging that A and B are different. Of course it is. And please forgo the "but if A was last year..." hyperbole. Within the context of a properly constructed, time proximate test, controlling for affective 'drift' in the subject, then a differential response to A versus B *must* be the result of differential perception. Other variables are controlled for. Appropriately constructed interrogatories are part of a well constructed test, and it would be relatively trivial to illicit a response of "different" from a subject who clearly had differential perceptions of A and B. Whether the subject *would* recognize the distinction, on his/her own, under 'normal' circumstances, is irrelevant. An integral part of any test (the basic context after all) is the requirement for comparison, forcing an evaluation of same/different. This is no different for blunt Same/Different evaluation as for relative enjoyment, as a "level 5" enjoyment of both A and B would elicit "same or similar", whereas a 'level 2' and a 'level 8' would elicit a response of "different". The fact that 2 and 8 were assigned requires this to be the case. (In other words, there might be more than one sense in which a person can be said to "make a distinction.") Another irrelevancy. The key is to "make a distinction". Though there may indeed be myriad ways to make a distinction, distinction=perceived difference, as you just stated above. Once a difference is perceived, through whatever mechanism, or manner, one must be devoid of deductive skill to be unable to apply the simple truth table, and determine same=false, different=true. This is the only question of relevance, yet you never respond to it. It's because you can't can you? (Hint: another flawed analogy is *NOT* an answer, merely a dodge) If you can't, your whole premise is demonstrably baseless. If you cannot answer this simple question, then you clearly have *NO* basis for your supposition (of differential mechanisms for perception of preference/satisfaction vs. difference) other than your "desire" for it to be so, and a desire to argue how "it" (this mechanism) could possibly exist (despite no evidence to suggest it might). To call that "skepticism" is simply inaccurate. Mark |
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#279
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Mark DeBellis wrote:
Keith Hughes wrote: Mark DeBellis wrote: You will agree that in most cases in which a person hears a sound, the sound is perceived as having a certain loudness. That is, on that occasion, for that listener, there is a certain degree of loudness that the listener hears the sound as having. (Loudness in this sense can be measured by psychologists, on the phon scale for example. And by a degree of loudness I don't mean a point with infinite exactitude; a fuzzy interval would do fine. No measurement is exact.) Suppose our friend Karl hears sound A, then a long string of random noise, then sound B. There will be a degree of loudness he hears sound A as having, call it x, and a degree of loudness he hears B as having, call it y. ... Now in a situation like this, if A and B are separated enough, it is not unusual (yes?) for the subject not to be able to judge whether A sounded louder than B, or B than A, or that they were the same. Let's assume that that's the case with Karl. So his answer to the question "Which, if either, sounded louder to you?" will be "I don't know" ... How many times must I say the same thing for you to actually hear it (metaphorically of course)??? Flawed test methdology = flawed data = invalid test upon which no conclusion can be drawn. Got it? In an earlier post, in response to my claim that "There is a difference between something's being true (about Karl) and Karl's knowing it to be true," you said, "No, there is not, not when Karls perception is the subject at hand."[1] Here is an illustration of what I mean: Either x and y (see above) are the same or they are different. If they are the same, Karl doesn't know they are the same; hence, that they are the same will be a fact about his perception he does not know to be true. Well, it is *NOT* "a fact about his perception" at all. It is a fact (insofar as your stipulation of it is concerned) about an objectively verifiable physical property - NOT Karl's perception of that property. Again, for this to have relevance, you would have had to say "Karl perceives them as the same, but doesn't know he perceives them the same, so there is a fact about his perception that he doesn't know". Sounds rather silly in the context of time-proximate presentations where Karl is being asked to determine either preference, or same/different, doesn't it? If they are different, Karl doesn't know they are different; hence, that they are different will be a fact about his perception he does not know to be true. Either way, there will be some fact about his perception he does not know to be true. Same thing. You are assuming that Karl perceives all objective stimuli accurately, with infinite precision. Here, you conflate physical reality with perception. Your statement "There is a difference between something's being true (about Karl) and Karl's knowing it to be true," is equally flawed, in that Karl can't have a perception without being aware of it. Since Karl's conscious perception *is* the subject of your analogy, i.e. he is participating in a *test* where *his perception* is the only variable of interest, there is no "truth about Karl" that is relevant. The only "something's being true" that is relevant, is what are Karl's conscious perceptions relative to the test signals. Keith Hughes |
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#280
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The problem is getting public, objective responses that can be
measured. My experiment would do that. I don't give a hoot about 'psychoacoustics' or its practitioners. It has no relevance here. wrote: wrote: The only 'test' in the scientific sense that would have any value would be to have a subject wear something resembling the equipment used for lie detection. I see. And your qualifications for rendering this judgment (about a scientific field you seemed not even to know existed a day ago) are what, exactly? Do you think biophysical measurement is the only way to test human perception? Have you ever had an eye exam? Did your eye doctor use unscientific methods to check your vision? Seriously, you really are pontificating here about a subject you are demonstrably unfamiliar with. I should think your philosophy profs would have warned you about that. The field, once again, is called psychoacoustics. Check it out. bob |
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