::rap Thread::

[Mandieta6]

What on Earth do you talk about if you remove everything you can have an opinion about and your likes and dislikes? The weather?

 

[Juventino]

I assumed you meant ''bagging'' or ''putting down'' someone's taste for the sake of giving them a hard time because you said you liked to take the extreme opposite on any subject. Like you must think differently than someone else (or the consensus) to make you feel good about yourself or to make you feel like you're an interesting or unique individual or whatever. Clearly I don't know what drives you, but that made it seem random and immature in my mind.

Obviously I do have conversations about my opinions on (popular) arts, but I just don't feel it's for the sake of having the upper hand or proving I have better taste than someone else. I'll just say why this movie has a certain meaning or emotional impact on me and let's talk about it. I can disagree with someone without ''putting them down'' or ''bagging them for their horrible taste'', but that's how I experience it. Forming your own identity and how you're perceived by others is something we all think about and develop, but opinions on popular arts, a world that exists outside of us (unless we actually make art), is something that slowly became more trivial to forming my identity to the outside world. Enjoyment of arts is definitely a huge part for me as well, but not to legitimizating my identity to the outside world.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

I make fun of people for every way in which they are different from me. It is part of being a guy IMO.

 

[Alex]

You can think about them, but you can't then try to pass off that intellectual process as your emotional reaction to the stimulus.

And I don't want to hang out with you, you'll steal my girlfriend with a balloon.

Haven't you and Shifty basically just claimed your emotional, or at least subconscious, reaction to reading is to analyse them in this way? How can you say that's ok for you reading, but not natural for Zlatan with music?

 

[Alex]

I make fun of people for every way in which they are different from me. It is part of being a guy IMO.

Haha, stupid American.

 

[Jaboldinho]

I make fun of people for every way in which they are different from me. It is part of being a guy IMO.

Rassist

 

[Mandieta6]

Haven't you and Shifty basically just claimed your emotional, or at least subconscious, reaction to reading is to analyse them in this way? How can you say that's ok for you reading, but not natural for Zlatan with music?

No, I said it's an intellectual reaction and that even if it affects my emotional response thereafter, it is still based on the intellectual process. You can react emotionally to a book but that's not what I'm referring to.

 

[Jaboldinho]

That works for music as well. I'm not gonna rationalize myself into liking a song. But if on first instinct I like a song, and afterwards find out something about the song, that isn't possibly directly heard in the song, that can still make me like the song more.

 

[Zlatan]

I just think that the emotional side and the rational side of any human being are never completely seperated, in anything that he or she does. The balance between the two might differ from person to person and also in this case from subject to subject, but even in a rational process of trying to explain something on an intellectual level there is an emotional reaction involved. Even more so when the subject of that rational interest is subjective by nature and also something that you as a person feel strongly about, like I do with music and Mandieta6 does with literature and another person might do with another thing.

 

[Mandieta6]

I assumed you meant ''bagging'' or ''putting down'' someone's taste for the sake of giving them a hard time because you said you liked to take the extreme opposite on any subject. Like you must think differently than someone else (or the consensus) to make you feel good about yourself or to make you feel like you're an interesting or unique individual or whatever. Clearly I don't know what drives you, but that made it seem random and immature in my mind.

Obviously I do have conversations about my opinions on (popular) arts, but I just don't feel it's for the sake of having the upper hand or proving I have better taste than someone else. I'll just say why this movie has a certain meaning or emotional impact on me and let's talk about it. I can disagree with someone without ''putting them down'' or ''bagging them for their horrible taste'', but that's how I experience it. Forming your own identity and how you're perceived by others is something we all think about and develop, but opinions on popular arts, a world that exists outside of us (unless we actually make art), is something that slowly became more trivial to forming my identity to the outside world. Enjoyment of arts is definitely a huge part for me as well, but not to legitimizating my identity to the outside world.

You assumed wrong. That is totally wrong and I dont even understand how you reached that conclusion.

Who said I talk to people about these things to show superiority? Banter is for fun, dude. I don't know why you think it hs anything to do with forming ones identity.

I honestly don't know where you're coming from but it seems like a pretty boring place.

I assumed you meant ''bagging'' or ''putting down'' someone's taste for the sake of giving them a hard time because you said you liked to take the extreme opposite on any subject. Like you must think differently than someone else (or the consensus) to make you feel good about yourself or to make you feel like you're an interesting or unique individual or whatever. Clearly I don't know what drives you, but that made it seem random and immature in my mind.

Obviously I do have conversations about my opinions on (popular) arts, but I just don't feel it's for the sake of having the upper hand or proving I have better taste than someone else. I'll just say why this movie has a certain meaning or emotional impact on me and let's talk about it. I can disagree with someone without ''putting them down'' or ''bagging them for their horrible taste'', but that's how I experience it. Forming your own identity and how you're perceived by others is something we all think about and develop, but opinions on popular arts, a world that exists outside of us (unless we actually make art), is something that slowly became more trivial to forming my identity to the outside world. Enjoyment of arts is definitely a huge part for me as well, but not to legitimizating my identity to the outside world.

 

[Mandieta6]

Emotion and reason and related insofar as one is usually subjugated to the other. I personally find it odd that people can allow external factors make them place reason ocer emotion when it comes to sensory stimuli like music or food. I get appreciating a song more because it ia original, but what I'm understandung is that if Zlatan had to listen to one of two songs, one of which he is inherently more drawn to but is less original, hr would choose the other.

I maintain that reading isn't the same because it isn'y sensory. Emotional yes, sensory no.

 

[Alex]

Emotion and reason and related insofar as one is usually subjugated to the other. I personally find it odd that people can allow external factors make them place reason ocer emotion when it comes to sensory stimuli like music or food. I get appreciating a song more because it ia original, but what I'm understandung is that if Zlatan had to listen to one of two songs, one of which he is inherently more drawn to but is less original, hr would choose the other.

I maintain that reading isn't the same because it isn'y sensory. Emotional yes, sensory no.

I think you're playing down the consciousness of the split. It's a fact that some people are naturally more logic driven decision makers, and some more emotional. This isn't a conscious choice. I also think what you're referring to isn't whether a reaction is emotionally or rationally driven, but whether it's automatic or not. You seem to be suggesting that only emotional reactions are automatic and that's simply not true.

I think what Zlatan has described is a an automatic rational reaction to music. I'm sure Jabo is probably similar. I can be the same with loads of things, though not really music.

 

[Mandieta6]

Explain how a rational response can be automatic because to me it sounds oxymoronic.

 

[Alex]

Explain how a rational response can be automatic because to me it sounds oxymoronic.

That's because you're someone who thinks emotionally.

My brain doesn't work that way. The first thing that comes to my mind is very often the rational or logical response.

I can't explain how it happens, that's just how my brain works. If you don't understand that other people's minds work differently than yours, perhaps that's the issue here. You're close minded.

I see someone making an emotional decision, and the first thing that pops into my head is "why?" when the rational/logical answer seems so clear to me. This happens when I read books or watch movies too. I often hate American comedies for exactly this reason - the characters just make ridiculous decisions and I can't enjoy the movie.

 

[Juventino]

You assumed wrong. That is totally wrong and I dont even understand how you reached that conclusion.

Who said I talk to people about these things to show superiority? Banter is for fun, dude. I don't know why you think it hs anything to do with forming ones identity.

I honestly don't know where you're coming from but it seems like a pretty boring place.

Yeah, all right. I probably had the tone you meant wrong in in my mind, so I associated it with a different attitude or (more serious) means of showing identity. Of course there is more to a conversation and friendship than banter about pop culture, although when I do quickly realize someone isn't really seriously interested in music, movies or anything it does seem very boring for small talk.

 

[Mandieta6]

That's because you're someone who thinks emotionally.

My brain doesn't work that way. The first thing that comes to my mind is very often the rational or logical response.

I can't explain how it happens, that's just how my brain works. If you don't understand that other people's minds work differently than yours, perhaps that's the issue here. You're close minded.

I see someone making an emotional decision, and the first thing that pops into my head is "why?" when the rational/logical answer seems so clear to me. This happens when I read books or watch movies too. I often hate American comedies for exactly this reason - the characters just make ridiculous decisions and I can't enjoy the movie.

What? How on Earth can someone immediately react logically to a song? As in, he hears the song and even though he might like it immediately logically reason that it is a bad song because it was not written from the heart or with music's future in mind, as Zlatan suggests he does? There is no way anyone can do that with a song they're hearing for the first time because there's no way someone even has that information at that point.

You hear a song, you either like it or you don't. It can grow on, you can start liking it for different reasons with time, or the other way around, but I fail to grasp how someone can do that as a first reaction. Please explain. It's kind of a lame response to say 'I can't explain it, it just happens, you're closed minded'.

You might not react emotionally to things, but that doesn't mean that your first reaction is a logical one. First reaction involves no thought and thought is a prerequisite to logic and reason. It's like saying you just KNOW the answers to complex mathematical equations. You don't. You might know 2 plus 2 from memory, but 13 times 6 is something you calculate, even if you do it extremely quickly.

 

[Alex]

No, I'm not suggesting that is how it happens. What I'm suggesting is that when Zlatan hears music he didn't immediately find it catchy or not in the way you do, but he immediately notices the composition, the sound, what it sounds like etc. These are the equivalents to what you'd notice reading a book - I don't, I notice what's going on in the story and that's it.

 

[Alex]

I think you're being quite ridiculous and ignorant to assume that people don't immediately hear things in music that you don't. Just as you immediately notice the style of writing something may be written in etc.

 

[Mandieta6]

You can't know the composer's intentions before reading or hearing about the composer's intentions, so no, although I never suggested that someone like Zlatan couldn't notice things in music that I was unable to. I'm saying that his intellectual reaction to a song cannot precede his sensory reaction. No one can do that with anything. You're constantly relating music to books but I don't think they're as closely linked, in terms of what we're discussing, as you seem to think. The closest things are art or gastronomy. You can appreciate someone's cooking, you can appreciate someone's skill, you can condition yourself and alter your preferences based on your knowledge and experience, but you cannot override the objective response to: is this tasty or is this aesthetically appealing to me. Or, in other words, in a blind test, in which your previous knowledge is useless in determining something's worth, you will react through your senses first and then rationalise a different response. Once you can make use of your knowledge or discover new things about it, your body could react differently, but none of that changes your initial reaction. To say that someone can logically react to a sensory stimulus ignores entire fields of biological science. You either react naturally or condition yourself to react differently, but there is no thought in a gut reaction.

 

[Alex]

You can't know the composer's intentions before reading or hearing about the composer's intentions, so no, although I never suggested that someone like Zlatan couldn't notice things in music that I was unable to. I'm saying that his intellectual reaction to a song cannot precede his sensory reaction. No one can do that with anything. You're constantly relating music to books but I don't think they're as closely linked, in terms of what we're discussing, as you seem to think. The closest things are art or gastronomy. You can appreciate someone's cooking, you can appreciate someone's skill, you can condition yourself and alter your preferences based on your knowledge and experience, but you cannot override the objective response to: is this tasty or is this aesthetically appealing to me. Or, in other words, in a blind test, in which your previous knowledge is useless in determining something's worth, you will react through your senses first and then rationalise a different response. Once you can make use of your knowledge or discover new things about it, your body could react differently, but none of that changes your initial reaction. To say that someone can logically react to a sensory stimulus ignores entire fields of biological science. You either react naturally or condition yourself to react differently, but there is no thought in a gut reaction.

You can't know the authors intentions before reading or hearing about them.

You still really don't get the analogy. You seem to think you have this God given gift with literature that nobody else could have with another art form.

Fairly sure everyone else is on the same page here except for you, so I'm happy with that.