Les choses visibles et invisibles

[Akira]

Thanks!  It surely will!

[Frank Fremerey]

I see the composer himself played this. Fascnating.

[Airy]

No, the shot is indeed the composer at his organ, but the CDs have been recorded about 15 years later by a bunch of Messiaen Specialists (Jennifer Bate, Louis Thiry, Thomas Daniel Schlee, Hans-Ola Ericsson, Naji Hakim who was the 'organiste titulaire' by that time, and Jon Gillock).

The organ was then, and since 1985, in a much better condition than Messiaen had ever experienced : the pipes had to suffer during the transformations in the fifties or early sixties (I remember a concert around 1976; the organ sounded as if the pipes had been trimmed for loudness, pipe feet were probably too open). In 1985, the voicing was brought back to good old Cavaillé-Coll manners, certainly closer to what Messiaen had in the thirties, while the numerous additional stops and the enclosed division at the Positif (second manual) were kept. Messiaen also wished a few more stops that were never added. Not really useful, the organ being quite rich and complete.

[Les Olson]

I can see the typographic representation of the square root of -1, but not the thing itself (the signifiant, but not the signifié, as Barthes would say). Can you ?

No, but one could say the same of any number.  No one can see the number 4, only its typographical representation or groups of four things.  The case of i is the same as e and pi: one can only see the typographical representation, not groups of e or pi or i things. 

There are people with number-colour synesthesia who see numbers, but I do not know how they see imaginary numbers - although it is reported that if you show them Roman numerals they do not see them as coloured, so in that case it seems not to be the conceptual number that triggers the colour perception; on the other hand Messiaen had tone-colour synesthesia, and he said that he saw colour not only when he heard music but when he read scores. 

You can visualise a table, but you are only visualising an example, as when you visualise "four" as a group of oranges.  The whole point is that there is no such thing as "the thing itself".  To shift to another signifier that is causing trouble at the moment, can you see the signifie' of "medium format camera"?  Is this what you had in mind?  It used 120 film (620, but it is the same size) and produced the same size negative as a Hasselblad.  You could just as well visualise the signifie' of "medium format camera" more like David Bailey, circa 1962 (the leg is Jean Shrimpton's).  Which signifie' are Fuji and Hasselblad selling?   



 

[Frank Fremerey]

Les, Akira, Armando, John, Airy. Whenever I exchange thought and picture with you I feel there is still hope for our species. Such cultivated deep friendly exchange.

[Akira]

Frank, that is exactly what makes this forum special.

[Frank Fremerey]

I just found something that blows me away, again! :::: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_2OnhEB-8E

[Airy]

Indeed. "Polyphony" in the true sense of the word, nearly dizzying. And what a bass, albeit not russian-style.

[Airy]

You can visualise a table, but you are only visualising an example, as when you visualise "four" as a group of oranges.  The whole point is that there is no such thing as "the thing itself".

"Table" is indeed a slightly fuzzy concept. I got a small foldable round table in my garden, but my rabbit thinks it is some resting place for him see attachment.

On the other hand, the number pi is much less fuzzy a concept which I dare call a real "thing", namely the ratio between circumference and diameter in any euclidian space (i.e. when gravity is low to moderate). To me it is something very real, though immaterial and invisible.

Df, 50/1.8G at f/5.0

[Frank Fremerey]

Poor rabbit is freezing wet

[Frank Fremerey]

And to bring you back to heat, take this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYxjExAefj4

21 pilots

[Airy]

Poor rabbit is freezing wet

Nope. Mild late summer morning, only the table being wet from night rain. Rabbit dwells in loghouse.

[Akira]

I just found something that blows me away, again! :::: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_2OnhEB-8E

I dug out my old CD of Notre Dame music by Machaut recorded in 1988 by Deller Consort.  It is still fascinating, but apparently it is more "arranged": the Triplum voice is enhanced by a double reed instrument.

As with the case of archeology, there have been new discoveries in the world of older music over the years.  So, it would be interesting to look for newer recordings.

[Frank Fremerey]

I dug out my old CD of Notre Dame music by Machaut recorded in 1988 by Deller Consort.  It is still fascinating, but apparently it is more "arranged": the Triplum voice is enhanced by a double reed instrument.
As with the case of archeology, there have been new discoveries in the world of older music over the years.  So, it would be interesting to look for newer recordings.

They sure do it very differently
In my eyes amazingly differently
touchingly

[Les Olson]

"Table" is indeed a slightly fuzzy concept. I got a small foldable round table in my garden, but my rabbit thinks it is some resting place for him see attachment.

On the other hand, the number pi is much less fuzzy a concept which I dare call a real "thing", namely the ratio between circumference and diameter in any euclidian space (i.e. when gravity is low to moderate). To me it is something very real, though immaterial and invisible.

Sure, the concept of pi is precise in a way that the concept of "table" is not, but precision is not always a virtue: the fuzziness of a concept such as "human" is what enables us to see commonality despite difference.

"Very real, though immaterial and invisible" is exactly how spiritual people would describe what they believe in.  The difference between the concept of pi or the concept of i and the concept of Zeus Olympios is not whether those concepts can be visualised, or even whether they describe anything real, but whether they can be used to do useful things - in the case of i, solve problems about AC electrical circuits, eg.   

Philosophers tend to suppose that the reason we want a theory of something - ethics, eg - is to explain why we are right about the things we believe - to answer the question Why is it wrong to steal?  Philosophers are wrong: the reason we want a theory is to tell us things we don't know.  The problem with Ptolemy's theory of planetary motion was not that it did not explain the observations but that it could not tell us how to make new observations.  In the same way, Intelligent Design can explain every observation the Theory of Evolution can explain.  What makes Intelligent Design inferior to the Theory of Evolution is not that Intelligent Design can't, eg, explain anti-microbial resistance - it can - but that it cannot tell us what to do about it, and the Theory of Evolution can.