Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!nntp.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: John Ames Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: Back To CS Basics. Fuck AI Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2026 10:54:04 -0700 Organization: A place where nothing fits quite right Lines: 50 Message-ID: <20261020105404.000027e5@gmail.com> References: <18dee4b6cab427fa$865$2574533$802601b3@news.usenetexpress.com> <87ik32455m.fsf@solcaium.us> <11asf08$31lan$1@dont-email.me> <11asopt$33n8m$8@dont-email.me> <11asq8f$31lan$6@dont-email.me> <11astpf$33n8m$23@dont-email.me> <11at0ld$31lan$13@dont-email.me> <11at39s$33n8m$36@dont-email.me> <11at4hq$31lan$18@dont-email.me> <11atave$3bqcl$1@dont-email.me> <11atdrd$31lan$25@dont-email.me> <11atgrt$3bqcl$14@dont-email.me> <11atsb5$3edcf$1@dont-email.me> <11au3uo$3k12p$14@dont-email.me> <0t1dqmx8a1.ln2@Telcontar.valinor> <11b286r$11pis$5@dont-email.me> <20261019150910.00001b26@gmail.com> <11b780p$2q6cj$2@dont-email.me> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2026 17:54:14 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; logging-data="3381139"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX19SmM3cyqRqygll+O6QKiUW7mjdmtSpFZ8="; posting-host="5c60f85e2611d3958fef20ddf4cf3810" Cancel-Lock: sha1:6+xG5pAJjAR9o3FcDD6+uBueFwE= sha256:qDSXmZ6tJC/CINXK7ONNeWsJAayKx3XZ9QCIQBgv+I4= sha1:6VXvzzHJDhsQ20xYUITyPL8zotk= sha256:ylZd9s3kF52oT0sW2tOsyJC+SABhz9LyvevNKCtWKrs= X-Newsreader: Claws Mail 4.3.0 (GTK 3.24.42; x86_64-w64-mingw32) Xref: csiph.com comp.os.linux.misc:94409 On Tue, 20 Oct 2026 09:16:25 +0100 The Natural Philosopher wrote: > > You yourself started off this discussion talking about "music > > existing ten thousand years before music theory," so grouping > > classical Chinese and Pythagorean thought in with post-Renaissance > > Western theory is as fair as anything. They didn't have*any* of > > those in the Paleolithic. > > There are those who thinks that science discovers truths and > mathematics are inherent to the universe and you cant do anything > without a 'theory' > > Philosophers have by and large concluded that that is all bollox. All > of them are human *inventions*. Nobody but you is claiming "you can't do anything without a theory" as a position implied by an analytical outlook. Of *course* you can, and millions *did,* before anybody got around to developing it; the fact that these things are discoverable means you don't have to be *told* in order to make use of them. Theory is nothing more than an attempt to codify what's *been* discovered, to make it easier to learn & apply. > If you want to *believe* otherwise, there isn't much I can say I don't have to "believe" anything here; the fact that mathematics is innately complete and inherent to reality is self-demonstrating, as any child who's ever learned to count should know. Have two, get two, have four - that's addition, and it was so before the very first hominid who stopped to *think* about the number of tasty bits of fruit and game in his private cache. Nature has been adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing things from the first instant of the universe, and it'd be doing that even if we'd never gotten around to putting names to those. > > How come the instruments have fixed notes, and these appeared very > > very long ago? before the theory was developed formally? > > Because it is in the nature of musical instruments to produce one or > more fixed notes It's in the nature of *some* instruments to produce fixed notes; others (e.g. unfretted string instruments, slide whistles, or the human voice) are not thus limited. And for those which are - which notes, and why? Certainly the folks chipping flutes out of bone in the caves of the Ice Age got it by trial and error, but there *is* a system to it, as we'd worked out by the days of ancient Mesopotamia (we have Sumerian texts on music theory going back to 2+ millennia BC.)