I'm not sure. Suppose an archaeologist uncovers tablets on which are inscribed a lost language. What did the archaeologist discover? Seemingly, information that can no longer be decoded. Years later, the language was translated. Did the information spring into being? Or was it always there? — hypericin

Exactly, how is it that the same marks on dry clay can carry more or less information in different contexts? And note that it's not just any marks that transmit information. Some random indentations and scratches on the same tablet would not do. How could that be if marks themselves were information?

Also, note that in your example you used clay tablets, not numbers (and in your OP you went back and forth between numbers and computers, which, of course, are not the same thing). This shows that there isn't a necessary connection between information and numbers. Numbers or bits can serve as an abstract representation of an encoded message.

"Information" is a vexed term, as it is used differently (and often vaguely) in different contexts. A crucial thing about Shannon's theory in particular, which is often lost when it is casually mentioned, as you do here, is that it is a theory of communication, in which bits are only one part of a system that also includes, at a minimum, the encoder, the channel and the decoder. Taken in isolation, numbers or bits cannot be identified with information in any meaningful way.

The statement 'the Sun and the stars revolve around Earth and they move from east to west' is, if taken literally (i.e. as an accurate description of 'what really happens in the external world'), false. — boundless

The statement 'the Sun and the stars revolve around Earth and they move from east to west' is, if taken literally, perfectly true, as anyone can attest*. What is unclear is the honorific 'what really happens in the external world'.

* Unless you are dead-set on some privileged reference frame, in which case you must be going through life in chronic confusion, unable to understand simple directions like "left" or "east".

FUCKING MAGNETS, HOW DO THEY WORK?

I think the salient point is that there can be multiple reductive explanations from different perspectives. So, to say that I went to the shop because I was thirsty is a reductive explanation, as much as saying I went to the shop because of certain neural activity is. Such different explanations do not contradict, and should not exclude, one another. — Janus

:up:

So for example, the epiphenomenalist might say consciousness does no work, just "goes along for the ride", so to speak, but that would be an illegitimate elimination of one reasonable way of explaining human behavior. I think what puzzles people is that we cannot combine the two explanations or achieve any absolute perspective which would eliminate one and retain the other. 'Either/ or' thinking seems to generally dominate the human mind.

I am not sure that epiphenomenalism is all that common in our thinking. Historically, the term itself was coined in the context of mental vs physical, and that is where you will generally encounter it. It was always puzzling to me that those who bring up epiphenomenalism tend to be narrowly focused on the mental/physical divide and don't seem to realize that the same reasoning applies (or fails) across a wide range of theories and explanations.

Have you read the book? I feel like it sort of gets misrepresented in reviews because the argument really doesn't come into focus until the last chapter. Hoffman's point is an argument about a certain, fairly dominant form of naturalism that imports Kantian dualism into "science." — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, I'd heard of Hoffman's "interface theory," but was discouraged by the largely dismissive reaction of the professional community and didn't invest more time in him. The point to which you are referring remains obscure to me.

I agree on the type of error involved. I disagree on the track record of reductionism. How many true reductions do we have? Thermodynamics and statistical mechanics is the canonical example, but it is a rare example. 120 or so years on, the basics of molecular structure in chemistry has yet to be reduced to physics. Reductions are not common. Unifications, the explanation of diverse phenomena via an overarching general principle are far more common. For example, complexity studies explains disparate phenomena like earthquakes and heart beats via a similar underlying mathematics. But of course this does not say that heart beats or earthquakes are "nothing but," the math they share in common. Yet it seems to me that unifications are very often misunderstood as reductions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I wasn't talking about some grand inter-theoretical Reductionist programme, but of the general form of reductive explanation, which is prevalent in science and elsewhere. The idea is to explain something in terms of something else - reduce it to something else. This could mean identifying the principal causes of a concrete event or a mechanism behind a class of observations.

When Newton proposed a theory that explained a large class of dynamical observations, he thereby gave them a reductive explanation. The motion of a cannonball as it accelerates towards the earth is nothing but the action of the gravitational force in Newton's dynamics. He also reduced Kepler's theory of planetary motion to his own theory - that is an example of unification via reduction. (The example that you give is not unification, as there is no common theory - just a structural similarity across unrelated domains. Such mathematical similarities are commonplace - after all, we don't usually have to invent new math for every new problem.)

But the above is a singular example. I was thinking more of reductive explanations that we make all the time: A happened because of B or A functions by way of B. Even if we are talking specifically about inter-theoretic reductions, on a smaller scale, they are commonplace in science. For example, mechanical properties of materials that are taken as data in dynamics and statics are being explained in (reduced to) materials science, chemistry and solid-state physics.

That and facts about composition is misunderstood as a reduction. To be sure, all cells are made from molecules. All molecules are made from atoms. This isn't a reduction. You can't predict how a molecule works from theory in physics, you need all sorts of ad hoc empirically derived inputs for it to work. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Identifying composition can be a crucial step towards a reductive explanation. Because we know generic properties of many materials, knowing what something is made from can tell us a lot about that thing, reducing some of its properties to those of the materials that compose it. We are not talking about a complete reduction though, except in trivial instances.

But I think the error you identify is directly related to smallism and reductionism. The justification for the causal closure principle is normally that minds are "nothing but" brains/bodies, and the brains and bodies are "nothing but" atoms and their constituent particles. Particles are the smallest structure and thus most fundemental. Everything is "nothing but" these, and so everything is describable in terms of their interactions. This makes all other causal explanations duplicative. At best they are a form of data compression. And so this makes motive irrelevant and conciousness epiphenomenal. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Causal closure does not imply epiphenomenalism, unless you interpret it too broadly (i.e., not the way it is usually understood). One could believe that the world is closed under fundamental physics, but that does not automatically imply that everything else, such as consciousness (or chemistry), is causally inert. It just doesn't have a place in the explanatory framework of fundamental physics, and if you put it there by hand, then you would have causal overdetermination. But alternative explanatory frameworks can coexist without conflict. Consciousness (and chemistry) could still take place in a world that is closed under fundamental physics, but you would need other means than physics to identify and describe mental (chemical) phenomena qua mental (chemical) phenomena.

Exactly...the reductionists seek to analyze the physical in terms of the mental (idealism) or the mental in terms of the physical (eliminative physicalism). Tendentious thinking prevails on both sides. — Janus

Nothing wrong with reductionist analysis as such (A is nothing other than B) - that is the most common type of explanation, particularly in science. Where ephiphenomenalism goes disastrously wrong is in a mistaken application of the causal exclusion principle. It is like saying that if you are putting one foot in front of the other, then you cannot also be walking, and if you are walking, then you cannot also be fetching a glass.

Eliminativist positions sometimes succumb to this type of error, but not all eliminativism is necessarily wrongheaded - it just needs to be properly motivated. Merely having an alternative explanation is not enough, you need to show that it is superior in every respect, and that can be a tall order.

I think Plantinga's argument is ultimately just one simplified form of an entire web of arguments that can be made vis-á-vis psychophysical harmony, causal closure, and epistemology. Hoffman is able to flesh this out with some models and empirical results. Is it air tight? No. But then again what they are arguing against is also a position that is not airtight. Yet this position, like reductionism, is one that seems to demand that it be "assumed true until decisively proven otherwise," and I'd venture that there is not good grounds to accept this — Count Timothy von Icarus

I am still not sure what position this is supposed to be. Plantinga's attack is aimed squarely at the "evolutionary naturalist," and Hoffman would be its first victim if it had any merit. What is it that Hoffman is arguing against?

Physicalism is normally defined in terms of casual closure. Reductionist materialism also assumes causal closure. But if causal closure is true the mental never—on pain of violating the principle—has any effect on behavior. It is just "along for the ride." Everything is determined by particles and how they interact, so no one ever goes and gets a drink "because they feel thirsty" (at least not in the causally efficacious sense of "cause.") — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's only according to the epiphenomenalist view, which Plantinga ended up weaponizing for his argument against naturalism. (His so-called EAAN went through a number of iterations and eventually fizzled out, since epiphenomenalism is its own can of worms, and Plantinga didn't have much to contribute to it.). I don't know whether Hoffman relies on it as well. But epiphenomenalism is not synonymous materialism/naturalism.

Alvin Plantinga's rather fun argument called the evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN). If it comes up with apologists a lot these days. Here's a basic overview:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_argument_against_naturalism#:~:text=Religion%2C%20and%20Naturalism.-,Plantinga%27s%201993%20formulation%20of%20the%20argument,faculties%20is%20low%20or%20inscrutable.

The OP raised this in relation to Hoffman's theory too. — Tom Storm

Yes, I know about Plantinga's argument, but it would work against Hoffman's position, not for it, since it aims to undercut its very foundations.

Have you made it to the last chapter? He sort of turns everything he has said on his head. His point is that a common way of looking at the relationship between mind and nature is self-refuting. Plantinga has previously made a similar argument. I don't think this is a bad argument, although the way it is framed it does seem like he is refuting himself as well. But I take it that this is exactly the point, his position is self-refuting because it's situated in popular assumptions that are self-refuting. — Count Timothy von Icarus

What is that common view that he thinks is self-refuting?

I know Criterion, though I am not yet a subscriber. Used to rent Criterion tapes and then DVDs in my formative years.

I would say Jarmusch is one of the more accessible artsy-fartsy auteurs.

Checking with IMDB, I didn't even realize how many Jarmusch films I have seen! Some I barely remember, but I do remember that all of them were enjoyable.

Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
Down by Law (1986)
Night on Earth (1991)
Dead Man (1995)
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)
Broken Flowers (2005)
Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)

To those who have seen Tarkovsky's Solaris: what do you make of the surprisingly long (even for Tarkovsky, I think) bit where the ex-pilot Burton is in a car going through a big city, along motorways, overpasses and tunnels?

Normally I like the slow stuff in Tarkovsky, but this seems awkward and perplexing. The sounds, which I think are meant to be futuristic, do not even seem to match the familiar urban scene.

It ends with an abrupt cut to the wildflower meadow at Kelvin's house (which looks exactly like a Russian dacha), so it looks like a juxtaposition between inhuman modernity and bucolic serenity, but it still seems odd. My guess is that in fact, Tarkovsky made do with footage that did not turn out as well as he'd imagined. — Jamal

I thought so too when I watched it. Tarkovsky does have such inexplicable longueurs here and there.

Shohei Imamura — javi2541997

I have seen his Narayama and nothing else, I think. That one was very impressive.

Just watched "Patterson" with Adam Driver. A sweet, understated, lovely little movie. I can't remember when I've watched another I enjoyed more. I haven't seen Driver in anything else, but he was wonderful in this. — T Clark

:up: One of my favorite Jarmusch movies.

We still subdivide time into 12, 24 and 60 units, even though we use decimal notation. A remarkable legacy of ancient Sumerian mathematics, which used the sexagesimal system. When you wonder whether an event that takes place in two and a half hours will be in the morning or the afternoon, you are effectively thinking in base 12. Many older length, weight and monetary units, including the English units that still persist in the US, are also rooted in subdivisions of 6 or 12, rather than 10. The main reason base 10 won out in most other spheres was due to the near-universal adoption of Arabic/Indian numerals for positional notation - a historical contingency.

I've always thought of consequentialism as a future conditional. After all, moral choice occurs before its anticipated consequences.

I'm really glad people are interested, but I will remind you that there is an email address set up for questions and potential solutions because I sent this to a couple of forums and fifty philosophy departments, so trying to keep up with communication in every avenue is going to be difficult — Dan

This is a discussion forum, not a bulletin board. If you are not prepared to have a discussion, you should not post here.

By the way, what is your current affiliation to University of Canterbury? They don't seem to know about you, though it appears that you were once a grad student there.

I think we can make an even stronger statement: the only way that the usual probability rules (normalizability, additivity) can be satisfied on an infinite sample space is if all but a finite number of simple outcomes have probability zero. — SophistiCat

Not so (duh!)

I can try to give you an example of "an algorithm that gives all integers (without limit) SOME probability of happening" if you like. — flannel jesus

I am not sure I understand your algorithm and what probability distribution it gives to the integers, but clearly, there is any number of distributions that one can come up with for a countable set of disjoint events that gives all events a non-zero probability. For example, {1/2, 1/4, 1/8, ...}

This algorithm is theoretically capable of randomly producing ANY of the infinite sequence of integers, but it preferentially chooses lower numbers. — flannel jesus

As for preferentially choosing lower numbers, I take it that you mean something like: "for any numbered event, there is a higher-numbered event with a lower probability," right? That has to be true, because otherwise there would be a lower bound on the probability of an unlimited number of events.

I just had a train of thought I thought might be vaguely interesting:

1. With an infinite number of options, not all options can have equal probability. — flannel jesus

I think we can make an even stronger statement: the only way that the usual probability rules (normalizability, additivity) can be satisfied on an infinite sample space is if all but a finite number of simple outcomes have probability zero.

I have a metaphysical probability question:
Suppose there are an infinite number of parallel Earths. Alice uses a teleporter to teleport to a random Earth. Bob tries to follow Alice, but he has to guess which Earth she teleported to. What are Bob's chances of getting it right? Is there any way for a teleporter machine to randomly select an Earth out of an infinite number of them in a finite amount of time, or is there always going to be, practically speaking, only a finite amount of Earths for Alice to teleport to because of the limitations of the machine? — RogueAI

That is a question for you to answer: you are the one setting the parameters of your thought experiment. You seem to be unsure as to what you are asking: is this an abstract probability question or a physics/technology question? If it is the former, then you need not be concerned about practical limitations. If it is the latter, then you may as well scrap the whole thing, as it is obviously impractical.

What if I cheat and say the teleporter pokes a hole into the universe and the universe somehow, through a mysterious process, randomly picks an Earth out of an infinitely large ensemble for Alice to teleport to? Are Bob's chances of teleporting to Alice's world zero? — RogueAI

The common-sense answer is zero, but as fishfry pointed out, it does not actually work in the commonly used mathematical probability theory (Kolmogorov probability). However, the question was not about mathematics. A mathematical theory of probability formalizes our pre-theoretical notions of what probability is, such as relative frequency or credence. The failure of one particular mathematical model to express something that can be expressed in an informal theory should give you a pause, but it is not a proof positive that the idea is altogether nonsensical.

In fact, this means that is some kind of hidden collusion between these candidates. — Linkey

In a conspiracist's world, perhaps. Or perhaps both a controlled by a third, hidden agent?

Meanwhile, in the real world, things aren't as simple and stark as in a conspiracist's world.

This is explained by the fact that the 1% of richest people control the mass media and are motivated to keep this situation as long as possible. — Linkey

Another "fact" :roll:

The middle-class female does not need any resources from a male — Tarskian

Ah, a conspiracist and an incel. Well, you boys have fun here.

Depends on what you mean by thing/object, so you should clarify that first (and before that I would suggest clarifying the need for such a definition in the first place).

If you mean something like "moderate-sized specimens of dry goods," we could probably come up with a (messy, fuzzy and ambiguous) set of criteria from psycho-physical considerations, but before diving into that unwieldy project, I would want to better understand the motivation.

There isn't a problem with specialist terms. But "cogent and useful" is both cogent and useful as a definition of "make sense". I would rather not have to try to find another definition. "Cogent and useful" can mean different things in different contexts. — Ludwig V

I was referring to how folk who are unfamiliar with specialist terms that are based on words in the ordinary language try to make sense of those terms: they interpret them in light of the more familiar senses of the words. Naturally, this doesn't always work. Misinterpretations happen even in familiar contexts, and they are all the more likely in an unfamiliar domain. And as with neologisms, some just aren't going to like the coining for one reason or another, even when they understand the context. But that alone shouldn't be a barrier to understanding and accepting specialist terms.

In the background, I understand, there are people who have doubts about the validity of mathematical induction — Ludwig V

Yes, ultra-finitists reject mathematical induction as a proof method, but that is a rather extreme position.

In the supertasks article, they mention a “hotel with a countably infinite number of rooms”. Right there, at the premise, what does “countably infinite” point to? That’s nonsense. That’s a square circle. We don’t get out of the gate. The infinite is by definition uncountable — Fire Ologist

When I first saw the phrase "countably infinite", I thought that was absurd, and I still think it is an unfortunately ambiguous description of what it means. I would put it this way - any (finite) part of the infinite set can be counted, even though the whole of the set cannot be counted in one go. — Ludwig V

A "countable" set is one that can be placed into a one-to-one correspondence with the counting numbers - integers. Why do mathematicians define "countable" that way? Well, think of how we actually count. You look at a herd of sheep, say, and go "1, 2, 3, ..." The number at which you stop is the number of sheep in the herd. What you have done is you placed the set of sheep into a one-to-one correspondence with a subset of integers. Or you may have used your fingers or beads or scratch marks - either way, counting comes down to placing a set of an unknown size into a one-to-one correspondence with a set of a known size.

Counting infinite sets is just a natural extension of the same idea: you try to establish a one-to-one correspondence between some infinite set and the set of integers. You do not need to actually count every member of the set one by one, you only need to establish a procedure of how you would do it, or even just prove that such a procedure exists. If you can do this, then you have established that your set has the same "size" as the set of integers.

Anyway, this is just a specialist term. It doesn't have to "make sense" to be cogent and useful.

This isn't the result of word games. The observations that underlie solipsism are not a matter of semantics. We observe that we do not experience anything that isn't Sensory Data. — Treatid

Of course these are word games. An experience is an experience of something "in the world" - of being warm or cold, of sitting or standing, of conversing or looking out the window. This is just what the word 'experience' means. We do not experience any such thing as "sensory data" - that is a distortion, poor word games.

But if I didn’t think of the sickness of the situation and recognize all of the apparatus and planning that had to be in place to put me here, and I just played along, that doesn’t make me a hero or murderer for pulling the lever. It makes me quick at math under some pressure. It demonstrates the immorality of telling someone to make that choice in that fabricated situation. It doesn’t make me any better or worse if I made a choice that someone else would have made differently. — Fire Ologist

So, you reframe the problem to be not about making what is best for others, but about what is best for your self-image.

(Playing a devil's advocate here, I don't have my own answer yet.)

Yes, I hate the trolley problem. It's one of those things that gives philosophy a bad name. It's nothing like any person will ever have to face in the real world. — T Clark

I am not sure that I agree. For simple, totalizing moral theories, such as classical utilitarianism, it is very much relevant (perhaps as a reductio).

In other cases it depends on degree of similarity and how that factors into your moral thinking. Most of us at least contemplate public policies. Public policies not infrequently involve life-and-death decisions. Do we do this and save this many lives, or do we do that and save that many, or do we do nothing? How about emergency room or field hospital triage? Battlefield decisions? Relatively few people are directly involved in those, but it's not a negligible number.

Like I said, I don't want to get involved in that old trainwreck. I already said what I wanted to say about Thompson's Lamp. And since you don't want to engage with my posts, I think we are done.

I’m using Thomson’s lamp to show that continuous motion entails contradictions. — Michael

Well, as far as I can see, you haven't done either: you haven't demonstrated any contradictions in TL, nor linked it to continuous motion. But I am not going to wade into that trainwreck. I chimed in to comment on the TL. You can engage with that if you want, or leave it alone.

The problem is that if motion is continuous and if the sensors are set up as stated — Michael

You are just restating - reimagining - Thompson's Lamp thought experiment, which has nothing to do with continuous motion as such (and repeating once more your baseless conclusion).

Continuous motion suffers from the same problem. We can imagine sensors at each successive half way point that when passed turn a lamp on or off. Is the lamp on or off when we finish our run? — Michael

I don't see how it's a problem for continuous motion that you can imagine something else taking place alongside of it.

The simple solution is to say that motion isn’t continuous. Discrete motion at some scale is a metaphysical necessity. — Michael

Solution to what? I have yet to see a problem in need of a solution here.

The interesting thing about Thompson's Lamp thought experiment is that it produces an indeterminate outcome where one might not expect it. If you take an ordinary lamp with an on/off switch, you could think of it as a simple deterministic system, as long as switching is determinate. You can always tell whether the lamp is on or off at any given time t if you know the state of the lamp at some earlier time, plus how many times the lamp was switched between then and t. Another way to tell could be by inquiring whether the lamp was on or off just before t and whether the switch was activated at t. And yet, in this thought experiment with a determinate sequence of switchings, determinism breaks down at a certain point. There is no mystery as to how that happens, but one is still left with a feeling that something funny is going on.

However, it is difficult to see how one could make much metaphysical hay out of Thompson's Lamp. Unlike Zeno's thought experiments, which deal with examples of ordinary motion, Thompson's Lamp is blatantly unrealistic. It is not like anything in this world. Its "motion" is not even piecewise-continuous. So what if it's indeterministic? Who said that it must be? Neither intuitions nor physics are of much help here.

The most one can do here is argue that while, of course, Thompson's Lamp is not physically possible, it is possible in a "metaphysical" sense. And at the same time, its indeterminate state is not possible in that same sense. But that argument would be hard to put across (and I haven't seen anyone seriously try). Just what kind of goofy sense of possibility slices the problem in just such a way? And why would we be obligated to take it seriously?

RIP DC Dennett. He was very much a public philosopher, and my impression (as a member of the public who occasionally peruses academic publications) is that he was received differently inside and outside his field. For those on the outside, he was a polarizing figure. He had his enthusiastic fans (e.g., Sean Carroll), but for the non-fans he was often their "favorite intellectual enemy", as one of them put it.

One reason, I think, (other than Dennett's provocative style) is that lay people often see the relatively few public figures like him as representative, if not wholly constituent of their field, whereas in reality, the field is both more crowded and more diverse than they realize. As a result, those public figures are seen as more significant and/or controversial on the outside than on the inside. Among his peers, Dennett is well-known and cited, but not nearly as much as one might assume if one were only reading philosophy of mind topics on this forum.

Take his views on free will, for example: though Dennett had original things to say on the subject, on the whole, he was neither as original nor as controversial in his compatibilism as many seem to think. Views that are broadly like his go back as far as GE Moore and AJ Ayer, and they have been in the philosophical mainstream for the last half-century at least.

Swoooooooning. — AmadeusD

Good stuff. I know little of Mendelsohn's lieder.

Google translates the title as "favorite cookies" :)

Beloved Little Spot

Do you know where I like to linger
In the cool of an evening?
In the quiet valley there spins
A little mill,
And there is a little brook beside it,
With trees standing all around it.
I often sit there for hours on end,
Looking around and daydreaming.

Even the little flowers in the grass
Begin to speak,
And the little blue one says:
Look at how my little head is hanging!
The little rose with a thorny kiss
Has pricked me:
Ah, it has made me so sad
That my heart has broken.

There approaches a small white spider,
saying: Be content;
Some day you will die,
For that is the way it is here on this earth;
Better that your heart breaks
From the kiss of a rose,
Than that you never know love
And die loveless. — Friederike Robert, tr. Emily Ezust

Maya Beiser's take on Terry Riley's classic (cello with loop pedals and percussions)

Knowledge, then, is multifaceted. Since to agree, to accept and to devote have different truth conditions - or none at all, like a devotion. One can say one knows in different senses. Knowledge isn't one kind of thing, and an item of knowledge need not be a statement. And knowing as conviction may not be itemizable at all. — fdrake

I think this bears reiterating. There is no point in trying to nail down the one correct definition of knowledge, because, like many words in the ordinary language, "knowledge" is used in different ways. And since meaning is use, the meaning of "knowledge" is not univocal.

Those who insist that when we say "I know" we mean nothing other than "I am convinced" (or some such) have a point, because that is one of the common uses of the word. But that doesn't exhaust all uses. For example, when we deny someone's claim of knowledge, most of the time, what we deny is the truth of what they claim to know, not the truth of their conviction.

Of course, all of the above considerations apply only if all we care about is the ordinary language meaning, which is best left to semantics scholars, anyway. But then - and I realize that this flies in the face of the long and rich history of philosophical debates on the subject of knowledge - I am not sure what value philosophers could contribute to this discussion. (That was realization was kind of a dead end for "ordinary language philosophy".)

Yes, there are different kinds of knowing. There is 'knowing how', there is the knowing of familiarity and there is 'knowing that'. I think the salient question in this thread concerns only 'knowing that' or propositional knowing, because the other two categories do not necessarily involve belief. — Janus

Even if you want to bracket out 'knowing how' (and I agree with @Moliere and @Banno that knowing is entangled with doing), there is still more than one way in which 'knowing that' is used propositionally.

I fell in love with Scarlatti K87. I'd heard it before (it is one of his best known sonatas), but yesterday it hit me hard for some reason.

Clara Haskil :heart: (two takes)


Igor Kipnis (clavichord :heart:)


Ross's complete recording of Scarlatti I just don't love... I don't know why.

I am also skipping Horowitz (and a few others for that matter). His is the kind of Romantic (re)interpretation that is breathtaking and hard to un-hear once you have heard it. And granted, this peace positively invites it. But I would then prefer to go all the way and do something like what Vaughan Williams did with his dreamy take on Thomas Tallis:


This was the original inspiration - a severe, militant psalm, striking in its own right, with words like "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."



You can see (as in Scarlatti) what harmonies moved Williams and why he took it to such different places (without changing a note of the original!)