Music and Modes of Explanation

I think we agree that artistic knowledge is objective. I think we also agree that reductionism is wrong. What I'm asserting here is that we won't find a satisfying explanation of music by reducing it to these physical features. We need an emergent level explanation (and possibly a new mode of explanation entirely). Yes, these physical features may be involved in the explanation. For example, musical theory ties the resolution of a dissonant interval to physical features of frequencies. But this is still a long way from explaining how we experience dissonance, how artists use dissonance creatively, and further still from any explanation of how dissonance may factor in some new artistic breakthrough.

Yes, music may have gotten worse. But if it did, we can't understand it in these reductionist terms. And there are explanations at those emergent levels that make the suggestion that music has gotten worse problematic. Take for example an evolutionary frame, in the democratization of music-making. There are fewer barriers to musical expression today, and therefore a far greater number of creative expressions. The tools that enable this democratization also make expressive trade-offs in the interest of accessibility (which further explains the decline of those old features discussed above). There's also a democratization of the music-selecting process, as the works are no longer gated through record labels. The result are dramatic shifts of variation and selection in these ecosystems. It certainly produces more applied creative works, but it also fuels the rise of new selection criteria and fundamentally new music. But due to our entrenched and old selective criteria, we probably won't notice them (other than to say these new ecosystems are producing nothing but bad music). Our kids, however, are not so constrained.

You interpreted the explanation of our old musical preferences correctly. I must admit, I find the implied dogmatism of this explanation misleading (although I didn't tackle this point in the piece). These preferences are expressions of knowledge. It's quite easy to liberate oneself from the "bias" (we would say error) by entertaining a competing explanation like the one above. But as you know, we all tend to seek the confirmatory evidence, which is why analyses that "prove" old music is better get far more retweets.

Regarding my celebration of Einsteins and my straw dog example: The point of this piece was to explore the difference between applied and fundamental creativity. The implication is that applied creativity is well without the scope of AI as it exists today. Fundamental creativity is not, and these new and unexpected evaluative criteria capture the difference. To your point, my dog isn't participating in that creative hierarchy due to the critical role played by those dogmatic constraints. Given our experiences with toddlers, I wonder whether they abide by any such creative constraints either. <grin/>

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Aaron.