Re: [AUDITORY] CfP - Inaugural Issue of the Journal of Creative Music Systems

Dear Kevin,

Thanks for the reply. I decided not to send this communication to the list. It was copied to the list via Valerio's reply (my fault). I agree that there a tone of intolerance displayed by my communication for which I have already apologized to Valerio. Yes, Nerve. Apologies to the list – and to the internet(s) for accidental exposure to my impolite exchange. Valerio and I shook digital hands and I think we're OK.

For those not familiar with Kurzweil's pseudo-religious Ideas I suggest watching the film "The Singularity". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2073120/

They are self-admittedly religious. In the film there he says something like (paraphrase) "People ask me if there is a God, my reply to them is that there will be." He believes that what he refers to as "the singularity" is God, and that it will offer eternal life.

Kurzweillian language (and there are others that preceded him ) has penetrated more deeply into the field of engineering than we admit. For example, even "machine learning" or "machine listening" are terms that have become quite common. To my knowledge we do not understand what learning is and although the brain operates using pattern recognition there many more factors than pattern recognition involved. Many of these factors are "multimodal" "embodied" and "ecological" (to use terms from Gibson – one of Dr. Bregman's influences). We should refer to these processes as "machine-simulated learning" and "machine-simulated listening".

I don't believe autonomous composition or algorithmic composition itself to be propaganda. Propaganda is the notion, rather, that the computers are doing the composing, that the computers themselves are creative, that we have realized artificial intelligence. In fact, there is not a clear agreement on what intelligence is. That is –as far as I know- the scientific description of reality.

The reality is that composers are human, that music is a social practice. Composers eat, speak, make love, have being. Computers are not [yet?] capable of this.

Sincerely,

-Kent

From: Kevin Austin <kevin.austin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tuesday, 12 January, 2016 1:26 PM
To: Leslie Smith <l.s.smith@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Kent Walker <kent.walker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: AUDITORY Auditory Perception <AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: CfP - Inaugural Issue of the Journal of Creative Music Systems

Dear Kent

What can I say, after you’ve said all of that?

For me you certainly express an ‘interesting’ view of the world, one I have heard, and lived through for five decades. I accept what you say as having validity within the model of reality you propose; one in which there is “a” truth, in which things not agreed with are ‘heretical’ [aka pseudo-religious beliefs]; an accusation that an idea [that you appear not to approve of] is religious propaganda.

Where is the [no one expects a] Spanish Inquisitionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spanish_Inquisition_(Monty_Python) when we really need to sort the wheat from the chaff?

To quote Tom Stoppard from Travesties, “Bloody nerve!"

Kevin