I did an online talk on the philosophy of auditory perception

nickneek

Maybe someone would find it interesting? Maybe, possibly? I don’t know

I am a researcher working on philosophy of perception. For the most part I work on auditory perception, my interest in music making and music tech goes hand in hand with the stuff I think about at work.

This talk is not about music per se, but about whether there can be such a thing as an auditory picture. In particular whether hearing something played through speakers or headphones is like looking at a picture It’s quite dry, academic stuff, but if you can get past this, and my nervous, rambling delivery, maybe you’ll find some of the ideas worth thinking about. It starts off more theoretical but connects up with psychological research on spatial hearing later on.

Gavinski

I will try to listen to this Nick, my first degree was in Philosophy, but I have never even really thought about the philosophical questions related to sound, I’m intrigued.

ervin

@Gavinski said:
I will try to listen to this Nick, my first degree was in Philosophy, but I have never even really thought about the philosophical questions related to sound, I’m intrigued.

Let's start with the obvious one: "If @Gavinski smashes 17 effects on a single AUM strip and there is noone there to hear it, did his iPad make a sound?"

nickneek

@Gavinski Cool. I hope you find something interesting in it. Although, it's a pity that my vid doesn't have the production values of any of yours.

@ervin I actually have an easy answer to that one. No his iPad doesn't make a sound because....sounds don't exist! (Sound waves exist, but we don't hear them). The title of my dissertation was "Not Hearing Sounds".

ervin

@nickneek said:

@ervin I actually have an easy answer to that one. No his iPad doesn't make a sound because....sounds don't exist! (Sound waves exist, but we don't hear them). The title of my dissertation was "Not Hearing Sounds".

I agree. I had this explained to me by a neuroscientist not long ago, using the famous original tree example. I can't claim to have understood the more scientific bits, but i think i got the part about how "sound" is tied to detection/perception*. I guess that is why your intro and Gavinski's reply reminded me of it.

*Needless to say, that was the point where I grabbed my linguist's battle helmet and tried the proven "it also depends on the definition of sound" argument, with limited success.

nickneek

@ervin

Exactly. The definition stuff is spot on. And we use the word sound in loads of different ways ('hear a sound'; 'the guitar has a mellow sound', 'it sounds different if you pluck than if you strum it').

Wrlds2ndBstGeoshredr

@nickneek said:
@Gavinski Cool. I hope you find something interesting in it. Although, it's a pity that my vid doesn't have the production values of any of yours.

@ervin I actually have an easy answer to that one. No his iPad doesn't make a sound because....sounds don't exist! (Sound waves exist, but we don't hear them). The title of my dissertation was "Not Hearing Sounds".

Is your diss online?

Poppadocrock

Perception, for better or for worse, is reality.