I didn’t need proof myself, but I suppose it’s comforting nevertheless to have it mathematically confirmed.

    • You really never know what mathematics discoveries can do. Number theory was an useless brach of mathematics, considered an useless endeavor of theoretical mathematics and basically a hobby. Until modern computation and the RSA algorithm gave number theory an use, and without it, the internet as we know it, couldn’t exist.

      •  gregorum   ( @gregorum@lemm.ee ) 
        link
        fedilink
        English
        25 months ago

        I have an MfA. Nobody will convince me that our education holds no value.

        and, fwiw, I’m not judging— and if you’ll check out my other comments, it didn’t take much for others to remind me how silly I was being. :)

      •  gregorum   ( @gregorum@lemm.ee ) 
        link
        fedilink
        English
        3
        edit-2
        5 months ago

        fair, i guess? when i’m not professionally graphic designing, i shitpost star trek memes, although nobody can convince me that that’s not a worthwhile expenditure of my time :)

        • my kid reminded me of something similar one day… i was kinnda making fun of all these kids sitting around watching some guy play a video game… youtube or whatnot… it was a whole big genre i guess.

          anyway i was having a problem identifying with this arrangement…lightly teasing them about watching this when my then 12 year old says ‘how is it different than sitting at/watching on tv any ballpark watching other people play those games?’ … he might as well have added ‘old man’.

          for some reason, when it he put it like that it just kinda slapped some reality into me.

          •  gregorum   ( @gregorum@lemm.ee ) 
            link
            fedilink
            English
            7
            edit-2
            5 months ago

            I will, with no shame, admit that I have watched, at 45 years old, play through of the game Myst, because, even all these years later, I could not fucking get through it on my own. 

            Also, all Myst games, the Ultima Underworld games, and a few others, lol. It’s like playing the game alongside someone else. It’s fun.

          •  Gamma   ( @GammaGames@beehaw.org ) 
            link
            fedilink
            English
            2
            edit-2
            5 months ago

            This was how I explained lets plays to my family in high school. Plus, you’re usually watching for the personalities. I’ve played games (most recently Snowrunner) because I enjoyed listening to the people play

    • Not to be rude, but hah.

      Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

      We know as well as anyone that math is the study of questions we can answer exactly, but which often aren’t very important. If you want to talk about something desperately meaningful talk to a philosopher (and keep talking, zing!).

      Right now Platonism is the dominant way of thinking about pure math, and in it’s lens the questions are treated as literally separate from the material world.

    • Depends. Will this research allow creating AIs that can compose “in the style of Bach”, or even compose “ideal music”… and make a ton of money by selling it as a service to large music producers?

      Coming soon: Song of the year, by [some figurehead] (composed and interpreted by AI)

  •  ulkesh   ( @ulkesh@beehaw.org ) 
    link
    fedilink
    English
    85 months ago

    He was! But he overused the harpsichord, in my very humble and unfounded opinion, and it hurts my ears to listen to a lot of his creation. I get why he did (the piano was still a very new creation, and the harpsichord could be more easily heard in concert halls), but it sure does pierce the eardrum these days.

  • Describing subjective art with numbers means it’s objectively good now! No. >.<

    Math, and even merely counting, as applied to the real world always has a human element intangled with it, even though people like to pretend otherwise. Like, you can’t count apples without first deciding what an apple is, where the boundaries of that category are, and declaring them all to be equivalent for your purposes (e.g. one fresh apple = one barely still edible apple). The abstraction of it adds subjectivity.

    Anyway the relationship of math with music is interesting nonetheless. It just doesn’t have to be about making art objective somehow.