Hasty generalizations

On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 1:56 AM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > Please ditch the romanticization of tuning list history and science
> > and give me a straightforward explanation of why someone can't learn
> > to navigate around harmonics 32-64, which is a scale that contains 32
> > notes.
>
> No need to fix what ain't broke. You can read the archives
> like anyone else. -Carl

Hi Carl,

My goal with this is simply to demonstrate to the rest of the list
that you don't actually have the logic to support this viewpoint. I am
choosing to do so by showing very clearly that when pressed, you will
not only refuse to elucidate on your reasoning, but you will also
generally refuse to stick your neck out and precisely state what your
position is. It is my hope that by doing so, people might become
demystified about the nature of the sometimes unexpectedly hostile
responses that you throw out when your ideas are questioned, and gain
a better picture of how to interact with you when you behave this way.

I feel it is important to elucidate on this issue because this
attitude is likely the number one impeding factor to progress on this
list. A call for transparency that is met with hostility may throw
newcomers off, as they might assume that points you make are true just
because you can be caustic in your response to skepticism.

You sometimes hastily generalize various facets of psychoacoustics to
music in a way that falsely limits the role of learning in musical
cognition. This is one of those instances, so I'm calling you out on
it. You may want to reconsider if your response on record is to refuse
to back up your point and claim that I'm ignorant about the basics of
psychoacoustics or of regular mapping.

It's now the year 2011, Carl. Commonly held, but technically
unsupported ideas simply have got to go. This may mean that some of
your ideas have got to go.

In the spirit of inquiry,
Mike

MikeB>"It's now the year 2011, Carl. Commonly held, but technically unsupported ideas simply have got to go. This may mean that some of your ideas have got to go."

   I believe this is a huge problem with the list in general.  There are many ideas in tuning history that have been shown grossly invalid in certain scenarios...and a few people who make it an all-or-nothing game of "this theory is relevant in all possible situations...or no possible situations".  Even viewing something physiological like psychoacoustics as a "one size fits all" has it's downfall as people individually, to an extent, decide how much "noise" they are willing to take and have different hearing abilities (just like some people need strong glasses for vision and others don't).

>"A call for transparency that is met with hostility may throw newcomers off, as they might assume that points you make are true just because you can be caustic in your response to skepticism."

   I've also noticed a "humility" double standard IE being asked to "never express any of ones own theories as absolute truths" and, in the meantime, had people like Carl turn the other way and say "but MY supported theory, as being a well-held belief in the past, IS the truth...and thus yours must be useless!".  I've also noticed that while newcomers express dissatisfaction, people in the know (who also realize how close-minded and fixed some people expressing caustic opinions are) simply give up and leave the list.  It's not that they aren't frustrated...but that they've given up on getting through to the self-proclaimed experts...particularly those experts who have been on this list for an incredibly long time.  Being an expert on history of microtonality, though useful in its own right, does not mean automatically realizing all the possibilities of music in the present or giving one the right to rat on those "new" researchers honestly trying to
do that.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> I am choosing to do so by showing very clearly that when pressed,
> you will not only refuse to elucidate on your reasoning, but you
> will also generally refuse to stick your neck out and precisely
> state what your position is.

What is the point of this conversation?

> It is my hope that by doing so, people might become
> demystified about the nature of the sometimes unexpectedly hostile
> responses that you throw out when your ideas are questioned,

You're the one with the obvious need to one-up me.
It's OK Mike, I respect you.

> I feel it is important to elucidate on this issue because this
> attitude is likely the number one impeding factor to progress
> on this list.

I think it's more of a personal issue you have with me.

> You may want to reconsider if your response on record is to
> refuse to back up your point and claim that I'm ignorant
> about the basics of psychoacoustics or of regular mapping.

I've made no such claim. I don't even know what your
position is on this matter. I don't think you've stated it.

-Carl

On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 3:26 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > I am choosing to do so by showing very clearly that when pressed,
> > you will not only refuse to elucidate on your reasoning, but you
> > will also generally refuse to stick your neck out and precisely
> > state what your position is.
>
> What is the point of this conversation?

Some of your ideas may not be entirely logical, and I want to open a
dialogue on them. It's a necessary part of discussion to really
consider whether or not they're holistically consistent, even if you
should unfortunately choose to be increasingly hostile when they're
questioned. I suspected that your reasoning for dismissing Igs'
desired paradigm would be rooted in one of these viewpoints, so I
wanted to press further to hear why you were claiming that it was
impossible to learn to navigate around through harmonics 32-64.

In this case, you've made a claim that something is impossible, but
you won't say why. It could be that you have a very nuanced
perspective on the matter that I do agree with, or even that you know
something that I don't, but I won't know unless you state what your
position is. You have instead chosen to respond with a dismissive
remark about how your position is already proven, that everyone on the
tuning list knows it's true, that you don't need to defend your idea
from criticism, and that you won't just state why you think what you
think. I've noticed several times over that this is not a feature of
my conversation with anyone else on the list, particularly not with
Paul, where our discussions tend to involve more discussion of actual
ideas.

Being as you're refusing to open the dialogue, being that this is a
consistent tactic that you use in debate, and being that for anyone
else this would all be a reasonably straightforward discussion
(consider my ongoing discussion with Kalle as a role model), my only
option is simply to point out that you've played every card except to
actually pick a falsifiable side. I'll leave other people to make
their own decisions on what that means about the idea we're
discussing.

> > It is my hope that by doing so, people might become
> > demystified about the nature of the sometimes unexpectedly hostile
> > responses that you throw out when your ideas are questioned,
>
> You're the one with the obvious need to one-up me.
> It's OK Mike, I respect you.
//
> I think it's more of a personal issue you have with me.

No way! I'd love for this to be a much more straightforward, direct,
civil, and happy conversation. I simply would like you to elucidate on
why someone can't learn to understand harmonics 32-64, and as you
won't do that, I'm pointing out that you won't. Don't take it
personally, Carl, I think you're a cool guy! I'm just trying to ensure
that we all keep a consistent frame of reference, and admit what we do
know vs. what we don't. As for one-upping you, the only person I
actually want to "one-up" is Paul, where "one-upping" means improving
on and extending his ideas.

-Mike

MikeB in response to Carl>"I wanted to press further to hear why you were claiming that it was impossible to learn to navigate around through harmonics 32-64."

Here are some ones at or near that range that I believe ARE learn-able (by ear)

50/33
23/12
34/33
27/20

   The feeling I get though, is that, in general, the accuracy needed to digest such harmonics is just too high to matter to all but those with the most accurate hearing.  If I take something like 33/25, many if not most people would simply hear it as a 4/3 for almost all practical purposes of musical mood, perhaps due to tonal attraction via Harmonic Entropy. 

Many of these higher harmonics may well come across more as "textural changes" (if anything) than actual note
changes.

    On the flip-side, one could take it as an opportunity to find the few exceptions to this norm and figure out why they happen...

--- Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

>>> I am choosing to do so by showing very clearly that when
>>> pressed, you will not only refuse to elucidate on your
>>> reasoning, but you will also generally refuse to stick your
>>> neck out and precisely state what your position is.
>>
>> What is the point of this conversation?
>
> Some of your ideas may not be entirely logical, and I want
> to open a dialogue on them.

Well then, do so! Why bother with sniveling provocations?

> In this case, you've made a claim that something
> is impossible

I didn't.

> Being as you're refusing to open the dialogue, being that
> this is a consistent tactic that you use in debate,

With whom have I refused dialog? Until recently I responded
to anything with a pulse on this list, to the best of my
ability. The cause of the problem you're blaming on me is
your tendency to indulge in long, wandering and often
insulting diatribes while being mortally allergic to
admitting your mistakes. Take the last thread about
periodicity buzz, which you ending with a provocation that
the numerous peripheral and false statements about physics
and signal processing you made were somehow correct.

> I simply would like you to elucidate on
> why someone can't learn to understand harmonics 32-64,

I never said this. I gathered from your rabid frothing
about my 'failure to understanding learning' (despite that
I've always been careful to stress its importance in
discussions of psychoacoustics) that this may be what you
thought I said.

For your convenience, here is what I did say:

>> ...analyzes each EDO in terms of harmonics 32-64 and
>> "bans" any approximations worse than 8 cents off.
>
> A lot of stuff up there simply isn't audible outside
> of very specific listening conditions.
>
> Abstract models (such as analyzing an equal temperament
> in terms of a harmonic series) should aid us in reaching
> consistent conclusions about reality. Using harmonics
> 32-64 with a brick wall 8-cent error cutoff won't do that.
>
>> I disagree. The "reality" is that harmonics 32-64 each
>> have a sound (or at least a texture) that people can
>> and have learned to recognize.
>
> Who? Is there any reason to believe such a statement?
> I don't think so...
>
>> If those methods lead to good music (as they seem to do,
>> in the case of Kraig Grady and Johnny Reinhard and
>> Dante Rosati, among others), then the real fool is the
>> person who insists against the use of such approaches.
>
> I haven't heard any of them claim to be able to recognize
> every harmonic up to 64 or that such a skill has been
> useful in music-making. Other outlandish claims have been
> made though (such as the ability to distinguish and perform
> at will on a variety of instruments any interval with
> 1-cent accuracy).

-Carl

On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 4:31 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
> > Some of your ideas may not be entirely logical, and I want
> > to open a dialogue on them.
>
> Well then, do so! Why bother with sniveling provocations?

Again, you can be as hostile as you want! Please keep in mind that I
generally don't respond with neither sniveling nor provocations unless
I'm talking to someone who's being unnecessarily aggressive, the prime
candidate of whom in this thread and many similar others has been you.
Perhaps you don't realize this?

> > In this case, you've made a claim that something
> > is impossible
>
> I didn't.
//snip
> > I simply would like you to elucidate on
> > why someone can't learn to understand harmonics 32-64,
>
> I never said this. I gathered from your rabid frothing
> about my 'failure to understanding learning' (despite that
> I've always been careful to stress its importance in
> discussions of psychoacoustics) that this may be what you
> thought I said.
>
> For your convenience, here is what I did say:
//snip

Yes, that is what you said, and that's what I am pressing you to
clarify. A few posts into it you said this:

On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 1:56 AM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > Please ditch the romanticization of tuning list history and science
> > and give me a straightforward explanation of why someone can't learn
> > to navigate around harmonics 32-64, which is a scale that contains 32
> > notes.
>
> No need to fix what ain't broke. You can read the archives
> like anyone else. -Carl

Seems like you're saying that the archives will reveal why it's
impossible to learn to navigate around harmonics 32-64 here, whereas
above in this thread you're saying you never said that. So what are
you saying?

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> Seems like you're saying that the archives will reveal why it's
> impossible to learn to navigate around harmonics 32-64 here, whereas
> above in this thread you're saying you never said that. So what are
> you saying?

Maybe you and Carl could agree to an approach where you make a precise claim and he gives a precisely worded reply. To claim you can "navigate around harmonics 32-64" is too vague. What does it mean, exactly?

On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 3:00 AM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > Seems like you're saying that the archives will reveal why it's
> > impossible to learn to navigate around harmonics 32-64 here, whereas
> > above in this thread you're saying you never said that. So what are
> > you saying?
>
> Maybe you and Carl could agree to an approach where you make a precise claim and he gives a precisely worded reply. To claim you can "navigate around harmonics 32-64" is too vague. What does it mean, exactly?

You have it backwards, Carl's making the claim and I'm the one who'd
like to write a precisely worded reply to it. But just to stop us from
going in circles, sure - I'll pre-emptively respond to all of the
things that I thought that Carl was going to say. This is going to be
longer than if he'd just say why he's claiming what he's claiming, but
since you're asking, I'll do it anyway.

Igs said that he wanted to learn to see everything in terms of fitting
into the harmonic series from harmonics 32-64. He said that this is a
paradigm that people have found useful, and that to those people each
harmonic has "its own sound." Since we all know that categorical
perception exists, and 6:7:9 in superpyth aeolian and 10:12:15 in
meantone aeolian seem to share "a sound," we know that part of the
perception of a "sound" stems from categorical perception. My specific
claim is the same as Igs' specific claim, that someone can learn to
take harmonics and reframe them as being a part of harmonics 32-64,
which quite aside from any issue having to do with harmonic entropy,
actually means developing a categorical perception for harmonics 32-64
as a scale, learning to fit dyads into your new "harmonic series
perception" as you can learn to fit something into a "diatonic scale"
perception, and simply developing a unique gestalt for each harmonic
as we seem to have a unique gestalt for a "minor third" that is shared
on some level by both 7/6 and 6/5 (in the right circumstances).

This is, I believe, the correct interpretation of Igs claim, if you
really think it through, despite that it may appear "numerological" on
the surface.

Carl first claimed that to learn to hear each harmonic as having "its
own sound" was impossible, an extraordinary claim requiring
extraordinary evidence, etc. Further than just stating skepticism on
the matter, he dismissed its possibility a priori, but I would have
even questioned his skepticism. He initially because he seemed to
think that Igs was talking about differentiating between all dyads up
to the 64-odd-limit or something similar. After we cleared up that Igs
was only talking about taking existing dyads and reframing them as
"rooted" harmonics, he still claimed it was impossible. I wasn't sure
where Carl was coming from, but thought he might be thinking about
dyadic harmonic entropy, the reasoning for which will fail on multiple
levels, or perhaps about Rothenberg propriety, the reasoning for which
will still fail. I asked him for his reasoning and I still want to
know what it is.

So yes, I would love to agree with such a policy with Carl! Let's
agree to it right now, and hey, here's a big message to the list: If I
ever say something and any of you don't know what I mean, please ask
what I mean, and I'll explain it to you, even if you shoot my position
down and call me stupid and throw rocks at me afterwards, like here:
/tuning/topicId_98428.html#98539. Now that
I'm pre-emptively giving some of my counter-reasoning to what I guess
Carl's reasoning will be, can I please hear what the actual reasoning
is, as well as specifically what the claim is?

-Mike

On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 3:47 AM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> This is, I believe, the correct interpretation of Igs claim, if you
> really think it through, despite that it may appear "numerological" on
> the surface.

Also, the time has come to reveal why I'm not letting this go.

We now have an influx of noobs coming on XA, all of whom are buying
instruments and making music, and some of which are in high school.
They are getting two distinct voices in their ears: the "science"
voice, and the "art" voice. If we want the "science" voice to win, we
need to not hastily dismiss things as numerology when other facets of
music cognition may make things like this possible, because they will
quickly discover that such hasty dismissals can be falsifed. To do so
will drive artists off the list, whom have learned what's possible
simply by trial and error. Once we STOP doing this, the science voice
and the art voice will become the same thing, with artists actually
coming BACK to the tuning list and there being more consensus between
the science and art people. That's my goal.

It's taken me about a month or two of owning an AXiS to clue me into
that this is what we should all strive to do. For example, it's been
quite a shock for me to realize that most of the people on this list
who have been "turned off" from science because of Harmonic Entropy
would probably get turned right back onto it after hearing Paul's
actual stated interpretation of the model.

-Mike

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> So yes, I would love to agree with such a policy with Carl! Let's
> agree to it right now, and hey, here's a big message to the list: If I
> ever say something and any of you don't know what I mean, please ask
> what I mean...

So are you saying that with a good ear and some training, a person could learn to distinguish and name every dyad of the form N/32 for N ranging from 33 to 64?

On Jun 19, 2011, at 2:07 PM, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...>
wrote:

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> So yes, I would love to agree with such a policy with Carl! Let's
> agree to it right now, and hey, here's a big message to the list: If I
> ever say something and any of you don't know what I mean, please ask
> what I mean...

So are you saying that with a good ear and some training, a person could
learn to distinguish and name every dyad of the form N/32 for N ranging from
33 to 64?

That's a good question, although I would contest that such ability for bare
dyads wouldn't be necessary to set the proper categorical perception in
place. But to address your question directly -

Intervallic identification should get harder as the intervals get closer
together, right? So the two closest intervals in this set are the octave,
and 27 cents flat of an octave. I think every person on this list can
recognize when an octave is 27 cents flat, and I think with training most
will be able to distinguish between one that's 27 cents flat and one that's
54 cents flat. You yourself heard the 13-limit harmony from 17-equal as
being noticeably off from just, so I assume you'd be able to work out /64 as
well. So my final answer is yes, I think it's possible. In fact, I'm 99%
sure I can get every dyad in 36-equal, so my answer is emphatically yes. I bet
I could do /64 personally with some training. All of this assumes you aren't
using a sine wave for a timbre or some such thing.

My real point, though, is that my friend Sean confuses a perfect fifth and
an octave fairly often. He hears the fifth as consonant and goes "octave."
However, if you sing him a melody, he can generally sing it back. Musical
context can activate ones categorical perception in a way that playing a
bare dyad can't. And in this scale, there are low complexity ratios
interspersed everywhere that you can use to find your way around, with
higher complexity ones predictably interspersed between them. Given a
fragment of context, I think almost anyone on the planet could get/64. Final
answer.

-Mike

MikeB>"So the two closest intervals in this set are the octave, and 27 cents flat of an octave. I think every person on this list can recognize when an octave is 27 cents flat, and I think with training most will be able to distinguish between one that's 27 cents flat and one that's 54 cents flat."

   True, then again my hunch is...this sounds to my ears as much due to the huge difference is consonance between something like 1173 cents and the 1200 cent octave...because it's along a steep curve (far as Harmonic Entropy) peaking, far as dissonance, at somewhere not far from 1144 cents. This is one of those cases where Harmonic Entropy really does mostly seem to coincide with what I actually hear (IE one regarding a steep curve around a very non-complex ratio AKA the octave).

Put a 27 cents difference at around 1088 cents, for example, and you'll likely have even few people on this list able to tell the difference.
>-----------------------------------------------
So my hunch is...yes, ability to distinguish resolution of a 64th harmonic or so IS possible...but only with certain intervals.

Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> Again, you can be as hostile as you want! Please keep in mind
> that I generally don't respond with neither sniveling nor
> provocations unless I'm talking to someone who's being
> unnecessarily aggressive, the prime candidate of whom in this
> thread and many similar others has been you.
> Perhaps you don't realize this?

You escalated in this thread, as the archives clearly show.
I replied to Igs, and you replied to me and escalated from
there, bitterly taunting me. Since this isn't the first time
it's happened, I can only conclude you have a personal issue
with me.

> Seems like you're saying that the archives will reveal why
> it's impossible to learn to navigate around harmonics 32-64
> here, whereas above in this thread you're saying you never
> said that. So what are you saying?

I replied to Igs. If you didn't understand what I was saying
you could have asked. You might also try more specific
questions. As it is you seem to be asking me to repeat what
I've already written, and hope that somehow it won't lead to
another misunderstanding and outburst from you.

> You have it backwards, Carl's making the claim and I'm the
> one who'd like to write a precisely worded reply to it.

You imagined a claim, and then started yelling at me
about it.

> I'll pre-emptively respond to all of the
> things that I thought that Carl was going to say.

I can't say I'm inclined to read anything so prefaced.

> We now have an influx of noobs coming on XA, all of whom are
> buying instruments and making music, and some of which are
> in high school. They are getting two distinct voices in their
> ears: the "science" voice, and the "art" voice. If we want
> the "science" voice to win, we need to not hastily dismiss
> things as numerology when other facets of music cognition
> may make things like this possible,

This sounds like a grandiose calling to me. I don't want
"science" to win over art! But I won't hesitate to speak
out about numerology, whether it appears in music theory,
financial advice, or anywhere else.

> I write longer replies because the discussions that we're
> having are usually too complicated to explain things briefly.
> This is doubly true when my job is to explain complicated
> mathematical concepts to an audience that doesn't have a
> similar background. Your insistence on keeping every message
> very short makes effective communication impossible. Your
> repeated assertions about not assuming that people know
> things, needing to explain everything rigorously and
> thoroughly as though you were a homeless guy with no
> knowledge of the subject, and still keeping messages short -
> are completely self-inconsistent.

Mike, it sounds like you have a very deep personal issue
with me that you want to make public. Like anyone else,
I do the best I can to write so my audience understands,
and to use the time I have to contribute something that's
hopefully of value to someone. I don't "insist" on making
posts short - I've posted several lengthy things here
recently.

> In contrast, and in opposition to your claim that I'm prone
> to writing "insulting diatribes," here's an example of a
> series of posts that illustrates a typical conversation
> between us:
> /tuning/topicId_98428.html#98509
> /tuning/topicId_98428.html#98520
> /tuning/topicId_98428.html#98522
> /tuning/topicId_98428.html#98522

It doesn't seem that bad. The last link is a dupe.
You can see in the 2nd message I'm desperately trying
to avoid an argument with statements like

"(though I haven't explicitly tried to model
functionality either)."
"I don't have an opinion whether funtionality may be
achieved in other modes."
"It may be justified or not, I don't know. Just
pointing it out."

To this, you replied with

"LOL, whatever. I'll just leave it at a polite encouragement
to make your own examples and improve on my initial effort. :)"

even though I didn't mention your examples, but rather
was espousing the virtues of - gasp - learning.

> you write this:
> /tuning/topicId_98428.html#98539

Yes, you do do it a lot. I admit this was a rude statement,
but it was after a lot of harsh treatment from you which you
haven't linked to here.

> Please, go right ahead, point out a single signal processing
> statement I've made in that thread that was false - please!
> Post a single one.

Sorry, I don't respond to sick taunts.

> What actually happened is that the thread ended with you
> asserting an unfalsifiable theory about periodicity buzz
> resulting from an undefined property called "spikiness,"

Yes, I freely admit(ed) both were undefined.

> and me offering to spend MY OWN FREE TIME devising listening
> examples to help you test it once you figure it out.

I think you should spend your free time making falsifiable
predictions with your own model first. You know, the one
you claimed "definitely settled" the issue.

> As it stands, the cochlear model is the only one that
> accurately predicts the behavior of this phenomenon,

You must be confused about constitutes an accurate prediction.

> and not only do you have yet to produce anything, but you
> still haven't come up with a cogent argument against
> anything I've done

How could I come up with an argument against it? I spent
the whole thread trying to figure out what it was. Still
don't know.

-Carl

On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 7:41 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> You escalated in this thread, as the archives clearly show.
> I replied to Igs, and you replied to me and escalated from
> there, bitterly taunting me. Since this isn't the first time
> it's happened, I can only conclude you have a personal issue
> with me.

This thread escalated right here:

/tuning/topicId_99859.html#99950

Carl, if your actual perception of things is that you're a universally
nice, polite guy in our discussions and that you never provoke
anything, and that I'm just a rude, ignorant asshole who loves to ride
your ass no reason, then we simply do not live in the same reality.
Are you saying that this is your honest perception of our past
interactions?

> > Seems like you're saying that the archives will reveal why
> > it's impossible to learn to navigate around harmonics 32-64
> > here, whereas above in this thread you're saying you never
> > said that. So what are you saying?
>
> I replied to Igs. If you didn't understand what I was saying
> you could have asked. You might also try more specific
> questions.

Your criticism that I didn't ask you to clarify what you're saying is
incomprehensible to me given the circumstances of this discussion. My
specific question was and still is to know why you are referring to
Igs claim as being something "extraordinary requiring extraordinary
evidence," and what specific parts of it are extraordinary.

> Mike, it sounds like you have a very deep personal issue
> with me that you want to make public.

Your claim that I escalate things without warning because I simply
dislike you is untrue. My "personal issue" with you is your hostility.

> I don't "insist" on making
> posts short - I've posted several lengthy things here
> recently.

You have insisted on me keeping my posts short in every major
discussion that we've had to the list since I've joined it, including
your reply immediately before this one.

> > In contrast, and in opposition to your claim that I'm prone
> > to writing "insulting diatribes," here's an example of a
> > series of posts that illustrates a typical conversation
> > between us:
> > /tuning/topicId_98428.html#98509
> > /tuning/topicId_98428.html#98520
> > /tuning/topicId_98428.html#98522
> > /tuning/topicId_98428.html#98522
>
> It doesn't seem that bad. The last link is a dupe.

You're right, it is a dupe. Here's what I should have posted as the
last message, the next reply in the thread:

/tuning/topicId_98428.html#98532

> You can see in the 2nd message I'm desperately trying
> to avoid an argument with statements like
>
> "(though I haven't explicitly tried to model
> functionality either)."
> "I don't have an opinion whether funtionality may be
> achieved in other modes."
> "It may be justified or not, I don't know. Just
> pointing it out."
>
> To this, you replied with
>
> "LOL, whatever. I'll just leave it at a polite encouragement
> to make your own examples and improve on my initial effort. :)"

That is out of context. What I actually responded to is right there in the link:

> > And while I'm at it, I find the idea that somebody here is gonna listen to a
> > progression in an afternoon and decide it's good for functional music or not
> > pretty laughable.
>
> LOL, whatever. I'll just leave it at a polite encouragement to make
> your own examples and improve on my initial effort. :)

That was presumably your response to this:

/tuning/topicId_98428.html#98505

This is a relatively polite response to someone who's laughing at me,
don't you think? I said "LOL whatever" to your dismissal of my idea as
"laughable," and politely encouraged you to post some examples of your
ideas. That was my attempt to get us out of the usual tit for tat
bullshit that we engage in, and have us perhaps instead one-up one
another by coming up with better and better musical examples, for the
benefit of the community.

> > you write this:
> > /tuning/topicId_98428.html#98539
>
> Yes, you do do it a lot.

Your own paradigm is not solid enough to authoritatively make such claims.

> I admit this was a rude statement,
> but it was after a lot of harsh treatment from you which you
> haven't linked to here.

I have never randomly given you harsh treatment without provocation.
For example, here's the periodicity buzz thread that you keep citing
as an exemplary thread of my crappy behavior:

/tuning/topicId_98115.html#98159 - I claim
the matter's been concluded but invite you to "apply logic liberally"
/tuning/topicId_98115.html#98160 - You claim
I was "posting in a vacuum," which is incredibly insulting considering
how much time I spent on it, and considering how many people I
interacted with. You claim I posted no examples demonstrating the
linear spacing example, which is kind of like me claiming that you
didn't post anything in the entire month of March. I become extremely
irritated.
/tuning/topicId_98115.html#98161 - I respond
with what I think is a very honest and polite assertion that it is a
pet peeve of mine when people criticize my work without knowing it,
and that I'd be happy to hear your criticism once you read the thread,
as well as a timeline of what happened. I have a feeling that you're
looking for a fight and will respond with some excessively rude
remark.
/tuning/topicId_98115.html#98163 - You deliver.

Carl, it took me something like 6-7 times of reposting the listening
examples in the same thread before you actually listened to them.

I watched in that thread as you told me that "nothing has an infinite
frequency response in real life," used ERB approximations to prove the
inaccuracy of the gammatone filterbank, and claimed that sampling
doesn't cause periodicity of the auditory spectrum. You proceeded to
say all of the above statements with an apparently straight face, back
them up with a smug assertions about how I need to study basic
physics, and pepper every statement with some rude point about how I
don't know what I'm talking about, yet every single one of those
statements is wrong. I tried to explain to you why - at one point I
even cited a paper on roughness for the ERB part - and you said "it is
wrong" with no reasoning whatsoever. I learned something from this
experience.

My approach has always been to attempt to teach what I do know to you
when you seem to not know about a subject that I'm more knowledgeable
on. This has universally met with failure, perhaps because you are
unwilling to accept that I, presumably by virtue of being newer to the
community than you, know more about this particular subject than you
do, and have something to teach you. I can't imagine why you'd refuse
to listen to my audio examples like you did in the above thread
otherwise.

-Mike

Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:

> This thread escalated right here:
> /tuning/topicId_99859.html#99950

"For reasons already stated" is an escalation?

> Carl, if your actual perception of things is that you're a
> universally nice, polite guy in our discussions

I didn't say that, and in fact I admitted to being rude
in at least one case.

> You're right, it is a dupe. Here's what I should have posted as the
> last message, the next reply in the thread:
>
> /tuning/topicId_98428.html#98532

Again, a response to hostility from you, which you
haven't linked to here.

> Carl, it took me something like 6-7 times of reposting the
> listening examples in the same thread before you actually
> listened to them.

Completely untrue.

> I watched in that thread as you told me that "nothing has an
> infinite frequency response in real life,"

Which is true.

> used ERB approximations to prove the inaccuracy of the
> gammatone filterbank,
> and claimed that sampling
> doesn't cause periodicity of the auditory spectrum.

I have no idea what either of these statements refer to.

-Carl

On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 1:32 PM, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...> wrote:
>
> > This thread escalated right here:
> > /tuning/topicId_99859.html#99950
>
> "For reasons already stated" is an escalation?

It is a rude and characteristically rude statement. If it were
apparent to me what you were saying when you wrote the original email,
I wouldn't be asking you to clarify. When someone asks you to explain
why you're saying what you're saying, and you reply with something
like "I already wrote why and I'm not going to write it again," it is
rude and unnecessary. This was also a false statement, as you recently
drafted up a 10-paragraph post clarifying your reasoning.

> > Carl, if your actual perception of things is that you're a
> > universally nice, polite guy in our discussions
>
> I didn't say that, and in fact I admitted to being rude
> in at least one case.

If your perception of things is that you start discussions off being a
nice, polite fellow, and that I or others suddenly escalate things out
of nowhere with no provocation because we simply have a personal
problem with you, then I don't know what to say.

> > You're right, it is a dupe. Here's what I should have posted as the
> > last message, the next reply in the thread:
> >
> > /tuning/topicId_98428.html#98532
>
> Again, a response to hostility from you, which you
> haven't linked to here.

This is the full sequence of replies:

/tuning/topicId_98428.html#98509
/tuning/topicId_98428.html#98520
/tuning/topicId_98428.html#98522
/tuning/topicId_98428.html#98532

Your assertion that you said that in response to hostility from me is
false. I asked you how we'd switched sides on an issue, you said my
idea was "laughable," I said "lol whatever" and politely encouraged
you to try and one-up me with some listening examples, and then you
posted that. This is a consistent theme in our conversations.

Your assertion that your rudeness stems from my posts being too long
or too "rambling" is unacceptable, and your assertion that I you
desperately try to avoid arguments but that you are provoked into an
aggressive discussion is not supported by anything you have posted. I
have cited several other examples of this behavior in the current
thread, and you have declined to comment on them beyond the above
assertions. This suggests that you perhaps don't see the issue as a
problem worth addressing. If this is just how you are, and you enjoy
being rude from time to time, then my approach will simply be to
continue the logical discussion and point out whether your unwarranted
animosity was accompanied by an actual logical statement or not, so
that those reading can make their own decisions.

> > Carl, it took me something like 6-7 times of reposting the
> > listening examples in the same thread before you actually
> > listened to them.
>
> Completely untrue.

Anyone can read the thread and see exactly what happened. You called
the examples a "cryptic quiz" and refused to describe how they sounded
to you. And if anyone who checks is clever enough to check between
threads, they can also see how suddenly, without warning, you
responded in the actual example thread, saying "that's more like it."
I will not post any more links to posts given your penchant for not
addressing my concerns when you can't deny the behavior being
attributed to you.

> > I watched in that thread as you told me that "nothing has an
> > infinite frequency response in real life,"
>
> Which is true.

And what was your reasoning for this again? Quantum mechanics samples
space, thus adding quantization error to the transduction of any
signal?

> > used ERB approximations to prove the inaccuracy of the
> > gammatone filterbank,
> > and claimed that sampling
> > doesn't cause periodicity of the auditory spectrum.
>
> I have no idea what either of these statements refer to.

What do you mean you don't understand what they refer to? Do you mean
that you don't understand what they mean? What do you mean by "refer
to?"

-Mike