I don't give people's listening observations much credence, but I'm past the point of expecting anyone to give proof. Just enjoy the music and stop sweating that scientific idealism. I totally get what you're saying, at the same time it's an unproductive mentality when taken to its extreme. No one is doing cutting edge psychoacoustics here, we're lucky if any is done at all.
There is a happy medium to getting along. And one need not look far to see prior back and forth between Mark and myself about these very same topics.
I made up a saying like the 'horse shoes and hand grenades' one:
"Proofs only count in math and booze!"
Science is about accumulation of evidence for and against.
Cheers,
Jeff
P.S. One of our old Prime Minister's best quotes:
"A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven." Jean Chretien
YouTube
"Proofs only count in math and booze!"
Science is about accumulation of evidence for and against.
Cheers,
Jeff
P.S. One of our old Prime Minister's best quotes:
"A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven." Jean Chretien
YouTube
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There is a nice article that sums it up, and cites Feynman on this:
"I have approximate answers and possible beliefs in different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything."
Where's the proof in science? There is none
"I have approximate answers and possible beliefs in different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything."
Where's the proof in science? There is none
You have now left Science and entered the realm of the Philosophy of Science. Philosophy can take the human mind anywhere it leads, often to some weird and wonderful places. The ideas raised are often subject of intense debate, so I become immediately skeptical when I hear someone claim that another person is "entirely correct".
To achieve anything, scientists must operate in the "here and now" and need to make some basic assumptions about the word around them. One of those assumptions is that empirical experiments can be used to prove hypotheses. Without that assumption Science couldn't function. - Please note that I used the plural "empirical experiments". Replication is an important part of the Scientific method.
As a Scientist I have little time for the argument put forward by people who justify their failure to prove their own ideas, by claiming that you can't "prove" anything anyway.
Proof can be found in mathematics. Science has to make do with overwhelming probabilities where possible, and various degrees of likelihood elsewhere, but never proof. Most scientists understand this; they know that experiments can never prove anything. However, in popular speech people often say 'proof' when they actually mean something less than proof.
I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt insofar as language, but otherwise you're basically trolling and solely interested in "winning" an argument rather at all cost. Especially given you earlier claimed this was a "discussion forum" where vernacular should be read by intent rather than definitionally only when it's convenient to your ends.
I wrote very clearly that we can "prove" things to a practical level, even if that is not a definitive proof in the pure, clean world that math can achieve, as DF96 writes as well.
All this would leave me wondering how you can claim to be a working scientist who operates in this messy world. And, in the politest terms, please go fly a kite in terms of your insults that I'm hiding behind "you can't prove things" to justify my failure to prove my own ideas.
A very disappointing response
Why the personal attack? Nothing I have written was a personal attack on you.
Callng me a troll is intellectually offensive. Am I a troll simply because I disagree with you?
And as for your final comment. If you are going to quote me, please do it accurately! (Apologies, just re read your post and realise that you didn't misquote me. Though the point I'm making is still valid )
My actual words were -
"people who justify their failure to prove their own ideas, by claiming that you can't "prove" anything anyway."
How is this comment directed at you?
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Generally when you quote someone you're responding to them in specific. Sorry for the misinterpretation.
As to the trolling, I said I really really hope it's a semantic/language difference. What I wrote about "proof" is completely mainstream science stuff from pretty much any scientist I've met and/or read (I'm also a researcher). If you're disagreeing about what I wrote, either we're agreeing but using different language or you're going up against a core tenet of how science is done. And that's not philosophical, but boots-on-the-ground, day-to-day science.
How true, I've run across LIGO deniers that claim the template matching to theory is forcing fake positive results. They don't have a clue on the probability of random noise cohering into a signal (any coherent signal) for a 100ms or so. The actual probabilities of matching any of the proposed templates with totally random noise is spectacularly low.
It´s not obvious to me why a reminder of a fact (i.e. that you can´t "prove" something with results of empirical experiments, just getting evidence or corroboration) could lead to "... "people who justify their failure to prove their own ideas, by claiming that you can't "prove" anything anyway."
Totally different topics.
Wrt the argument "if it´s so difficult to .... does it matter" we have to consider that "importance" or "meaningful" are highly subjective measures and we already know that even quite large differences can remain undetected if the there is a sufficient degree of distraction.
(See for example the experiment for inattentional blindness and inattentional deafness, i´ve cited in the past)
Although we could argue about the importance of detecting the "gorilla" we can´t neglect that it is a quite large difference.
Again, designing a sensory experiment that is objective, valid and reliable (and therefore most likely will get correct results) can be a surprisingly complex task expecially if experimenters neglect the experience of the past 50-90 years of development in the field.
Totally different topics.
Wrt the argument "if it´s so difficult to .... does it matter" we have to consider that "importance" or "meaningful" are highly subjective measures and we already know that even quite large differences can remain undetected if the there is a sufficient degree of distraction.
(See for example the experiment for inattentional blindness and inattentional deafness, i´ve cited in the past)
Although we could argue about the importance of detecting the "gorilla" we can´t neglect that it is a quite large difference.
Again, designing a sensory experiment that is objective, valid and reliable (and therefore most likely will get correct results) can be a surprisingly complex task expecially if experimenters neglect the experience of the past 50-90 years of development in the field.
Yes empirical science can be difficult, but scientists don't give up. They don't just put it in the "too hard" basket and walk away. Claiming that a task is too difficult (impossible) is a crutch failures lean on. If you are not prepared to do what is required to "prove" your claim, then why should anyone believe you? The notion that you are right so long as people can't prove you are wrong is philosophical nonsense.
Right. So, I asked Earl Geddes what it would take to determine what, say, the upper 5% of the population can actually hear or not hear, say, in terms of distortion.
He said it has never been studied, that nobody cares about it, and nobody would be willing to pay for it.
He said doing it would require developing some new tests.
He said that a preliminary study to get started would cost somewhere between a few and several tens of thousands of dollars. After that we should have a better idea of what a full study would cost.
Just checked my pants pockets and they are empty. Think I will work on something else then. Plenty of other things that need doing.
Some things actually are impossible. Proving something by experiment is one of them.
Fortunately, in audio we do not have to prove anything; just show that it is likely to be true. If people cannot reliably distinguish between the sound of A and B, then it is likely that A and B are indistinguishable (at least for those people under those conditions, and possibly/probably for other people too under similar conditions); this does not mean that A and B are identical, but neither does it mean that nothing useful at all can be said.
Fortunately, in audio we do not have to prove anything; just show that it is likely to be true. If people cannot reliably distinguish between the sound of A and B, then it is likely that A and B are indistinguishable (at least for those people under those conditions, and possibly/probably for other people too under similar conditions); this does not mean that A and B are identical, but neither does it mean that nothing useful at all can be said.
Did i claim that "a task is too difficult (impossible) ...."?
You are using "you" again, and i don´t know who that might be, is it me, or somebody else?
Maybe i´m mistaken, but it seems that read in my posts something that was neither expressed nor intended?!
Btwt, i´d appreciate if you wouldn´t add text in a citation box that looks like a complete quote of my post.
It may confuse readers that don´t go back to reread my original post and it´s more difficult to quote your content.
I was mentioning one of your posts with the "if it´s so difficult...." line although it might be more using words to that effect.
Who are you referring to? Is it me, any other poster, listeners in general?
Fair enough. If you don't want to do the science that's fine, and not my
real concern.
Its making claims without the science that is the problem.
I can't do the science so you'll just have to believe me doesn't cut it.
I have no interest in these diversionary tactics. There is an issue being discussed here, Can we get back to it?
Different components malfunction in different ways. Some are less pleasing than others.
Yes there is an issue here, and Jakob has been the one with the best, most succinct, most scientific informtion in this thread.
An ABX test is incapable of deciding that 2 DUT are the same. That is a scientific fact.
dave
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