How much music theory do you take into consideration while composing?

Pliorious:

It seems you've once again misconstrued my position to be something that it is not. Your assumptions generalize and reduce down to something I cannot possibly say is relevant to what I'm talking about, so what is the use in wasting more of my time? I'm only replying to point out, in detail, what I'm observing from our conversation.

Contextually or literally, I never implied any of the following:

"the fact that people expect something from composers they know does not imply the contrary to be true i.e. that composers expect audiences to like their works ON THE BASIS of this being their primal motive" - I never implied otherwise... theoretical concepts are not rules, they are methods of meeting, delaying, or avoiding expectations

"you seem to believe that expectations play most important role in composers' motives" - No I don't... I even say it directly...

"that is what i call, argument at historical causation, which has no more grounds than its reverse might imply, say, artists such that had little or no care meeting expectations as their primary motive (which of course, will be viewed in perspective as dealing with expectations and what not, since we are necessarily born into situation with its structure and superstructure - that is a language of it, but there is not One language, there is not One order of things, there is not One situation, and that makes any language and any situation changeable, which is rather living a desire, than meeting/exceeding expectations) read what they say, not what pedagogues say, and you have a different picture - or not so one sided, as you want to make it" - This is categorically irrelevant to anything I've said. 

Should we cater to expectation? Not necessarily. << READ. COMPREHEND. REPEAT.

Moving on...

"so, if one is not aware of expectations, one is blind? isn't that a stretch?" AND

"why whim? on belief that other things are true, than, say, meeting expectations, and there are tons of these things, you, sociologist" AND 

"vaccum? what do you mean? that giving no scraggy about how one is recieved, means living in a vacuum?there is no other society, but only the one, whose language is that of thinking and evolving 'round expectations? blah, and out the window your poetics of social relation based on sameness" 

If one is not using their knowledge of music, I view it as the equivalent of training with a blindfold - which is fine as an exercise but in practice wastes time and valuable resources of which we invest a significant amount of time to accumulate. It doesn't mean someone is "blind" if someone is not aware of expectations (or pays no mind to them), but it does mean that if a composer is not using their knowledge they are depriving themselves of something. If that deprivation yields a better result, great, but that deprivation does not necessarily mean a composer is "creating" either. They could just as easily be recreating the wheel for all they know, because they aren't considering the knowledge that already exists. No, in my opinion it's not a stretch. 

If I'm a composer choosing to ignore everything I've ever learned about music, I am seeking to create something entirely my own, so I isolate myself from everything I've learned, and I end up writing something that sounds eerily similar to Berg's Violin Concerto, it's a waste of my time. I've whimsically blindfolded myself while making no progress toward accomplishing my artistic pursuit. This is my point, you... philosophical panda.

---------------

"meaning?" Meaning.

"what meaning?" The meaning or meanings of meaning.

"for whom? for artist? for listener?what listener?" This is hysterical. 

"the meaning of what? of sound sequences?" Of parrots.

"and, last but not the least, why meaning?" Why not?

---------------

"is not ridiculous since your argument at studying something does not imply the correctness of what you study, here you may be very well accepted by your peers and tapped on your shoulder, and it's alright, it's a practice of doing things and been for ages, BUT it's not the only practice, and an alternative is no some vacuum, it just takes more guts and risk to see/live that"

Really? It takes more guts and risk to do it your way? Here I'm being accused of believing things I don't (but that you assume of me), of taking a very biased/one-sided approach, etc. And then you have the gall to say "it takes more guts" to compose my way than yours...

How about... "Composing takes guts. Period." ...? 

(AnitA, you sure have a lot of patience. :P)

Calm down. :<

there's really no need to say much more.

but i'll give couple of things to ponder about.

1. expectations ARE phenomenal or functional (depends on where you stand on) aspects of rules. they are not different kind of the same thing. they form a series. how so? what you do you expect? bluntly put: something to be the same or different (but different meaning here as diverging from the same). how is the same constructed? through rules. you can't expect something that is not based or derived from the rule. how is this so? simply, if there is no rule, there can't be no expectation, because expectation, analytically implies the rule: you can't expect the driver to stop by red light, if there is no rule prohibiting driving through red lights. you can't expect the composer to compose something you may understand (knowledge wise) and thus know if your expectations were met or not, if there is no rule according to which things are composed. hence, rule implies expectation.

2. any scientific system dealing with mind, let's say psychology, must take into account that what is observed is observed by a subject. that is, observing the brain takes the same brain to construct models through which it observes. this may imply many of problems for objective science of mind for two reasons: you can't observe the thing with which you observe - observing brain - without a loss of important data, unless you put another observer in the chain, but it makes infinite regress. what any mind science must take into account when constructing its theories is this - what can be said, can be said clearly, what cannot be said one must be silent about - wittgensteinian maxim, which, paradoxically did unbind all logolatrisms of XX century from logical positivism to philosophy of language. what wittgenstein, i believe, meant, is that there are things that can't be said in public language, for that would presupose divine standpoint of view. but there are things such and such. or should i stop calling them things, and say - events?

3. so, dynamic systems have the same troubles - if i'm (just and necessarily only) part of my environment, my thinking is part of it - thus my inacceptance of the conclusions of dynamical systems theory. and this is a paradox. much like the same notorious godel's proof of incompleteness of formal systems. if you want to do without formal systems, you ow an explanation, how things like expectation (which is intentional property) arise. you can be a churchland and say that it is an illiusion. but then you have not explained why we need these illiusions to operate as we normally do.

4. i could go on, but i'm in good mood today (one reason is that you played the game of being a parasite in the system and thus proved my point of possible irrationality in it, another one being that i listened to feldman's last pieces just yesterday night and found)

this:

"My past experience was not to 'meddle' with the material, but use my concentration as a guide to what might transpire" and "I don't push sounds around"

and a comment from stephen ginsburgh:

"here you will learn something about any interpretation, about any piece: ask the music first and use your concentration.

playing or listening to morton feldman brings you back to the very rare moments when you look at a bright starry summer night, unable to measure its size because it is beyond your sense, a sense of infinity within a finite space"

needless to say, why that made me happy.

if there's no rule, there's no expectation, there's working through concentration on localizing the infinity.

adious, amigo!

1. expectations ARE phenomenal or functional (depends on where you stand on) aspects of rules. they are not different kind of the same thing. they form a series. how so? what you do you expect? bluntly put: something to be the same or different (but different meaning here as diverging from the same). how is the same constructed? through rules. you can't expect something that is not based or derived from the rule. how is this so? simply, if there is no rule, there can't be no expectation, because expectation, analytically implies the rule: you can't expect the driver to stop by red light, if there is no rule prohibiting driving through red lights. you can't expect the composer to compose something you may understand (knowledge wise) and thus know if your expectations were met or not, if there is no rule according to which things are composed. hence, rule implies expectation.

Expectations can preempt rules. Expectations, though, are NOT rules. In society, we may have had an expectation that one would conduct themselves in a specific way. When they didn't meet the expectation, the rule was needed to justify some "enforcement" of the conduct expected. We simply disagree on how this occurs.

2. any scientific system dealing with mind, let's say psychology, must take into account that what is observed is observed by a subject. that is, observing the brain takes the same brain to construct models through which it observes. this may imply many of problems for objective science of mind for two reasons: you can't observe the thing with which you observe - observing brain - without a loss of important data, unless you put another observer in the chain, but it makes infinite regress. what any mind science must take into account when constructing its theories is this - what can be said, can be said clearly, what cannot be said one must be silent about - wittgensteinian maxim, which, paradoxically did unbind all logolatrisms of XX century from logical positivism to philosophy of language. what wittgenstein, i believe, meant, is that there are things that can't be said in public language, for that would presupose divine standpoint of view. but there are things such and such. or should i stop calling them things, and say - events?

Any scientific system dealing with anything is observed by a subject. This is not limited to psychology or neurology. My problem in scientific discourse is how much conclusive material is "assumed" from data when it often doesn't follow conclusively from the data. So, "what cannot be said" is often stated anyway, in assumptions made that may or may not follow the data. This is something I think Wittgenstein may have been attempting to address.

3. so, dynamic systems have the same troubles - if i'm (just and necessarily only) part of my environment, my thinking is part of it - thus my inacceptance of the conclusions of dynamical systems theory. and this is a paradox. much like the same notorious godel's proof of incompleteness of formal systems. if you want to do without formal systems, you ow an explanation, how things like expectation (which is intentional property) arise. you can be a churchland and say that it is an illiusion. but then you have not explained why we need these illiusions to operate as we normally do.

So, now we're creating another conundrum. Just because I want to minimize and optimize formal systems doesn't mean either that I want to do away with all formal systems or that we should ignore them. The simple reality is that expectations exist, and while these formal systems exist in which these expectations emerge, composers need to know what these expectations are so they have the choices to make regarding them.

4. i could go on, but i'm in good mood today (one reason is that you played the game of being a parasite in the system and thus proved my point of possible irrationality in it, another one being that i listened to feldman's last pieces just yesterday night and found)

Now I'm a parasite in the system. Cool. I just thought I was pointing out the obvious while you were ignoring every observation made. Rather than address the realities, you've subversively changed the football field into an air hockey table. Well done.

"My past experience was not to 'meddle' with the material, but use my concentration as a guide to what might transpire" and "I don't push sounds around"

and a comment from stephen ginsburgh:

"here you will learn something about any interpretation, about any piece: ask the music first and use your concentration.

playing or listening to morton feldman brings you back to the very rare moments when you look at a bright starry summer night, unable to measure its size because it is beyond your sense, a sense of infinity within a finite space"

needless to say, why that made me happy.

if there's no rule, there's no expectation, there's working through concentration on localizing the infinity.

adious, amigo!

I expect the weather to be cold tomorrow. There's no rule saying that it must be cold. So, I guess since there is no rule, my expectation is, what, irrational? Silly panda...

Expectations can preempt rules. Expectations, though, are NOT rules. In society, we may have had an expectation that one would conduct themselves in a specific way. When they didn't meet the expectation, the rule was needed to justify some "enforcement" of the conduct expected. We simply disagree on how this occurs.

Any scientific system dealing with anything is observed by a subject. This is not limited to psychology or neurology. My problem in scientific discourse is how much conclusive material is "assumed" from data when it often doesn't follow conclusively from the data. So, "what cannot be said" is often stated anyway, in assumptions made that may or may not follow the data. This is something I think Wittgenstein may have been attempting to address.

So, now we're creating another conundrum. Just because I want to minimize and optimize formal systems doesn't mean either that I want to do away with all formal systems or that we should ignore them. The simple reality is that expectations exist, and while these formal systems exist in which these expectations emerge, composers need to know what these expectations are so they have the choices to make regarding them.

Now I'm a parasite in the system. Cool. I just thought I was pointing out the obvious while you were ignoring every observation made. Rather than address the realities, you've subversively changed the football field into an air hockey table. Well done.

I expect the weather to be cold tomorrow. There's no rule saying that it must be cold. So, I guess since there is no rule, my expectation is, what, irrational? Silly panda...

jesus fuckin virgin christ, of course there is a rule to predict weather, and of course you predict it on having known the rule, it must not explicitly be stated in formal system to become a rule! patterns form a rule, otherwise you have lost an idea what is an expectation. you can't expect something that has no rule, of course, it may not be a rule defined in strict physicalist terms (causal)(hey, hume, anyone?), but it must be a rule to yield expectation! it's as simple as 1+1=2.

and that's the whole point, you muddy sociologist, you can't eat the scraggy at the time producing it.

on W. : not a chance. read late wittgenstein. (his conclusion on (infinite) language of games does not need the rule that it must be stated properly, he still embarks the silence, as his yearly trips to norway explicit, languageS are born of this rulelessness)

(of course, we must stop here, if you wish to get your conceptual system be deconstructed, you can pm me, cause, this silly panda RATIONALLY wants to get rid of the rule of this forum)

how much grammar do you take into consideration when you talk?

exactly

Semantics...kinda.

patterns form a rule, otherwise you have lost an idea what is an expectation

1+1=2 is not true because of a pattern, it is true because it is true. THAT'S a rule. Rules in chess have no options: you DO them.

Patterns do not form rules, patterns form expectations. "Dark clouds mean rain" isn't a rule, it's an expectation because it might NOT rain just because the pattern of past experience lead me to expect it.

Rule:

"a principle or regulation governing conduct, action, procedure, arrangement, etc"

Expectation:

"something expected; a thing looked forward to"

(dictionary.com)

Like a four-bar phrase. It's not a rule, it's an expectation. ii NOT going to I isn't a rule, it's an expectation. There's nothing saying you must follow the "rules of theory", it's simply that people EXPECT these things to happen. And good composers decide whether or not to fulfill those expectations. They've done that all throughout history.

jesus fuckin virgin christ, of course there is a rule to predict weather, and of course you predict it on having known the rule, it must not explicitly be stated in formal system to become a rule!

This is loltastic! Ok, ok, ok... so if a meteorologist predicts that it will snow and it doesn't, he must not have known the rule or ignored the rule... it's patently ABSURD to apply any usage of "rules" to something as ambiguous as weather.

patterns form a rule, otherwise you have lost an idea what is an expectation. you can't expect something that has no rule, of course, it may not be a rule defined in strict physicalist terms (causal)(hey, hume, anyone?), but it must be a rule to yield expectation! it's as simple as 1+1=2.

This is why I hate semantics.

1+1=2 is not a rule, it is a mathematical proof. It is a proof because 1+1 will never equal anything other than 2 in the hexadecimal numeric system (1 & 1 in the binary system will equal 3 when in the 8 bit configuration of 0000 0011). There are no OTHER outcomes to 1+1=2 because anything other than 2 is invalid, thus, not a proof.

A rule has two, and only two outcomes, right and wrong. If the standards of the rule are met, the rule is satisfied. If the standards of the rule are not met, the rule is not satisfied. The difference between proof and rule being, a proof has only one outcome of validity, otherwise it is invalid and not a proof. A rule has two outcomes, the first being "right" where the rule was followed and the other being "wrong" where the rule was not followed. The rule remains as a rule, either satisfied or broken.

The RULE does not precede the expectation. The rule MAY follow the expectation but not of any necessity. An expectation DOESN'T NEED a rule in order for an expectation to exist.

If you are implying that our desire for an outcome (expectation) is the same thing as "a rule," and even saying "it must be a rule to yield an expectation," it doesn't take into account that the expectation may not even be comprehensible to the person - the individual may not even know how to conceptualize what they expect of anything - which becomes a "rule" completely devoid of substance, a "rule" that hardly qualifies as a rule at all. There is no "rule" in this (all too common) occurrence. Yet, without the rule, the expectation can still be achieved, and the individual may then "create a rule" for themselves by which to make a choice once they understand what that choice is. So, to reiterate, the rule can only follow the expectation, not precede it.

With music, we do not have "rules" because expectations can be as numerous as the stars, often incomprehensible to the vast majority of listeners, and styles of music have been diverging and converging in ways that make it impossible to establish "rules" for music at all. Still, there are expectations that listeners, composers, performers, et al all have that are worth knowing because of how prevalent these expectations are becoming. In the end, they are not rules (they could become rules - though I seriously doubt it), because those expectations can be met in a plethora of ways. So, there is no "right" or "wrong" way to create in such a way as to meet those expectations. We've seen this throughout the pedagogy and repertoire of music across several cultures both historically and currently.

This is loltastic! Ok, ok, ok... so if a meteorologist predicts that it will snow and it doesn't, he must not have known the rule or ignored the rule... it's patently ABSURD to apply any usage of "rules" to something as ambiguous as weather.

This is why I hate semantics.

1.1+1=2 is not a rule, it is a mathematical proof. It is a proof because 1+1 will never equal anything other than 2 in the hexadecimal numeric system (1 & 1 in the binary system will equal 3 when in the 8 bit configuration of 0000 0011). There are no OTHER outcomes to 1+1=2 because anything other than 2 is invalid, thus, not a proof.

A rule has two, and only two outcomes, right and wrong. If the standards of the rule are met, the rule is satisfied. If the standards of the rule are not met, the rule is not satisfied. The difference between proof and rule being, a proof has only one outcome of validity, otherwise it is invalid and not a proof. A rule has two outcomes, the first being "right" where the rule was followed and the other being "wrong" where the rule was not followed. The rule remains as a rule, either satisfied or broken.

2.The RULE does not precede the expectation. The rule MAY follow the expectation but not of any necessity. An expectation DOESN'T NEED a rule in order for an expectation to exist.

If you are implying that our desire for an outcome (expectation) is the same thing as "a rule," and even saying "it must be a rule to yield an expectation," it doesn't take into account that the expectation may not even be comprehensible to the person - the individual may not even know how to conceptualize what they expect of anything - which becomes a "rule" completely devoid of substance, a "rule" that hardly qualifies as a rule at all. There is no "rule" in this (all too common) occurrence. Yet, without the rule, the expectation can still be achieved, and the individual may then "create a rule" for themselves by which to make a choice once they understand what that choice is. So, to reiterate, the rule can only follow the expectation, not precede it.

3.With music, we do not have "rules" because expectations can be as numerous as the stars, often incomprehensible to the vast majority of listeners, and styles of music have been diverging and converging in ways that make it impossible to establish "rules" for music at all. Still, there are expectations that listeners, composers, performers, et al all have that are worth knowing because of how prevalent these expectations are becoming. In the end, they are not rules (they could become rules - though I seriously doubt it), because those expectations can be met in a plethora of ways. So, there is no "right" or "wrong" way to create in such a way as to meet those expectations. We've seen this throughout the pedagogy and repertoire of music across several cultures both historically and currently.

1. no, it is not a proof, it may be seen as pattern, or part of sequence, that proof yields, 1+1=2 is not a proof, yet, before the proof is found, it may be considered as a form of rule (as a certain patter).

2. if the rule does not preceed expectation, then you can't know what stands for x in the sequence - 1,2,3,4,x.........n. or, simply, what the criminal should expect from the judge, when standing in front of the court after commiting a murder. yes, expectations do succeed the rule since they are dependend on their content on certain existences of patterns that may be interpreted as derived from rules, which, as you rightly point out, may be explicit or implicit (i.e. not grasped in a concept) .

3. i'm not sure how one could know what expectations listeners, composer etc. could have if that was not an explicited as a rule, or, may i say pattern (since i tend to agree that rules in art are, weel, not rigidly ruley, but, i can't seem to grasp how on ecan have an expectation without something being at least possibly explicable as a rule, be it in a modality of pattern, or sequence) i.e., in a way of conceptualizing it, like in musical theory, or having heard at least couple of works that tend to be falling into similar pattern (then what one can do is see or make available to himself, what was that kept these works connected, which one could call a rule, without, of course, an practical character of rule as social phenomena), which will yield an expectation. when someone asks, what one can expect to follow from this and that, it is quite true that the response should involve xthis and xthat (in certain explicit form, which presuppose knowledge of some preceding relation that is more or less stable, or predictable for there to be some contentful expectation). 'expect the unexpected' is certainly not an answer that one could contextualise to make some content positively informative.

This is loltastic! Ok, ok, ok... so if a meteorologist predicts that it will snow and it doesn't, he must not have known the rule or ignored the rule... it's patently ABSURD to apply any usage of "rules" to something as ambiguous as weather.

this is not loltastic, i know the rule of doing this and that, but due to changing circumstances, or mistake, i fail to achieve (what i thought i will due with applying the rule). or due to wide content of a field a rule applies to. this of course, is not a strict rule in a sense of prohibition/allowance case. but it's a form of a rule. do the meteorologists follow the rules in predicting weather? yes.

like shamans do in trying to call for the rain, and if they are not succeeding it does not mean they have no rules (that they followed). rules may be wrong, may be (yielding no positive consequence) of bad application and so on.

and, at last, but not least, rules were made to deal with ambiguous things in the first place.

( i always liked an example of a wonderful rule (which of course was an outcome of more general rule) that failed but was thought to be essential to achieve the goal to master flying to slow the airplane when reaching the treshold of resistance, since the rule was so obviously true in so many other empirical cases, that it took someone to give no damn about the rule and just speed up and break the resitance).

Semantics...kinda.

1+1=2 is not true because of a pattern, it is true because it is true. THAT'S a rule. Rules in chess have no options: you DO them.

Patterns do not form rules, patterns form expectations. "Dark clouds mean rain" isn't a rule, it's an expectation because it might NOT rain just because the pattern of past experience lead me to expect it.

Rule:

"a principle or regulation governing conduct, action, procedure, arrangement, etc"

Expectation:

"something expected; a thing looked forward to"

(dictionary.com)

Like a four-bar phrase. It's not a rule, it's an expectation. ii NOT going to I isn't a rule, it's an expectation. There's nothing saying you must follow the "rules of theory", it's simply that people EXPECT these things to happen. And good composers decide whether or not to fulfill those expectations. They've done that all throughout history.

i agree on most points, since i never claimed that rule is an expectation. what is of more interest is to analyze the rule (which may a conceptualization of a pattern in the end, as hume thought it was). my point was rather that you expect something that has a pattern, whether it was conceptualized or not, is another thing (and very interesting).

''it's simply that people EXPECT these things to happen''

of course that's true, this is obvious, people expect thing to happen, because they have happened before and form a pattern, now is there a rule to a pattern? well, if it is a pattern then there must be (unless an illusory, like in feldman's music) a rule that will help ypou conceptualise the pattern, or be it's conceptualization, as i said - superstructure (of a structure, a situation, an existing pattern). so, why do people expect something to be this and that way? because they are familiar with the pattern, or know the rule and possible outcomes of it's application.

my question is how you break the rule, how you leave the pattern, how you enter an event that transforms a situation, even for a brief moment, and, which is almost too obvious to be stated, that (happening) can't be expected!

that's why it's an event, a happening, a history without historicism (of the hegelian self-knowledge of a concept through dialectics of thought).

1. no, it is not a proof, it may be seen as pattern, or part of sequence, that proof yields, 1+1=2 is not a proof, yet, before the proof is found, it may be considered as a form of rule (as a certain patter).

I disagree. It is a proof in the sense that it is a valid numerical statement or equation, and were it invalid, it would simply not be a proof. It would be an invalid statement within the syntax of mathematical language, otherwise known as garbage.

2. if the rule does not preceed expectation, then you can't know what stands for x in the sequence - 1,2,3,4,x.........n. or, simply, what the criminal should expect from the judge, when standing in front of the court after commiting a murder. yes, expectations do succeed the rule since they are dependent on their content on certain existences of patterns that may be interpreted as derived from rules, which, as you rightly point out, may be explicit or implicit (i.e. not grasped in a concept) .

This is flawed in oh so many ways. We must account for the development of this number system in our understanding. It is the pattern (within nature, in the most general sense) that led to the eventual development of this number system. Here is how most believe this began... from observing patterns in nature, expectations formed regarding these patterns. They did not become RULES until a system was developed around those expectations. In effect, when the number system was created, rules were born from it. Prior to those rules, all we had were expectations based on observing patterns. 

3. i'm not sure how one could know what expectations listeners, composer etc. could have if that was not an explicited as a rule, or, may i say pattern (since i tend to agree that rules in art are, weel, not rigidly ruley, but, i can't seem to grasp how one can have an expectation without something being at least possibly explicable as a rule, be it in a modality of pattern, or sequence) i.e., in a way of conceptualizing it, like in musical theory, or having heard at least couple of works that tend to be falling into similar pattern (then what one can do is see or make available to himself, what was that kept these works connected, which one could call a rule, without, of course, an practical character of rule as social phenomena), which will yield an expectation. when someone asks, what one can expect to follow from this and that, it is quite true that the response should involve xthis and xthat (in certain explicit form, which presuppose knowledge of some preceding relation that is more or less stable, or predictable for there to be some contentful expectation). 'expect the unexpected' is certainly not an answer that one could contextualise to make some content positively informative.

I sincerely fail to understand the point you are trying to make here. If you're attempting to say that an expectation cannot exist without a rule, I'm saying the exact opposite. I'm doing so with clear and concise examples. Patterns in nature/environment lead, first, to expectations, which may later lead to "rules" about something. It's perfectly clear to me that this is the process. Perhaps you are applying the usage of the word "rule" liberally without isolating rule from expectation or proof.

I disagree. It is a proof in the sense that it is a valid numerical statement or equation, and were it invalid, it would simply not be a proof. It would be an invalid statement within the syntax of mathematical language, otherwise known as garbage.

This is flawed in oh so many ways. We must account for the development of this number system in our understanding. It is the pattern (within nature, in the most general sense) that led to the eventual development of this number system. Here is how most believe this began... from observing patterns in nature, expectations formed regarding these patterns. They did not become RULES until a system was developed around those expectations. In effect, when the number system was created, rules were born from it. Prior to those rules, all we had were expectations based on observing patterns. 

I sincerely fail to understand the point you are trying to make here. If you're attempting to say that an expectation cannot exist without a rule, I'm saying the exact opposite. I'm doing so with clear and concise examples. Patterns in nature/environment lead, first, to expectations, which may later lead to "rules" about something. It's perfectly clear to me that this is the process. Perhaps you are applying the usage of the word "rule" liberally without isolating rule from expectation or proof.

rule is a conceptual exposition of a pattern. what patterns are is largely ambigous, are they real in a natural sense, or are they ideal in constructuvist sense? i don't know.

i'm not buying into pure empiricism, since it leads to many contradictions. yet, i'm not buying into complete idealist position.

as for math, i take fregean conception of the number and set theory for constructing mathematical worlds to be quite logically impressive.

read how frege analyzes the concept of number. there is a great impasse for empiricist to pass through.

again 1+1=2 prove nothing of itself, it's a piece of pattern from more general sequence that can be constructed out of a specific rule, following it would be proving it's reality as an mathematical object. by itself it is no proof of any kind.

yes, i apply concept of rule liberally since i don't know what specificness should be required. rule is a rule of the particular language game. all of them may differ quite radically. expectation is born when participating in this game.

my position is that there things outside the game. what's interesting is it's dialectics with the language game (a situation).

yes, i apply concept of rule liberally since i don't know what specificness should be required. rule is a rule of the particular language game. all of them may differ quite radically. expectation is born when participating in this game.

my position is that there things outside the game. what's interesting is it's dialectics with the language game (a situation).

My position is just the opposite. Rule is born of this "game" while expectation is not. For example, a tribal island culture and a modernized Western Culture may both come to expect, say, a Tsunami that will hit the island, wreak havoc, kill people on the island, etc. The islanders might expect this because of the observable patterns of tides while the modern western culture will rely upon proof in the form of global weather patterns, jet streams, air pressure, etc. that are collected as raw data from instruments. 

The expectations are the same, but the rules are different, since both approach the situation with expectations formed from observations of different patterns. Both cultures may follow their own rules, but it really doesn't matter. In the end, the expectation exists through human observation of patterns, not necessarily a reliance on rules. This demonstrates the precise opposition to what you are attempting to argue, that expectations exist beyond the realm of one "game" or the other. 

My position is just the opposite. Rule is born of this "game" while expectation is not. For example, a tribal island culture and a modernized Western Culture may both come to expect, say, a Tsunami that will hit the island, wreak havoc, kill people on the island, etc. The islanders might expect this because of the observable patterns of tides while the modern western culture will rely upon proof in the form of global weather patterns, jet streams, air pressure, etc. that are collected as raw data from instruments. 

The expectations are the same, but the rules are different, since both approach the situation with expectations formed from observations of different patterns. Both cultures may follow their own rules, but it really doesn't matter. In the end, the expectation exists through human observation of patterns, not necessarily a reliance on rules. This demonstrates the precise opposition to what you are attempting to argue, that expectations exist beyond the realm of one "game" or the other.

with this (except the bold part) i agree and just don't see how it is in an opposition to what i'm attempting to argue.

the bold part does not follow, all it (argument) says is that expectations are born out of (observing) patterns (to know, to observe which (with consistency) we need to have entered language games, thus rules of the game, thus expectation is part of the game), not that it is beyond language games in any sense. that it (expectation) belongs to all language games is precisely what i have argued. the players of any language game are to form expectations, since it is implicit in knowledeg of the pattern or the rules. without it there's no point talking about expectations.

with this (except the bold part) i agree and just don't see how it is in an opposition to what i'm attempting to argue.

the bold part does not follow, all it (argument) says is that expectations are born out of (observing) patterns (to know, to observe which (with consistency) we need to have entered language games, thus rules of the game, thus expectation is part of the game), not that it is beyond language games in any sense. that it (expectation) belongs to all language games is precisely what i have argued. the players of any language game are to form expectations, since it is implicit in knowledeg of the pattern or the rules. without it there's no point talking about expectations.

The problem, again, is that you don't need a language game to recognize a pattern and have an expectation of something. This is perfectly evident in music listeners who have not learned anything about music, but they still form expectations based on what they aurally observe. 

The problem, again, is that you don't need a language game to recognize a pattern and have an expectation of something. This is perfectly evident in music listeners who have not learned anything about music, but they still form expectations based on what they aurally observe. 

it might be true, but only if we say that a language game necessarily involves words. otherwise, it's quite clear that learning something is participating and being involved in a language game. like, chess, basketball and so on. again it is not quite clear if what they do is not a certain linguistic game after all - they may not form the rules as explicitly as one who knows them does, but they most certainly use some sort of language mapping, like 'now THIS should come, That should follow and so on" - they participate in a syntactical understanding using maybe less symbols and conceptions. but i fail to see how they could do that if there was no language game they were participating in - there could be no expectations, rather an indifference or pleasure of sensory attack (which too could be viewed as a certain syntax learned by participating in a language game developed while being drawn into society).

so, yes they do learn about music, or rather about what it does coming into their personal horizon.

it might be true, but only if we say that a language game necessarily involves words. otherwise, it's quite clear that learning something is participating and being involved in a language game. like, chess, basketball and so on.

A "language game" wouldn't involve "words?" Huh? At the very least, these are bad examples. Chess, Basketball, and the rules of both are clearly written and spoken. The boundaries are clearly established. If the rule is obeyed, the game is being played as it should be played. If the rule is not obeyed, then penalties are enforced to ensure the game is being played as it should be played. The rules establish the bounds in which the game is "the game." 

again it is not quite clear if what they do is not a certain linguistic game after all - they may not form the rules as explicitly as one who knows them does, but they most certainly use some sort of language mapping, like 'now THIS should come, That should follow and so on" - they participate in a syntactical understanding using maybe less symbols and conceptions.

In music, this understanding happens almost entirely through hindsight and recollection of the event, and "RULES" aren't applied in this instance. It makes no sense for us to say that some process of, "now THIS should come, That should follow and so on" is taking place as a work of music is performed. What more often tends to be the case in listening to music is that the listener either connects or doesn't connect with the sounds some form of emotional or intellectual imagery, which they later reflect on. 

But suffice it to say, if you're attempting to make the point that people form their own language game to talk about their reflections on music, I'm more convinced this has more to do with assessing whether their expectations were met by the work, not whether or not the work is actually "music." And, of course, a work that is far removed from anything they've heard may end up being said to be, "Not Music," but this is exactly the reason I believe it's important to make the distinction.

There are far too many people with, surprisingly, more open-minded thoughts about music who reflect on their listening experience with, "This is what it meant to me or did for me," while others might comment, "Well, that wasn't music at all!" The former reflect on their expectations. The latter create rules for themselves about what is and is not music (to them). 

That's a pretty clear difference, if you ask me.

 

but i fail to see how they could do that if there was no language game they were participating in - there could be no expectations, rather an indifference or pleasure of sensory attack (which too could be viewed as a certain syntax learned by participating in a language game developed while being drawn into society). 

so, yes they do learn about music, or rather about what it does coming into their personal horizon.

When it comes to something akin to painting, sculpting, composing, then we have something where boundaries are so blurred that rules hardly apply, thus what remains from this is what might otherwise gestate into a "rule," that being an expectation. 

A "language game" wouldn't involve "words?" Huh? At the very least, these are bad examples. Chess, Basketball, and the rules of both are clearly written and spoken. The boundaries are clearly established. If the rule is obeyed, the game is being played as it should be played. If the rule is not obeyed, then penalties are enforced to ensure the game is being played as it should be played. The rules establish the bounds in which the game is "the game." 

In music, this understanding happens almost entirely through hindsight and recollection of the event, and "RULES" aren't applied in this instance. It makes no sense for us to say that some process of, "now THIS should come, That should follow and so on" is taking place as a work of music is performed. What more often tends to be the case in listening to music is that the listener either connects or doesn't connect with the sounds some form of emotional or intellectual imagery, which they later reflect on. 

But suffice it to say, if you're attempting to make the point that people form their own language game to talk about their reflections on music, I'm more convinced this has more to do with assessing whether their expectations were met by the work, not whether or not the work is actually "music." And, of course, a work that is far removed from anything they've heard may end up being said to be, "Not Music," but this is exactly the reason I believe it's important to make the distinction.

There are far too many people with, surprisingly, more open-minded thoughts about music who reflect on their listening experience with, "This is what it meant to me or did for me," while others might comment, "Well, that wasn't music at all!" The former reflect on their expectations. The latter create rules for themselves about what is and is not music (to them). 

That's a pretty clear difference, if you ask me.

When it comes to something akin to painting, sculpting, composing, then we have something where boundaries are so blurred that rules hardly apply, thus what remains from this is what might otherwise gestate into a "rule," that being an expectation. 

well, one can learn to play chess by looking and imitating the moves, one does not need words to understand the rule in this case. so for basketball. of course they have rules that are written or at least accepted in unwritten form of rule-book. nevertheless, the patterns may be learned without knowing the explicit rules. like we learn our tongue language. once you are in it, you can't leave it. it's up to person to go extra step to get a grip on superstructure explaing the patterns and to get hold of the rules.

the meaning does not exist outside language, what it meant to them may only be understood by trying to get a grip on what they report of their experience, which, i believe, would be easily explainable in noticing certain patterns of response (imaginary reports, emotional or whatever the media of personhood comes into help) to such and such sound sequences and so on. here is the birth of a rule at the limit of communal horizon, that is at the limit of language game, but certainly, if we want to use 'meaning', not outside of it.

also, music listening has a lot of rules as a practice - go there, dress that on/off, sit there, be silent, rock the scraggy off and so on, which are nonmusical factors in purist view, but play important role in people's experience of music. thus, what creates an expectation in musical game also could be its extra sonoric rules.

i don't understand your last paragraph. these (activities) are blurred, thus there are no rules there?! if that's the logic, i fail to see how these activities are recognised as belonging to themselves, so to say. they form a set, and to form a set there must be a rule. otherwise, there is no such things (various arts) we speak about.

again expectations have not everything to do with definition of arts (of course, question what is art may arise due expectations being met/failed, but it's rather a field where one may enter philophical language game and without being insider of the game rather very uninteresting, i.e. opinioned to the core of idiocy), but the experience of art work as it is presented to him/her, which will meet or fail to meet expectation only if one expects something, which is quite trivial fact, thus, expecting something is tied to knowing something of what to expect, and this 'what' has clearly something to do with things called rules or patterns (if one cannot explicit it in system of propositions). in both cases there is a certain matrix on which expectations are based - i.e. a language game.

like hume said, we, human beings, tend to rationalize and make a pattern of everything that surrounds us, without knowing if it is right or wrong in a causal sense.

we tend to think in ruled patterns, propositional or imaginary. and the more conscious we are the more ruled the world appears. thus we expect thing to make sense and have a meaning since with years we become practically inseperable from language games we participate in. losing our subjectivity or possibility of opening for new subjectivity is the price we pay for being engrossed into language games, which are, by definition, communal.

I suppose I see the point you're making. I simply disagree with the application of "rule," in the semantic sense, when one cannot know what the rule is. To "expect" something, I don't need a rule, I don't need to know what the rules are. I don't think anyone needs a rule or creates a rule every time they expect something to happen. In the opposite sense, it makes more sense that expectations lead to rules. I 'expect' someone to behave a certain way. However, if they don't behave in the way I expect, I may create a rule to enforce the behavior I expect.

What I think you are arguing is that my expectation comes from some kind of "rule" I have for behavior to begin with... I just don't think it makes any sense to say there is a rule, then an expectation, but then we somehow "structure" the rule in a verbal or written form. I'm content with my usage of rule. Anything that occurs before this is, in my opinion, an expectation. Nothing more, nothing less.

You can't just slap the two together and call it a piece.

Why can't I?