EDIT: FFS why does this subject always get people frothing at the mouth before they even read the main point stated, only to go on and accidentally agree with it eventually? Pls read first before getting mad at stuff that I explicitly argued against.
EDIT 2: OK apparently there's still miscommunication, and I think the 1st edit somehow made it worse. When I say "useful" I put it in scare quotes on purpose and as I clarify in the 1st, 4th and 5th paragraps, it is NOT about value but about practical/technological utility.
I originally posted this on R*ddit to an audience of math nerds (so be warned that it is written with reddit STEMlords in mind) because there was a relevant convo going on and it would be fun to also have it here.
Sure, there is a lot of modern math that is practically useful, but the majority of pure math really isn't "useful' in any way, shape or form for now, and probably won't be any time soon, possibly forever. Like, even areas which are apparently "useful", like computer science, is full of things that have absolutely 0 practical utility and are solely of academic interest. Whether P does or doesn't equal NP doesn't really matter to anyone doing practical work. People wouldn't get upset about their discipline getting slighted or whatever if this stupid idea that scientific research should have "practical application" (which generally means "someone can sell it for money") hadn't proliferated, starting from schools.
Even when someone finds an "application" through some kind of far fetched (or not so far fetched) reasoning, it's some application to, like, highly theoretical physics that may or may not actually have something to do with the real world, and even if it does, it is only relevant in extremely niche experimental circumstances to the extent that it can't ever conceivably lead to technological progress. And even IF it does, sometimes it's just progress relevant only to more research about more stuff without application.
So even then you have to resort to saying something like "the result is not useful but maybe one of the methods used to prove it can be used for something else", and then that something else turns out to also not be useful but again "maybe one of the methods used to find that something else is useful for another something else and that other something else is useful for another other something else and then that other other something else has a practical application that is only relevant to research, but then maybe that relates to some other other other...", etc and it gets kind of silly. That or someone says something abstract like "it's useless now but it may be useful some time!". Maybe. Or maybe not.
In the end of the day the same arguments could be used to justify anything being useful via some contrived butterfly effect style conjecture. This of course is usually done because otherwise people can't get grant money otherwise, governments demand that research will produce results they can use to blow up people or sell stuff. Also the result of a bad educational system that emphasizes this kind of "usefulness", which therefore renders it unable to convince students that something is worth learning unless it is "useful". Of course "why should I learn this if it's not useful to me" is a very valid concern of students, but the problem is somewhere else. First, schools DON'T really teach any of the stuff that is useful and interesting to most people. If they did, then math would get a lot less attacks on that front. Schools teach with 30% of the students in mind, the ones who will really apply the things they learned. The other 70% can just go to prison or whatever as far as the educational system is concerned. Second, schools are very boring and antagonistic towards kids and since kids are miserable learning stuff, they need extra justification to learn them. Third, the schools themselves teach kids to think like that so it's no surprise that they do. Fourth, school math mostly sucks and is super boring for most people.
So yes, most modern pure math is indeed "useless". That is not the issue. The issue is, why does this matter? Why is it bad? Should it be bad? I don't think so. It's a false idea that gets perpetuated at many levels starting from school. But then there is the issue of mathematics being very exclusionary and distant from most people, which makes it harder for them to care, which brings us to the issue of outreach but whatever, that's a different matter.
I don’t engage with art or listen to music. Finally left that shit in 2020.
It’s weird how people pretend to enjoy art/music and find deep meaning in them. Like art is pretty pictures (or not even that), and music is neat sounds. But people pretend they can just sit and enjoy them and find deep meaning in them, like they were on LSD all the time.
They’re fine as background decoration, but they’re powerfully boring as a primary activity. And you can’t go look at Starry Night or listen to some Bob Dylan and honestly tell me that it’s meaningful.
You need to accept other people have different experiences from you mate. They are not pretending.
He's been doing this for at least a month. Either he's 100% committed to the bit or he will never be convinced because he thinks literally the ENTIRE world is lying about this.
Also you can't deny how effective a troll this is. Look at all the replies!
yeah it’s kinda like people who pretend to get something out of prayer
Have you considered that perhaps they do get some kind of feeling out of prayer?
Also lmao
yeah and then once i considered it i was like dang thats absurd
Have you considered that perhaps it's not literally everyone who is driving on the wrong side of the road but perhaps it's you?
come on man
if everyone has a delusion then everyone else is wrong
I'm gonna share an experience I had.
When I was a 12yo kid, for around two hours of my life, music actually felt like you said, it didn't have any meaning or emotion, barely rhythm.
Then I had a horrible migraine and the next day I was back to enjoying music.
From this perspective of having experienced both, it really isn't a delusion.
It really doesn’t have any meaning. It can sound nice, that’s about all there is to say for it.
Yes, that's how I felt in that brief period of time, but before and after I could decode emotion and some meaning from it.
Wtf is delusional about getting a feeling out of music lmao
Most people aren't lying about feeling something because of prayer. Some do lie about it because they have ulterior motives. But generally people do get a feeling out of it because it makes them feel hopeful, it gets things out of their chest, they feel they connect to God and it is a moment of introspection. "But God is fake" cool, that's entirely irrelevant.
With music there isn't even a structure above that can be true or false. You don't feel something out of music because you are "tricked" into believing something false. Like, perhaps you don't feel anything but that's not because you are right and they are wrong. It's just that for whatever reason it doesn't get you, which is way, way more unusual than the opposite.
The analogy of prayer to music/art is that these are all things that are incredibly boring and pointless, but which society says are good, meaningful, and vitally important things.
As far as prayer, “God is fake” is pretty relevant, because it means that most people aren’t really experiencing anything when they pray. It makes the most sense that they’re lying about getting anything out of it because of social stigma/norms. Not accounting for things that alter experiences like schizophrenia or LSD.
To you.
Yeah because you can only experience a feeling if God makes you.
yeah everything I write is according to me
from prayer yeah
no
come on man
I'm coming.
I meant it like be honest and reasonable. if there’s no god then prayer is pointless and people don’t get anything out of it
Doesn't mean they're lying if they feel something. It's called having emotions.
if there’s no god, there’s nothing there to cause the experience
What experience? An emotion? What do you think causes emotions in people? Drugs?
idk, but the experience they’re claiming isn’t real so the emotional response sounds made up too.
like suppose you told me you were very excited because you won the lottery. but then I find out you didn’t win the lottery. I would think that you probably weren’t excited about winning the lottery either.
e: the experience of talking to god
Have you considered that perhaps people who pray don't all claim they had supernatural experiences, but simply that they felt good?
No, I was neglecting that group as I’ve never met or heard of anyone like that, and it seems like a contradiction in terms.
It’s pretty implausible that someone would feel good from intentionally boring themselves for no reason. Just going off own experience and empathy.
You mean lack of experience and empathy.
No, not at all. Please try to be honest.
I mean I am honest, it's you who for some reason thinks everyone is lying to you about having emotions. You know, perhaps not everyone is lying and maybe your sense of empathy is just kinda out of whack.
did you even consider my evidence and reasoning
You don't have any evidence, you just think everyone is lying to you and ignoring what people are telling you. Your "evidence" is that "I don't feel that way so no one does".
that is evidence, but it wasn’t my only evidence. did you read the lottery analogy?
Oh, I did, it was just bullshit and completely inapplicable lmao. Like what the fuck does it have to do with anything lol
someone says they had an emotional reaction to a thing that happened
we find out that thing didnt happen
this is no cause to doubt the emotional reaction?
What does your silly imaginary scenario have anything to do with anything? How is that remotely relevant?
first we had music/art, then you were like ofc they aren’t all lying about it, that would be absurd. so i brought up prayer as a clear example where it’s boring and people lie about the meaning, and you said they’re not lying even if there is no god. that made no sense, so I needed an even more uncontroversial example.
so i’m all the way down here trying to get you to agree that if someone claims to have an emotional reaction to an experience, and we find out that experience didn’t happen, then we can doubt the emotional response
do you understand the relevance now?
YOU find it boring you moron, that's you, that's not everyone. Jeez.
The example is completely fucking irrelevant. People believe there is a God.
The experience IS the emotion, how hard is that to understand?
if there’s no god, then they don’t experience talking to god
very hard, because it sounds meaningless
To you. But it's pretty much just you. I ask again, what do you think causes emotions? Drugs? God? Can people have emotions at all according to you?
Idk what causes emotions, people have emotional responses to all sorts of things. Of course people can have emotions.
I’m absolutely walking on sunshine because I was elected president of the united states this morning. Do you have any reason to doubt both parts of that sentence?
See if I’m lying about the experience, it casts doubt on the emotional response too.
Why do you keep bringing up irrelevant shit? Do I have to copy paste the same thing again? It doesn't matter if God is literally talking to someone, that is not the experience. The experience is merely an emotional one. It is feeling like you are approaching God, which they believe exists. Just like someone can feel all sorts of ways thinking about someone they love. Obviously you have some issues empathising with people and understanding emotions and that's alright, but maybe you shouldn't assume other people are lying about it? Like, I'm not expecting you to understand this if you can't understand how someone can feel emotion from music, which is, like, one of the most universal emotions humans can have.
Like, people claim to literally talk to God. It’s almost as universal as enjoying music. You’re downplaying it like they claim to just feel good from the act of praying, but that isn’t what they claim. Since this near universal experience isn’t real, why can’t another be fake.
They don't say they sit in a room and have a conversation with him you genius. They're not claiming he talks back or whatever. Jeez this argument is so fucking dumb. I don't know if you are pretending to not understand on purpose. You realize that they believe God does exist and can hear them, right?
I still don't fucking know what even praying has to do with music but anyways...
the hell they don’t
Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot everyone is exactly the same as you and believes exactly the same stuff you do.
No, most people believe in God and claim to talk to him by praying, which involves sitting in a room alone and having God speak to them. Have you really never met a religious person?
...yes? How does that contradict what I said?
Have you really never met any person, in general?
Your description of prayer is much more limited than the way most religious people I know describe it.
It's not limited, you just don't understand what they are telling you. Like, what do you think "talk" means to them? Do you think they claim God comes down and then they drink a nice cup of tea together and chat?
the chat part yes
Lmao look if you're not an alien you're taking the piss, either way this is futile.
ok lemme know if you ever talk to a religious person
Like 90% of people are religious here lmao
okey dokey
Music has an effect on your brain.
https://www.ucf.edu/pegasus/your-brain-on-music/
Much like reading a good book can inspire awe or watching a good episode of the simpsons can give you a solid dopamine hit. Outside stimuli can effect the brain!
everyone sure is bananas
go talk to some religious people
I don’t think you’ve talked to many religious people.
it may seem irrelevant, but the seemingly irrelevant examples illustrate a principle that I want to be accepted so that I can use it elsewhere. the point of the examples is to make it so uncontroversial that you can’t disagree
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This comparison only works if you think they didn't win the lottery, but they think they did. So it makes sense for them to have an emotional reaction because as far as they're aware, they did win!
You are assuming they think they did. If they didn’t win the lottery, this is evidence that they are lying about having won the lottery
People can have mistaken or unproven beliefs, and real reactions based on those beliefs. I would be really excited if I thought I won the lottery. People really believe in God when they pray.
I agree with all of those things.
Would you be excited about winning the lottery if you knowingly didn’t win the lottery? Would you feel awe and wonder at God speaking to you if God didn’t speak to you?
Yes, I can get excited by imagining all of the things I could do with the money from winning the lottery, knowing I haven't won. Yes, I can feel a sense of awe and wonder by putting myself in a reverent spiritual state without hearing a voice or detecting any supernatural change in my physical space.
No, that’s different. That is knowingly imagining these things.
I’m talking about someone who claims to experience these things in reality, but doesn’t.
There's not as hard a line between imagining something and believing it as you're insisting. Wanting something to be true, and thinking they're true bleed into each other. I haven't won the lottery, but I personally have plans for what I would do with that money if I had won. I don't even play lottery? I can also hear voices in the silence, if I'm listening for them. I can concentrate on ambient noise and hear speech, even when I know it's just traffic or wind.
Perception to belief to emotion is not a one-way street. Emotion can affect perception, perception can affect emotion, belief can affect perception.
you might be in a different camp all together
That's not a different camp. I'm not describing an unusual situation here but describing common human behavior as it appears, as people describe it for themselves. You're making an extraordinary claim, that everyone, billions of people, are lying about prayer and music (and the lottery), so you can't generalise your perspective but individualise my perspective when I'm making an ordinary claim. These are normal, typical, everyday things.
Hearing voices is not common.
what I’ve proven is that it’s really not an extraordinary claim that billions of people are lying.
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I think he's taking the piss.
Could be. Could be a depressed teenager who needs to learn empathy and realise not having emotions is not healthy. I remember thinking similar things in my youth.
I have empathy and emotions, I just don’t pretend to be on LSD all the time.
So all the people making and enjoying all the various forms of art for the entire length of human history were just faking it, because you don't get anything out of it?
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Eh, never mind, you're doing a bit.
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Listening to some now! This song makes me feel big and powerful, in a sort of long sweeping cape kind of way, but it's also a critique on masculinity. The next one gives me very mechanical vibes (it's called Conveyer and has a very stuttery rhythm, lyrics seem to be about becoming a cog in the industrial machine), and then it will transition into a short transitionary track that uses the stutter rhythm, as well as samples from Ayesha K. Faines, to talk about Black identity.
lol it’s like talking to a religious person and hearing about how much they love prayer and how much they get out of it
Yep, confirmed bit :)
you don’t even believe that
lol you are doing a bit
nope
"nearly every single human being who has ever lived was schizophrenic or a liar" is not a take i thought i'd see today lmao
fr though, why do you think music and art are such a big part of culture if they don't elicit a genuine emotional response in people?
well it’s kinda trivial to show that much, what with the existence of different religions
As to your question, I can’t do any better than shitty speculation on that. The shitty speculation is that there used to be not much to do, and music is literally better than nothing
if you think religions are the result of mass schizophrenia then i don't think you have any idea what schizophrenia is
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lmfao ok dude
I mean you can read about it if you never heard of this. It’s mentioned in some psych lectures I found on stanford’s youtube
send it to me and then explain how it applies to music at all
just because you don't like music doesn't mean the rest of us don't
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and you're one of the enlightened few who doesn't like music lmao ok
yeah, or at least who admit it
"everyone but me is lying about liking music" truly a rational mind at work
yeah, we know it’s the case with at least some stuff so it shouldn’t seem so absurd with music
i give up man, you win. everyone but you is a schizoaffective liar who is just pretending to like music and art for seemingly no reason
👍
There is a whole range of emotional states between feeling nothing an feeling everything and if your only experience of feeling powerful emotions is through psychaedelics you are probably depressed. If your reaction other people telling you they experience things differently to you is to call them liars or mentally ill you have not properly developed empathy.
I feel powerful emotions without drugs, just not from looking at picture of paint splatters. The experience that artlovers describe sounds like doing LSD.
If your reaction to my non-enjoyment of boring shit is to diagnose a mental illness, you might need to rethink that.
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yes
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Cool maybe you aren't depressed then. You made it sound like you didn't expeience any sense of wonder or awe or love. I'm only speaking from my own experience and understanding as you are. I was depressed and found all art boring. I faced my depression and now find art to be wonderful. I do not think my experiences are universal but they are also not unique. If my advice is not resonating with you I'm sorry I'm only trying to help you as best as I know how.
I experience those things, just not from looking at jesus eating dinner or listening to a guitar go doot doot doot
Well then you aren't connecting with the art. Look for artist that are inspired by the same stuff the makes you feel. I love art of space ships because it makes me feel and imagine what exploring space would be like and instils a sense of wonder in me. I don't expect everyone who looks at pictures of fictional space craft to feel what I feel. Art is is entirely personal.
I did, shit’s boring. That’s why I’m leaving it in 2020.
Okay buddy enjoy that journey I hope it brings you happiness.
hell yeah
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exactly, what about it
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here you go, stare at this like a smart person: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Supper_(Leonardo)#/media/File%3AThe_Last_Supper_-Leonardo_Da_Vinci-_High_Resolution_32x16.jpg
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nope, not into that dumb shit
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nothing patrician about it, that’s something you added
you don’t even believe that
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See what I mean?
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I’ve never written music, but I took piano lessons for a few years. Sung in the choir at mass when I was a kid. It’s interesting in the sense that skills are interesting, but I wasn’t into it. Just too boring.
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Are you sure you don't have some kind of sensory disorder? You're the exception to the rule here.
I need glasses, that’s the only sensory disorder
you wish lol
neither does everyone else? the subjective experience you're describing is defined as anhedonia and it's an atypical and frankly unfun way to experience things, seriously talk to somebody about it
also I'd recommend doing some introspection about why you're averse to the idea of being mentally ill, we're all living through and traumatized by late capitalism, it's perfectly reasonable to be mentally ill in those conditions
lmbo I enjoy fun things, not boring things. It’s a social taboo to point out that art and music are boring, but it’s true.
...or your subjective experience of what is and is not boring doesn't apply universally, and is in fact rather unique?
the thing that's a social taboo is making sweeping generalizations about the validity of the entire rest of the population's experiences just because you don't share them
From my point of view, it is more plausible that nearly everyone who claims to enjoy art is just pretending.
solipsism is broken logic, even in the event that your assertions are true it has no bearing on the practical reality that you exist in a world where other people enjoy art
enjoy your navelgazing I guess, no one will ever agree with you
you don’t have to pretend that paint splatters affect your emotions and life
few people outside of pompous art dweebs will describe art as having "changed their life" and mean it. 98% of the times you'll hear something like that it's the kind of casual hyperbole that comprises a majority of normal communication, like when someone gets back from a music festival and says "man that changed my life!" it's not a literal statement. they don't mean that the course of their life has been forever altered by hearing some bangers performed live, they mean that they had a very fun time and feel enriched by the experience and value the memory of having had said experience.
maybe the disconnect here is that you think people are being hyper-literal when they talk about things, when in fact they're exaggerating for effect.
What? It's not an uncommon thing lol why is it weird to you?
ok great now I'm having to argue the other side of this because I have blundered into a perspective that might be my neurodiversity or just a tendency to downplay my own experiences
so, just so we're on the same page, when people say "man that show changed my life!" how literal is that statement supposed to be and exactly how would that person's life have changed?
I travelled for a show once and I did literally have a life-changing experience - the whole trip was a mountain of firsts for me that was a catalyst in a major perspective shift and breakthrough in my anxiety - and I don't know that I would refer to the music as life-changing. The whole trip, yeah, absolutely, but the music was a small part of a much larger experience.
For many people it is art giving them meaning and comfort during a really dark period in their life, without which many things may have gone much different. For others it is even more literal in that creating art decisively altered their life course and career. The opinions and outlook on life of some others were profoundly affected by books, or movies or some bands or whatever during their formative years. There's all sorts of stuff like that.
I was talking more specifically about people who just got back from some huge music festival where they were on MDMA for three days straight, which has been where I've heard a majority of this kind of verbiage. Like, yeah, you had a tremendously euphoric experience, I dunno that it changed your life though.
But for like, smaller, more personal things, I totally see that. I would describe Of Montreal's Hissing Fauna Are You The Destroyer? as giving meaning during a dark period in the sense you're talking about, or Anamanaguchi's Power Supply in the way that it informed and defined my sense of taste when I was just finding out that good music existed. I guess that's on me for not realizing that either of those counted as life-changing.
Like there's some people who do salvia once and then their entire personality changes because god knows what.
oh for sure, and I'm not meaning to discount truly transformative experiences, my point was just that people tend to speak in hyperbole when describing their emotional reactions ("this is the best/worst thing in the history of ever", "you'd have to be literally X to think/do Y", "GOAT", etc.) and it's not necessarily indicative of the actual intensity of their feeling
Yeah that's fair.
Oh if people who just went to a festival once had their life changed then yeah that's probably a bit of an exaggeration, but idk maybe for some it may have been if drugs were involved.
Welcome to the other side. The cracks begin to show when you talk about music for too long.
augh no just because my subjective experience isn't life-changing (due strongly to anhedonic depression!) and I assume everyone is exaggerating about everything (as a coping mechanism for low grade autism) doesn't mean everyone is lying all the time and nobody finds art and music fun or moving
!neurodiverse recommends using "low need" for this
I'd use "low need" to describe myself as an individual or if I was talking about the disorder as a point of comparison. I'm using "low grade" to describe the degree to which I experience the symptoms of ASD in the same way you'd call a temperature that's only a degree and a half away from baseline a low grade fever.
If it comes across as ableist I'll change it though.
:wow:
I do think people are being literal when they say this. You might be closer to my view than either of us thought.
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most of the meaning found in art or music is meaning the viewer/listener projects onto the work, particularly in very subjective mediums like music, and very little of it is "deep" unless it's your first time experiencing those concepts, this is true. The works that do carry a lot of meaning often rely heavily on invoking symbols or imagery with well-known associations in order to get their message across and it can be pretty poignant even if it's not deep.
that said, these things are pleasurable to simply experience (barring a sensory processing disorder or depression). you appreciate starry night for its use of color and for the craftsmanship that went into making it, not because starry night in particular has anything to say on the human condition. for works of greater realism you can appreciate how well the work invokes its subject - you get a genuine sense of the light or the stillness or the cold or hear the sounds of the water and the wind in the same way that beautiful writing can transport you and excite your senses. I can derive a similar sense of pleasure from looking at or using everyday items which were clearly painstakingly designed to be useful and pleasant.
if you don't experience that, you probably should talk to someone about depression. it's one thing to not project tenuous meaning onto art but I can say from experience anhedonia is just a shitty way to go through life
lmbo I’m not mentally ill just because I don’t pretend to enjoy boring stuff
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degenerate? idk about that. boring, yes
made by schizophrenic people, probably fairly often.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/12031212/Scientists-find-link-between-people-impressed-by-wise-sounding-profound-quotes-and-low-intelligence.html
Schizophrenia is not unnatural, it's actually the norm of human cognition. Neural connections between the lobes go bzzzzzz
You're describing amusia/anesthetia.
I experienced it a few times as aurae for migraines. Neither you nor them are delusional.