Upon hearing an Eric Clapton guitar solo

[fpb]

At times like this, I really do feel sorry for atheists. One has to be grateful for artistry so miraculous, but they have nobody to be grateful to. (And don't give me any crap about "the human spirit" - that is what we owe the Murdoch press and robotic dance noise to.)

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Gratitude is personal. Gratitude for what? Gratitude to Whom? And at any rate I do not say they cannot enjoy it - the very nature of something as miraculous as the white lightning that Clapton unleashed on this and many other occasionsis that it is open to any person who is decently instructed in music to enjoy it; I just say that the experience is incomplete.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

How about being grateful to Eric Clapton? Surely, those guitar riffs didn't spend months upon months learning themselves? Perhaps more broadly, to his teachers, and to the general set of circumstances that made it possible for his talent to manifest: it isn't often that things come together so well.

Another thing: if only the "decently instructed" can enjoy Clapton, does it mean, by extension, that it requires education to appreciate God?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

And why on God's green earth should Eric Clapton be more talented than anyone else? Why, out of hundreds of thousands of guitarists throughout the world, is there one - or a few - or a few dozens - whose work absolutely shines, which is compulsive again and again? Clapton has no control over the fact that he is a genius at his trade, any more than someone else has no control over the fact that he or she is not. So why should anyone be grateful to a man for something that is outside that man's control?

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

I repeat: for a talent to manifest a lot of hard work is required. If you ever learned an instrument you should know this. Talent alone isn't enough.

Second, there are natural variations both in innate talent and in circumstances which may either assist in its manifestation or prevent it. Thus one could be appreciating the rarity, and hence - the preciousness - of the phenomenon.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

The word "natural" here explains nothing. You are replacing an honest question mark with an empty word, and pretending that that word is an explanation. Why is it "natural", if if is "natural"? You are just saying that you expect those things to be there, and that you have never found it worthwhile to wonder about them.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

"Natural" as in pertaining to nature, as found though empirical observation. The specific phenomenon in question is the normal distribution of the few variables I've mentioned.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Phenomenon without a cause, I take it? In which case, the word "unphilosophical" applies. I do not think you have even understood my objection.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

There is a cause behind the normal distribution; it's a mathematical theorem and you can read about it.

Either way, you answered nothing to my objection. Namely, that one can be grateful to Clapton, who put in a lot of work. Additionally, one ought to appreciate the rarity of the phenomenon (in fact, I would argue that it is precisely that that you appreciate, but that's a story for another time).

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Clapton's work is not different from the work of the average untalented person, and the gratitude they deserve for working is the same in both cases. But the averate untalented person has not done, and is not likely to do, anything comparable to what Eric Clapton consistently does. You seem to me wholly incapable of seizing on this obvious difference. It is not even to do with success - David Olney, a greater musician even than Clapton, is almost unknown - but simply with unique, inborn, inexplicable genius. And you do not explain it with mathematics, because genius is not the top end of intelligence. There have been plenty of stupid geniuses (including a man who worked with mathematics, Niels Bohr). Genius simply is untypical, random, a thing apart. And that is what it has in common with existence itself. The fact that you exist is wholly random, and it separates you from a million million hypothetical other people and things that have never existed and never will. When people complain about life, one has to ask: "as compared to what?" There is no term of comparison. Non-existence is simply nothing; by definition, it does not exist. Existence itself is the highest term of comparison for everything that is random, unexpected, wonderful, and not to be explained away.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

Genius simply is untypical, random, a thing apart.

I compiled a short list of things that fit this definition from the top of my head: 10 consecutive coin tosses that all came "heads" up; conjoined twins; the Bosavi giant woolly rat; the parrot that humped Fry's zoologist's head; Williams syndrome; Cor Triatriatum.

Would you wish to indicate to me for which of these one is ought to be grateful to the Creator, and to what extent in each case?

When people complain about life, one has to ask: "as compared to what?"

The sheer irrelevance of this observation notwithstanding, I will answer: "as compared to better life." Human unhappiness has much to do with the ability of the mind to imagine better possible scenarios and compare the present state to them.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You are incapable of philosophy.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, a mathematical formula is not a "cause"; it is a "description". The amount of things any mathematical formula has to say about the "reason" and the "cause" why any phenomenon happens is that well known mathematical formula, diddly squat. A million formulae for the growth of trees could not explain one seed. For the love of Heaven, learn some philosophy before you take it on yourself to argue philosophical issues! I suggest Aristotle and Karl Popper to start with, and, after you have gripped the basics of logic - which at present you have not - you can go on to Thomas Aquinas.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

Yes and no. A mathematical explanation can logically reduce a fact that we consider complex to a set of simple facts we would be willing to consider as obvious. Of course, these basic facts are postulated rather than explained. In the case of the normal distribution, one could show that it is to be expected under certain assumptions, which often happen to be fairly reasonable assumptions to make about the distribution in populations of things like intelligence or height.

Probability is indeed a field that gave and gives rise to many questions regarding the interplay between empiricism and the human mind. Lumping the various questions, phenomena and effects into one unintelligible entity seems a bit old fashioned. Looking down on people who abstain from such lumping doesn't seem justified to me.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

If you had given any sign of even wanting to consider any such question before, I might not have. And I am afraid that I do not suffer from chronological snobbery.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

As for appreciating God, each person who recognizes His existence appreciates Him for different reasons - the most basic of which is their own existence. So everyone has a reason to be grateful to God, and everyone's reasons are different. God is not like music, since music did not create you.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

I was about to say that - be grateful to Eric Clapton!

[fpb.livejournal.com]

As I already said, that would be most unfair. Eric Clapton did not make himself exceptional. Hundreds of thousands of guitarists have studied as much guitar as he has and ended up ordinary. Being grateful to Eric Clapton for an accident in which he has no merit is an insult to the person.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Dude, I wouldn't know Eric Clapton from your mom. I have zero appreciation for music, so this is kind of a bad example for me. But there's nothing wrong with appreciating someone's talent and hard work, and usually someone's enjoyment of something has very little to do with how well it was produced. I get just as much joy, or often 5 times as much, from looking at my little sister's magnificent crayon drawings as I get from studying Picasso. I'm sure Eric Crapton, as I cannot stop calling him, spent many hours practicing the guitar anyway, and I'm equally sure that there were hundreds of geniuses who had more talent than him but who never were heard by a wide audience. And that's irrelevant! Eric Crapton made you happy with a stringed instrument! It's not complicated; just joyful.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

This sounds to me like refusal to reason. I am not even going to start unpicking all the contradictions and pointless statements in it. I fail to understand your obvious anger, but as I know that you have a hard life - both on the obvious and on the health side - I suggest you do not throw yourself into a polemic that you do not enjoy and that is doing nothing to make you happier.

[cosmolinguist]

Hundreds of thousands of guitarists have studied as much guitar as he has and ended up ordinary.

Really? Eric Clapton has been performing since he was a teenager, and has been highly thought of almost all that time. Even if he never practiced in between, his recorded output and live performances over the last forty-some years would add up to more time bent over a six-string than most people would like to contemplate, and that's not even counting the unknowable time he plays for his own pleasure or to teach himself something new. Where are these hundreds of thousands of others? And in what way are they "ordinary"? Citation needed, I say. ;)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Do you have the slightest notion of how the music industry works? Or of how many session musicians have spent their lives till they were grey and arhtritic "bent over a six-string" and have nothing to show for it but a small bank account, no job security and (in America) no health plan? Once, just once, one such - Gordon Haskell - managed THE HIT, the one great successful song that changed his life; but for one Haskell, let alone one Clapton, there are ten, fifty, a hundred who never made it. Your assumption that they did not work as hard as Clapton is both false and insulting. To quote the queen, wipe those stars from your eyes, and you'll get quite a surprise.

[cosmolinguist]

Do you have the slightest notion that your endless assumptions of other people's inferiority might quickly turn away anyone who does know anything, as surely they'll know they don't need to be belittled by you as their points are true whether you believe them or not? As a matter of fact I have a pretty good grasp of how the music industry works, and I know that those who "make it" and have the hits aren't always those that anyone would consider most deserving so once again you've failed to answer the questions your commenters are posing to you here.

Again I'd have hoped all your religion might have infused your worldview with a little more kindness, towards me or towards the likes of Eric Clapton. Talk about people with no novel ideas; it seems to me like you've got the notion that all good things are due to your supernatural power of choice, while probably believing that people's bad experiences are all of their own doing. So if you think atheists can't appreciate this, then do tell me why you think God favors Eric Clapton more (especially after all that famous blaspheming Clapton particularly was the subject of in the '60s).

[fpb.livejournal.com]

And all this because, if you please, I objected to your notion that people who do not have the immense success of Eric Clapton obviously had not worked as hard!

[cosmolinguist]

Of course effort is no guarantee of success. I did say, originally, that people and fortuitous circumstances surrounding a person will impact their chances there.

But I never said Clapton had to be successful to be worth feeling grateful to or for; that was your idea. I have listened to lovely music by people you'll never hear of; I feel grateful that I have been able to do that, entirely apart from the fact that they have no more commercial success than session musicians and many have to have day jobs. Still as artists they are as successful in my eyes as Eric Clapton because my response to them is at least (and often far more so) favorable than my reaction to him.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I am now extremely angry. ...Clapton had to be successful to be worth feeling grateful to or for; that was your idea. THAT IS A LIE and the total opposite of everything I said. There is nothing whatsoever in any of my answers to imply that financial success is any measure of artistic value, and in fact I quoted the unacknowledged giant David Olney as a classic case of unrecognized genius. I expect an immediate apology.