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The invention of measurements and perception

This is going to be pretty airy-fairy. Sorry.

Let’s talk about how measurements get invented, and how this limits us.

One of the great works of engineering, science, and data is finding signals in the noise. What matters? Why? How much?

My background is in computer science, and a little in electrical engineering. So the question of what to measure to make systems (audio and computer) "better" is always on my mind.

What’s often missing in measurements is "pleasure" or "satisfaction."

I believe in math. I believe in statistics, but I also understand the limitations. That is, we can measure an attribute, like "interrupts per second" or "inflamatory markers" or Total Harmonic Distortion plus noise (THD+N)

However, measuring them, and understanding outcome and desirability are VERY different. Those companies who can do this excel at creating business value. For instance, like it or not, Bose and Harman excel (in their own ways) at finding this out. What some one will pay for, vs. how low a distortion figure is measured is VERY different.

What is my point?

Specs are good, I like specs, I like measurements, and they keep makers from cheating (more or less) but there must be a link between measurements and listener preferences before we can attribute desirability, listener preference, or economic viability.

What is that link? That link is you. That link is you listening in a chair, free of ideas like price, reviews or buzz. That link is you listening for no one but yourself and buying what you want to listen to the most.

E
erik_squires

Showing 10 responses by stevecham

stevecham
3,340 posts
 
A good example of this is the redbook standard set in the late 70s early 80s for the then emerging CD format. The standard was fine, but it took until the late 90s to figure out that distortion in the time domain (jitter) was a major factor that prevented the unmeasurable enjoyment factor from CD playback. Once it was identified and measured, designers solved, or at least found ways to manage, much of this "new" type of distortion.

And to Geoff’s point above, IMO, the room accounts for at least 50% of the sound we hear from our systems.
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
@teo: "I like to remind people that math is an excellent tool, but to remember that math exists no where in the known universe except as that - in a human’s head." 

If it weren't for math, you wouldn't have a head.
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
@clearthink: Your pathetic comments intended to besmirch my intellience and character belies the irony of your handle.
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
@kosst:" In the strictest scientific sense, there is no such thing as music, or sound, or color, or hot or cold, or pain or pleasure."

Do you even know what an enzyme is and what it does?

In the strictest scientific sense, you’re way off base. I agree that the perceptions of pain or pleasure are somewhat subjective, but sound, light, color and temperature are all quantifiable physical properties. Why do you think an ordered system like the human brain would evolve to have very complex systems to sense thermodynamically defined properties that exist in the physical universe if there was no advantageous need to do so? After all, it’s energetically expensive to develop such systems and the universe doesn’t work that way. Typically, unless there is a closed energy system, like the earth/sun, entropy prevails. That’s just the way it is.

Your sense of what consitutes science, is frankly, an utter joke, so please educate yourself on some basic physics instead of simply hand waving emotional conjecture that has no basis in anything other than your sorry navel gazing.
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
@kosst: "Any cognitive psychologist or neuroscientist will tell you that."

Sorry buddy, but that’s simply not true. I worked as a postdoc in developmental genetics at U. Oregon in the Institute of Molecular Biology for three years and was very close to neighboring labs, colleagues and faculty in the Dept. of Neuroscience. There are neurophysiological methods for quantifying sensory inputs (ion channels, action potentials, as with enzymes; ever heard about them either?) that can be interrogated and measured electrically, accurately and with precision. Look, biology is built on chemistry, which is built on physics, which is built on mathematics. These principles and mechanisms are all congruent. We haven’t even cracked open a tiny amount of understanding how the ultimate machine works (the cell) let alone mapped the quadrillion (by some estimates) synapses of the human brain, far from it. But, so far, not once has any biological, neurological or developmental principle stepped outside of the known physical boundaries of the universe, so the rules will and shall apply. There’s no "mumbo jumbo blah blah" going on here, and any scientist who so espouses such quasi-drivel nonsense is ultimately ignored by the scientific community. They certainly don’t get funded ha!
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
I couldn’t agree more, Geoff. I would just add that you also have to be willing to listen.
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
@kosst: "Unless you're telling me that those folks there can take their measurements and definitively tell the exact thoughts and feelings of a human being, you're not even close to understanding what I'm talking about."

You give an inch and they take a mile, so predictable.

Did I say that? Of course we can't (yet) quantify emotion, perception, thoughts, intentions...sheesh...

What I was trying to convey, and obviously failed, was to simply state that such emotions, perceptions, thoughts, intentions, etc., are all subjected to the same physical properties that govern the universe. We just don't have all the details (yet). Look, if we can imagine something, it can (eventually) be realized, simply because all thought follows the same mechanisms, forces, fields, enegetics, albeit in combinations that are highly, highly complex. The laws which govern the baryonic (observable) universe mandate it. The laws of thermodynamics shall not be trifled with.

Can we get back to measurements and perception please? Given that we have the same complement of cone cells in our retinas, the blue you see is the exact same blue I see.
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
@millercarbon: no?

A forest is typically filled with life forms both large and small. Even bacteria respond to vibrations. Just because a human isn’t around doesn’t mean it’s not heard. I’d place my money on sound.

This anthropocentric view of what consitutes and supposedly defines reality is the crux of the problem.

Do you also believe that H. sapiens has a monopoly on music making and listening too?
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
@millercardon:  

Yeah, capiche. Since when aren't there organisms in a forest? Get real.
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
So that’s why they always flew the shuttle in orbit with the doors wide open, better sonics in micro g.
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