Re: MAgic 101: soft vs hard media

[larry@cs.com (Larry Spence)]

In article <m0nd4k4-0004KPC@chinet.chi.il.us> jorn@chinet.chi.il.us (Jorn Barger) writes:
>
>I think our society, today, is one big *trauma*, and a good part of the 
>reason is that we've all been intimidated into disbelieving our hearts, 
>on the grounds that any notion of 'sprituality' is outmoded sentimental 
>superstition.

Personally, I like to blame Reagan/Bush, television, and laziness. %)  Hey,
I live in the heart of the Bible Belt, and plenty of people around here will 
tell you they're "spritual," yet we have a lot of poverty and intolerance.  
So I don't think that a widespread belief in the supernatural is necessarily 
going to fix anything.

>So lemme throw down a materialist absurdity, here:

Hmm, it's not the 1st yet... ok.

> [stuff about communing with oxides of iron deleted]

>I think what's wrong with CDs as a recording medium is that, being 
>digital, they're unable to *absorb any imprint* from you and your 
>feelings as you listen to the songs recorded on them, the 'emotional 
>scent' of the life you felt yourself living at that time.

Certainly the defects on your personal copy of the media are psychological
cues for the stuff that was happening to you.  But what evidence is there
that you are causing any permanent change in the media?  Why would you think
this, as opposed to simply "those sounds help remind me of <...>" ?  

>So when you 
>listen *now* to old analog media-- vinyl or tape-- you feel something of 
>that time, something particular to *that piece* of vinyl or plastic that 
>*you* vibed with then, much more sensually than you'll ever feel again in 
>these CD-times, listening back a decade or two from now.

For me at least, the fact that the CD will (very likely) produce the exact
same sounds as it did 10 years before will _increase_ the sense of deja vu.
Whereas the tape may sound duller and not as exciting (and in 10 years time
our ears will lose a few kHz off the top, so we'll probably need every dB of 
treble %).

>And some day *quantum mechanics* may be able to put a formula to this, 

I think Psychology 101 already has it covered.

>because it could be a simple case of the observer effect: the physicist's 
>perceptions contribute a flavor to the particle-waves in the physicist's 
>measurements, 

What happens if several people are listening to a single copy of a brand-new
tape (assume they're unable to see each others' responses)?  If they have con-
flicting responses (e.g., to a tape of _TSW_), what is the imprint on the tape?
Do the individual emotional imprints get multiplexed onto the one tape?  How
many channels of emotional information can a single tape hold?  Can you detect
whether the prerecorded tape you bought was a re-shrinkwrap returned by someone
who played it once and really hated it? %) 

>(A simple solution: buy CDs but copy them onto analog tape, which makes
>a convenient opportunity to design a compilation-mix of your faves...)

You work for Maxell, don't you? %)

-- 
Larry Spence
larry@cs.com
uunet!csccat!larry