I see a problem with this sort of thing, because the same word in different contexts has different meanings. So when you remove phrases from their contexts and say look, here's a contradiction, when it's really not a contradiction at all, because of the difference in context, that's being disrespectful to the author. — Metaphysician Undercover

This isn’t how reconstruction works. As stated in the manifesto, when you quote something in a reconstruction, there is an implied convention that invites the reader to refer to the context of the source material (it’s described in the section that talks about pure referentiality, definitions and their context). Now, I do agree that, in the context of reconstructing non-fiction (i.e., not always for hedonistic purposes), there are 2 problems, which are not specific to reconstruction, regarding (1) implicit context, and (2) explicit context (that can be found in the text). Regarding (1), in reconstructionism, we always try to assume as little as possible. In fact, it can be argued that reconstruction is the most respectful type of analysis, because it gives the text a chance to develop a meaning. What do I mean by that? If one reconstructs, for example, a Hitler discourse that says that “aryan blood is the purest,” the reconstructionist won’t try to accept or challenge the truth of the statement or meaning of “aryan” or “pure”. They will ask “so what?” and continue to read the text until it can contextualize what the orator meant with respect to the whole text. It’s a bit like Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction, when it compares what a text declares, and what a text actually states. Always regarding (1), obviously, we have to make some minimal assumptions regarding meaning and context, and this isn’t always a unanimous process, but we have to be pragmatic here. Secondly, errors can absolutely be made during reconstruction (i.e., quoting out of context, which is not in the spirit of reconstructionism). So it’s useful to share reconstructions if only for sanity checking.

So any time that you remove a part of a narrative from its context, you cannot assign any meaning to that piece, because all its meaning is derived from its position in the narrative. — Metaphysician Undercover

Absolutely. And reconstruction assigns as little meaning as possible. In fact, you could say that it provides the basic material for other people to assign meaning later if they wish to.

then all of a sudden the person will start to do things right outside of one's character, seeming to undergo a significant change in character. From my perspective, I would say the person would never do something like that, the act is out of character for that person, so I see it as unrealistic, and I'm pissed off that they tricked me into thinking that the person was otherwise. — Metaphysician Undercover

From a purely theoretical standpoint, an artist is not bound to create realistic content or to conform to expectations, and if you don’t want to potentially “disrespect” them, you have to keep an open mind. “Realism” is as much a purely artistic (non-universal) concept as non-realism (which is why there are movies that start with “based on a true story”, when they aren’t). In medium-specific narratives, what matters is not whether it’s realistic or not, but what narrative purpose it serves (if a “bad” characterization serves no purpose in the narrative, then I would argue that a “good” characterization would not either, and is just something nice to have, but not essential). In the context of reconstruction, I would advise reconstructionists to overlook what we traditionally deem as shortcomings, and look at a bigger picture than bad characterization (and similarly, stuff like bad acting in movies).

And with good editing they can even do this with "reality" shows. They show numerous, very particular types of actions, by the person, to make you think you understand the person's character. But they've actually created a false representation with crafty editing. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I said above, reconstruction is all about the conservation of intra-medium context (cf. manifesto section about attention span and sensory memory). It is true that reconstruction filters a lot of content (which does look like quoting out of context, but is not), but it’s usually done because this content is deemed redundant, unnecessary, tangential, etc. For example, if a reconstruction is of a story about a princess saved by the prince from a dragon, it (probably) doesn’t matter to the narrative what the princess wears, if there was a storm when the prince fought the dragon, etc.

There are many ways to be correct because correctness is determined in relation to the end, if the end is achieved. — Metaphysician Undercover

“One way to be correct” was probably not the best way to put it. Let me use a metaphor. Imagine the end is to build any Lego castle (or solve any theorem). There is one constraint (logic): all the pieces must be yellow (all the statements of the solution must be true). Obviously, as you remarked, there are still many ways to build a castle (solve a theorem) with this constraint, so it’s still interesting to reconstruct. But there are (intuitively) way more possibilities to build a castle with all kinds of colors (all kinds of mistakes). In the case of the theorem, you could imagine mistaking an x (lower case) for an X (upper case), using a necessary condition like a necessary and sufficient condition, forgetting to prove something, applying a lemma in a context where the lemma’s hypotheses are not verified, etc.

I know it's confusing, but I thought I explained it well enough to dispel the confusion. When I'm reading I don't see them as words. But when I reflect on what is written, or talk about it in any way, not reading it, I see them as words. I only see them as words when I'm not reading it. When I'm reading it, I'm not thinking 'that's a word, that's a word, that's a word' etc., because I am too busy reading. And reading does not consist of seeing things as words, it's a matter of deriving meaning, not a matter of judging things as words. I cannot do both at the same time, read the material, and also count the words. — Metaphysician Undercover

I see what you mean, but I don’t think it’s a very useful subtlety, because it leads to phrases like “When I read, it’s not words.” I mean, I don’t think anyone except maybe you would say that. In the same vein, you could say “I don’t eat food, I only see it as food when I’m not eating it” etc. It’s just confusing.

Unless there is some attempt to try and understand what the artist is doing, how can you call this a type of "help"? Take a politician's speech for example, you'd say, look at the cool patterns in the way this guy uses "make America great again", in relation to some other phrases used by that politician, but how is that supposed to be helpful? — Metaphysician Undercover

Correlating phrases helps to spot things like contradictions, omissions, fallacies, babbling, etc. Obviously, people didn’t need reconstructions to spot these already, but it can be argued they were sort of doing reconstruction before it was called reconstructionism. At a small scale (short political discourses for example), reconstruction of discourses is basically the same as traditional analysis.

Isn't this something completely different though, something called logic? — Metaphysician Undercover

Great question. Logic is focused on the errors or false statements. It’s a pinpointing thing. Reconstruction makes you focus on the whole reasoning that led to the error/false statement or was built on the error/false statement. The “help” here is not in establishing that the reasoning was wrong. Logic can do that. It’s to make you appreciate how the reasoning was “constructed”. You’ll surely remark that in doing so, reconstruction uses logic, and that’s true. In that case, the “content” considered by the reconstructionist is the combination of that logic with the pseudo-scientific text. In reconstructionism, the process of defining the content is a formal step that I call “conventional medium delimitation”. It’s just a convention, not a profound statement of truth.

It could be argued that it’s more interesting to see how errors are made than how a perfect scientific text is constructed. The empirical argument is that there are millions of ways of making errors, and only one way to be correct. And learning how we make errors is quite interesting, not only theoretically, but also as a lesson. So reconstruction is not primarily about finding errors, but rather about discovering reasoning patterns, and that’s a fun endeavour (hedonism).

How does it help in interpreting political and pseudoscientific talk? — Raymond

By making you pay attention not to the meaning of words or the truth of statements, but how the words are used, their context in the discourse, and how the usage evolves through the debate/discourse (in other words, to the narrative of usage). To illustrate why it’s useful to not focus exclusively on something like truth, imagine a debate, politician A mentions an inconsistency in the discourse of politician B, B counters with an argument about something else, but while the argument is true, it diverts the attention away from A’s first point, so B never responds to A and gets away with it. Reconstruction traces these kinds of meanderings, and more. This also works when interpreting trials and pseudo-science. Reconstructing how pseudo-scientific conclusions can be reached is quite amusing and enlightening.

When I'm reading, I don't see the things I am reading as words. So I do not see "physics" as a word, when I come across that word in a piece of writing. I talk about it now as a word, but when I'm reading I see each particular word as the word it is, and read it as that particular word — Metaphysician Undercover

That’s quite confusing. “When I'm reading, I don't see the things I am reading as words” followed by “I'm reading I see each particular word as the word it is”.

This is the difference between your conception of "medium" and mine. The motif, you see as part of the medium, a physical manifestation, I see it as something created by the artist. — Metaphysician Undercover

It’s not something that matters to reconstruction (as a hedonistic endeavour). If you care about this, you can even use your definition. The medium could come from an artist, a UFO, or be generated randomly by a computer. You can also try to reconstruct anything you experience in real life (quite useful when interpreting political discourses or pseudo-scientific debates for example).

The medium used by the musician is sound, and there is distinct aspects of that medium, rhythm and pitch for example. Notice that aural narrative, referring to the act of telling a story with words, uses the same fundamental medium, sound, but it doesn't have refined (or defined) rhythm and pitch. Because different forms of artistic expression might use the same fundamental medium, and also one form of artistic expression might be presented through a number of different media, I think it's best to maintain a distinction between "medium" and "art form". — Metaphysician Undercover

The discourse stays the same even if the medium is sound, so the distinction doesn’t matter here. You could reconstruct instruments + lyrics, that works too (usually doesn’t happen, it’s complex enough with just melodies).

But motifs are not medium specific. There are visual motifs as much as there are sound motifs. — Metaphysician Undercover

I’m not saying that motifs in general are medium-specific. In fact, I avoid generalizations like that (reconstructionism is not a theory, more a way of life).

It appears like you want to talk about particular motifs as if they a part of the medium — Metaphysician Undercover

I use medium roughly in the sense “perceived physical manifestation”. Even if we don’t agree with that definition, the only thing that matters is that I mean by “medium-specific narrative” a narrative whose elements are things you perceive in the content. So they’re visual, audible, readable, etc. things. It’s important because it contrasts traditional interpretation, which goes beyond these things.

But don't you think that being "guided" takes away from the experience? — Metaphysician Undercover

I would agree for other types of guides. But in our case, the guide is so intimately linked to the experiencing of the content that it might as well be the experience itself. That’s because if you read “motif M is repeated at XX:XX”, it, by convention, invites you to listen to the music at XX:XX and observe for yourself. Unlike other guides of a speculative nature, it is not dogmatic. It doesn’t ask you to agree (what it says is pretty trivial in isolation). It invites you to an activity that is experiential in nature.

Also the fact that it describes an activity means it doesn’t work like a normal spoiler (imagine the reconstruction of a book/movie). Spoilers are typically very small pieces of information that spoil a whole experience. Reconstructions are narratives, they’re experiential. If you read a reconstruction of a beautiful medium-specific narrative in a movie before seeing the movie, you still experience the beauty, so it’s not emotionally the same type of spoiler (I would argue it’s a non-frustrating type of spoiler).

Is comparing narratives acceptable and useful in reconstructionism? — Metaphysician Undercover

To correct my previous response (“not for classification purposes”), this could actually lead to building a knowledge base not unlike Christopher Alexander’s design patterns in architecture. I used to be interested in doing that, but now it’s not my focus.

So the gap between passive and active is only really closed in the experience itself, where the presence of the unknown causes a real need for an active sort of affection. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, about this active thing. What I mean by active consumption in the context of reconstruction is the activity of correlating things (the basis of any narrative). As you can see from the "copy" aspect of reconstruction, reconstruction is a little replica of the experience. In fact, the property of "pure referentiality" almost means it is the experience itself, except in a guided way. Ultimately, the reader of a reconstruction can ditch the reconstruction, and live the experience the way the reconstruction suggested.

But if you cut it loose from being a conveyor of meaning, then what use is there in art at all? — Raymond

I don't get what you're saying. We can always talk about something without talking about the author. There's value in that.

I'm trying to gasp exactly what you mean by "medium-specific narrative" — Metaphysician Undercover

May I re-use the example of motif M that gets repeated for the nth time? Well, that kind of thing. So medium is music, the same for both Metallica and Vivaldi. I say "medium-specific" because for another medium, painting for example, obviously it won't be about melodic motifs, but visual patterns.

Is comparing narratives acceptable and useful in reconstructionism? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes. But not for classification purposes. It's more for creation. If you can compare narratives, you can avoid re-doing existing narratives unintentionally. You can also use comparisons to create personal benchmarks.

I really do not think that this gap can be closed in this way. I think it is a gap fundamental to the way that the human mind works, and we ought not even try to close it. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree, we ought not try to close that gap which is part of traditional analysis. That's why I offer reconstruction outside of this whole way at looking back. Please keep in mind the example of motif M to understand what I mean precisely.

The artist did something completely contrary to intuition, something seemingly impossible, suddenly transcending the story. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, it's still part of the story. In the case of medium-specific narratives; obviously, motif M can be used in unexpected ways. How this is achieved exactly is the interesting part, and this is the whole medium-specific narrative.

but was this meant by the writer of the word PHYSICS? — Raymond

Who cares about the author? Sometimes I'll find an interpretation that's even more interesting than what the writer intended, and that'll be fine. Sometimes it'll be worse, well, too bad.

The notion of freedom is looked at from the oppressed. Freedom is only meaningful if there is something to be freed of. If there is freedom for every one, like the figure on the rope, freedom is not something to desire for anymore. That's why the painting is called "A look at freedom". — Raymond

That's true. That being said, painting is not necessarily the right medium for expressing what you intend. Given your description, there are many possible interpretations not centered on freedom. For example, one could say it's a painting about serious subjects vs light-hearted subjects. Or a painting about madness in the face of harsh reality. Blablabla

Then you can look at a painting as a painting too, if you look at a word as a word. But what does it mean? Is every painting devoid of meaning? — Raymond

Your question is essentially the same as the questions about objectivity. Who cares?

There are different types of meaning. Apparently, you look for symbolic meaning, or intentional meaning. I look for "medium-specific-narrative meaning". No meaning is fundamentally better than the other.

How can the objective view on the painting reveal that what it's trying to convey? I can give you an objective description of the letters in the word "PHYSICS", first letter, a small vertical with a semi-circle attached right above, second one two parallel verticals with a small horizontal in the middle, etc. but what does the word mean? And even the objective description needs an agreement about what's an objective feature. — Raymond

I don’t think “objectivity” is a very useful concept here. In most cases, the viewer will see PHYSICS as a word, and I think that’s enough for most purposes.

Is the notion of freedom an objective feature of the painting? — Raymond

Are you trying to play a game of Dixit or what? (Sorry for the sarcasm...)

Well, if peas are supposed to be good for me, I might want to develop a taste for peas, therefore follow the technique. But how is something like metal music good for me, so why would I want to develop the taste if I didn't already have it? — Metaphysician Undercover

To be more accurate, it’s not really metal music that’s the subject, but medium-specific narratives. They’re not specific to metal music. They’re actually genre-less. The more you pay attention to them, the more concepts like genre will appear arbitrary and silly. It just so happens that metal has some of the most interesting medium-specific narratives, and at the same time, it could perfectly be argued that a lot of metal (most actually) don’t have interesting medium-specific narratives. So I said “metal music,” but that’s actually a confusing choice of words.

Back to your question. So why would you want to develop the taste if you didn't already have it [taste for medium-specific narratives]? I don’t know. Could be:

1. Curiosity, taste for experiments
2. Existential questioning: if it “all sounds the same”, why have different motifs? In music with more structure than verse/chorus, why bother with such intricate patterns and elaborate song structures? Etc.
3. Doubts regarding traditional analysis/reviewing: the way we talk about music, and how analysis/reviews talk about it, are not how we experience music. What is this gap? The natural extension of this line of questioning is the development of our awareness for medium-specific narratives.
4. Intuition that there’s something more to music. How most people (and that includes 99% of metal fans) listen to music is what I call passive consumption, or superficial, mindless entertainment (I know, because I still listen that way when I’m not concentrating, which is most of the time).
5. The promise of a different type of sensations/payoff. Very roughly, it will lead you to something like big Eureka moments. In metal, you can superficially spot where these moments tend to occur. Traditionally, it’s in the form of “riff breakdowns” that are announced “theatrically”: the vocalist sometimes emit a distinctive exclamative roar, there’s a big break in the drumming, or there’s a striking aesthetic transition (for example, Metallica’s Master of Puppets when it switches to clean-sounding guitars). In the context of “great” medium-specific narratives, these kind of moments gain a whole dimension of significance. In other genres like classical music, these moments are not so much theatricalized. For example, in Vivaldi (who is my go-to when it comes to medium-specific narratives) the moment can aesthetically look like any other moment, and someone with no awareness of the narrative will just not hear anything different.

And if I already had the taste for it, that taste would be based in something personal, so how would the reconstruction do anything but subtract from my enjoyment of it, through distraction? — Metaphysician Undercover

Since it’s a totally different way of listening, it lives in a separate plane of enjoyment, so to speak. You can always revert to your old ways. That’s what I do, you can’t always listen with the focus required by the medium-specific narrative, that would be mentally taxing.

I wouldn't agree with your interpretation of metal music. Drums are essential to all rock music, setting the intricacies of the rhythm. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's why I said reconstruction is a helper. A reconstruction of metal music would totally change how you listen to music (whether it's for the better remains to be seen), even though it just "copies". Your analysis of rock music is very typical (in fact, it isn't far from what in the Manifesto is described as "description for the blind/deaf"), and reconstructionism is historically a separation from the trend it represents.

Why concentrate on the guitar, when it all sounds the same from one piece to the next? — Metaphysician Undercover

That's the most revealing part of what you said. I constantly said throughout our conversation "let's use the example of the motif M that gets repeated". Why? That's because people have that tendency to go away from it, and you saying "it all sounds the same" is one instance of it. If you focus on things like motifs and correlations, facts like "it all sounds the same" don't even enter the picture. There's a whole new world for you to explore. If you want to explore it is your choice. If you're perfectly happy with rock music, maybe you don't need to, and I'm not here to tell you what to do. I offer an alternative to people who still seek a way to tackle music/art that's deeper and more intellectually rewarding.

The problem I find is that in many cases the whole narrative might be arbitrary, imaginary, fictional, simply made up. Like in my analogy of a photograph, or still painting, there is absolutely no objective narrative in that medium, because there is no temporal extension, regardless of whether it's a snap shot of an action scene, as a narrative requires temporal extension. So whatever narrative which one comes up with, it would be imaginary, fictional or made up. — Metaphysician Undercover

In a hedonistic mindset, the fictionality/non-fictionality dichotomy is not a problem. It so happens that in reconstruction, we insist on "pure referentiality" (i.e., everything it says must be traceable), so that may look like an attempt at reaching pure objectivity, but it's not. The only thing that matters is what we can get out of the reconstruction in hedonistic terms.

This is why I suggested that reconstructionism might be better suited to some forms of art than others. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is. Why would one want to reconstruct a painting that is a uniform blue (Yves Klein)?

But then I don't understand the point, because to be true you'd just want to copy the original as close as possible, — Metaphysician Undercover

Not really. There are many things in a medium that can be redundant, distracting (e.g., as I mentioned, drums and vocals in metal music), or not an essential part of the narrative ("essential" here is subjective, dictated by the appreciation of the reconstructionist).

Furthermore, as you said, there's the ambiguity of the implicit/explicit content that makes a partial copy a bit tricky.

What type of art do you consider is more suited to reconstruction? One with temporal extension, and a real narrative, or one without temporal extension, therefore no inherent narrative? — Metaphysician Undercover

Undoubtedly, music. Then, on par, I'd go with text, movies, comics. Then groups of paintings (triptychs). Last would be standalone paintings. So you can guess that the main criterion is the ability to lay out a narrative temporally. Music is first because it's a focused and still very malleable medium. In theory, movies should be first, but in practice they are not (the medium is comically under-exploited IMO).

What's the real view? Is the creator of the work important? Is it important what they wanted to say? What if it's an image of gods or a mathematical expression? Or an image trying to convey the meaning of freedom or suffering? What if we look at the Quernica picture by Picasso? Should we take the war or his family into consideration, or just the painting "as it is"? — Raymond

To help you get an idea why these questions become trivial in the hedonistic context of reconstruction, let's take the Mondrian reconstruction. I could say the painting is by Mondrian for example. That it was painted in a certain period of his life, that it was inspired by other paintings. Now that we've decided that we'll use these facts, the merits of all these considerations can be empirically assessed in relation to the painting. If you take the reconstruction I gave, you can see that these considerations are not necessary at all to the described narrative. For me, they're tacked-on fluff, overused interpretation clichés. In fact, they're not more interesting than if I pretend it was Freud or Einstein who did the painting. So I don't care for them, and don't use them. This is a hedonistic process, not a quest for truth. Now, if you care for them, use them, although I doubt you'll find an interesting medium-specific narrative for them. Traditional interpretation is more suited than reconstruction for that sort of things.

What's the real view? Is the creator of the work important? Is it important what they wanted to say? What if it's an image of gods or a mathematical expression? Or an image trying to convey the meaning of freedom or suffering? What if we look at the Quernica picture by Picasso? Should we take the war or his family into consideration, or just the painting "as it is"? — Raymond

All these considerations are obsoleted in a hedonistic endeavour. Choose what you're interested in, and find a medium-specific narrative based on the chosen context/content.

It would be like study notes where the author of the Notes just arbitrarily decided which parts of the work to focus on. — Metaphysician Undercover

So regarding the "arbitrary" part : the individual observations of a reconstruction are arbitrary when taken in isolation. That's one of the things another poster in this thread had a hard time dealing with. They read in a reconstruction of a painting "there are verticalities" and don't know what to make of it, probably because they find it arbitrary. The thing is that reconstruction is a narrative, like a story. The reconstruction is made because the reconstructionist found observations that build up to an interesting narrative, with a beginning, a middle and an end. So of course, if you extract any part out of the narrative, it looks arbitrary. It's like quoting anything out of context. For example, "the prince picks a sword" in isolation is arbitrary if you don't know that he picks it to slay the dragon which keeps the princess captive.

The point was that the content isn't necessarily explicit. So if you take what appears to be explicit content, when the true content is implicit, then you have a false start. You are not really starting with the content at all. Are you familiar with Wittgenstein's rabbit-duck? Suppose you see an explicit duck, in a scenario like this, and you state "duck" as the content. Someone else might call the same content "rabbit". If you do not see it as both a duck and a rabbit, as that is what is intended by the author, and describe it as both, you have not correctly represented the content. So when the content is open to interpretation, i.e. there is nothing explicit, it is all implicit, how do you know that you are describing it correctly? Maybe your technique is only good for certain types of work? — Metaphysician Undercover

You’re not taking into account the hedonistic goal of reconstruction. It’s not to be correct (in fact, I find trying to reach correctness a boring over-valued speculative endeavour, which is one of the reasons for reconstructionism), although, as I stated before, it does stick to the content like a dog to his bone. In fact, in most cases, for reconstruction the author or authorial intention isn’t even in the picture. So, using your example, yes I might only see the duck and build a narrative around that. Not a problem. It’s not about being correct, but whether the narrative, even with just the duck, is interesting. If one day I read another’s reconstruction speaking about the rabbit and find merit to a narrative with both the rabbit and the duck, I may change my reconstruction. In fact, if the duck-only narrative is better, I’ll keep it and ignore the rabbit.

To me, this sems to contradict what you said, that the value of the reconstruction is as a helper. If you just pick and choose from the content, to decide how you want to represent it, how can this help anyone else? Any other person might just pick and choose in one's own way, so why would they want to be influenced by someone else, who might actually ruin one's own experience of the piece. It would be like study notes where the author of the Notes just arbitrarily decided which parts of the work to focus on. That would not be a help. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is answered in one of my previous posts regarding music reconstruction:

* People tend to NOT listen making these kinds of observations, don't care about patterns and correlations, etc. They're distracted by other factors, including emotion, aesthetics, immediate sensations
* It's hard to apply the same discipline of observation over a whole song. The reconstruction, as a whole, helps to conceptualize a wide narrative resulting from correlating many observations distributed throughout the song. — thaumasnot

So whether a reconstruction helps a given person depends on a few factors, such as their culture, their experience. It can indeed be revolutionary to the person, or banal. But even if it’s banal, it’s still useful. For example, for me at this point this is banal, but I’d be interested to read others’ reconstructions. Because reconstructions are an occasion to re-live the content through others’ eyes (the reason why many of us read reviews of things we already know) in a way that, for me at least, is much more interesting and productive that traditional criticism/reviewing (cf. Manifesto). Through others’ reconstructions, I can also find out new things. Don’t underestimate point 2 above (or even the variance that you mention in regard to implicit stuff).

Another benefit is that reconstruction changes the mindset of consumers. Since the focus moves to the medium-specific narratives, people are more likely to reconstruct great medium-specific narratives. So their selection of what to reconstruct becomes instantly more interesting to a person like me. That’s a potential basis for a reconstructionist community.

Somehow this discussion looks like a discussion I read on this forum.Look here.

There is spoken of a manifesto, like you speak about it. And in the same way, more or less, a conceptual reconstruction of science and its foundation is made. I don't say you have to read it, but the similarity is remarkable. — Raymond

I read the claim and chuckled. It's actually the type of paper that I would reconstruct for fun. I might do it.

Can you accept this division for me, between what is shown right there, explicit, in the content (the piece) and what is left to the imagination, or implied? And would you agree that the artist's mode of operation is often to stimulate the imagination, this being fundamental to the aesthetic experience? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes to both questions.

So if you propose to start with what is explicit, and build on that, how do you get beyond this problem of determining what is explicit? — Metaphysician Undercover

I think that the division implicit/explicit might be too academic for what reconstruction is trying to achieve. It's not so much implicit/explicit that matters here, than the ability to match the reconstruction to the content. So if I say "The music starts with a motif M (0:2 to 0:8) that gets repeated in the next phrase (0:10 to 0:18)", it doesn't matter that what I observe is explicit or implicit.

So the real problem is not determining what is explicit versus implicit, but determining what I choose to focus on while experiencing the content (implicit or explicit). Since the motivation is hedonistic, this is an empirical problem. In reconstructionism, the choice is to focus on things like melodic motifs. As you noted, motifs can be looked at from different perspectives, in practice it's not too much of a problem because the way the music is, motifs will often jump at you without you spending much effort. In addition, in your example of looking at a larger structure, you can do it at the same time as keeping in mind the repetition of M (that's the attention span I talk about). Networks of correlation are difficult to keep in mind (many data), and a compromise must typically be struck, where you'll ignore certain parts of the medium. For example, when I listen to listen to metal music, I will focus on the guitar riffs and not pay too much attention to the drums or vocals. There is a certain sensuality in the medium of music that helps filter "useless" correlations (it's empirical of course, and not always the best choice, which is why we share reconstructions, so that others may improve on them or improve theirs). Why would someone do this exercise, which sounds like tedious work ? Because there's sometimes a big payoff at the end, in the form of "beautiful" resolutions (that only narratives can bring). Triumph can only be attained through great adversity.

You think all people share the same instinctive narrative? — Raymond

It's a hunch, not a profound thesis. If I read my reconstruction, I don't see any observation in it that another person couldn't make. On the other hand, if I tell that the lines are a Man and a Woman, I don't expect people to share the same idea.

Regarding the reconstruction of Mondrian above, I don't claim any expertise. What I do believe, is that most people can arrive at the same narrative instinctively if they let go of any preconception and just look with good awareness. The reconstruction just helps to accelerate the process.

A JP like mess is sufficient for pleasure...A sufficient, but not necessary condition. Two orthogonal lines do just as well. Unless you don't view a JP-like mess as sufficient for pleasure... — Raymond

Well, pleasure is subjective, so obviously, JP can be a source of pleasure, and that goes without saying. That said, it can also be interesting to reconstruct, if it's not a homogenous mess. I just used it as a metaphor for "homogenous mess", but just to illustrate a point, not intending to say JP is a homogenous mess.

How would that look like for the two lines? — Raymond

That could look like this :

1. The horizontal and vertical lines intersect so that each line is divided into a short and long segment (before and after the intersection point).
2. The long segment of the horizontal line hypostatizes the horizontal dimension of the diamond (by being contained inside, and running across uninterrupted). You can see that this wouldn't work if the horizontal and vertical lines intersected right in the middle of the diamond.
3. The long segment of the vertical line hypostatizes the vertical dimension of the diamond (by being contained inside, and running across uninterrupted).
4. So the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the diamond only "visually intersect" when hypostatized

There are other reconstruction candidates, but that's one.

What are the objectives everyone sees? How do you tell someone who doesn't see the painting? Or should he see it during the narrative? Do you offer generally applicable instructions to conceptually reconstruct? I haven't read the whole theorem you offered yet, but is that the aim? A kind of objective theory of everything in the realm of products of art? With the aim to intensify pleasure? — Raymond

The reconstruction needs to be read with the painting side-by-side. There are no instructions for reconstruction. Follow your instincts. If nothing comes out of it, say the painting a Jackson Pollock-like mess, well too bad. The goal is to intensify pleasure, yeah.

The medium specific narrative. The kind of paint used? What underground is used? Objective properties? — Raymond

What you see, and how they interact with each other. Examples : linear transformation, parallelism/intersection, mutation, similarity. The goal is to find a "narrative" : a story of such interactions. Can we find one that is revealing/rewarding ? I must warn you that it's not always possible.

-Two black lines, one vertically, Man, one antivertically, Woman.
-Woman and Man shake the boundaries. The house containing them ain't big enough for the both of them.
-Man and Woman push each other into the corner, mutually orthogonal.
-Convexity is absent. — Raymond

OK I looked at the painting. Athough this isn't expressly forbidden by the reconstructionist method, I wouldn't use "Man" and "Woman" or "house" to describe the lines, that's just confusing and calls for an allegory that is contrary to reconstructionism (it's something you'd find more in traditional interpretation). I would just say the "vertical line" and the "horizontal line" for example. The next point that is missing from the description is the "medium-specific narrative" dimension. Each point in your description is isolated and doesn't interact with the others in a visual way. I'm not saying that you can find interactions that are interesting, this depends on the content.

I\m trying to grasp what the point to this style of interpretation is. It's a complex system without any real value scheme. Doesn't that leave it worthless? See if you can answer this question for me. What is the overarching goal behind this reconstruction system? Is the goal to produce good quality interpretations, as reconstructions, or is the goal to produce a complex formal system of interpretation? — Metaphysician Undercover

In a vacuum, a reconstruction is worthless. Let's use this example again:

"The music starts with a motif M (0:2 to 0:8) that gets repeated in the next phrase (0:10 to 0:18)."

Those are observations that anyone can make. While this is true, there is value because:

* People tend to NOT listen making these kinds of observations, don't care about patterns and correlations, etc. They're distracted by other factors, including emotion, aesthetics, immediate sensations
* It's hard to apply the same discipline of observation over a whole song. The reconstruction, as a whole, helps to conceptualize a wide narrative resulting from correlating many observations distributed throughout the song.

So what is the goal ? To provide a guide to consumption that can improve sensations/enjoyment. The payoff is different when you follow the guide (or more precisely listen to the song like the guide suggests) from when you listen to the song casually or interpret it along different axes of analysis (represented by the mosaic defined in the Manifesto). The nature of this improvement has other benefits listed in the Manifesto, including social (cf. section "social and cognitive impact of reconstruction").

Take a look at it this way for example. There is a relationship between any particular reconstruction and the original piece which is chosen. Is that a relationship of value? — Metaphysician Undercover

It has value only relative to the reader/listener, as a helper.

So I don't think you should represent this style of interpretation as any more objective than any other style. It is a different style, but there appears to be nothing in your principles which would make it objective. — Metaphysician Undercover

If we want to really nitpick, here are exact quotes relevant to our exchange:

Works are reconstructed in objective, constructive terms — thaumasnot

What’s objective is the quoted content and the correlations. — thaumasnot

So I’m not claiming exactly that reconstruction is objective. From a very strict reading of this, you could say that “What’s objective is the quoted content and the correlations” is not true, but reader with a pragmatic mind would just guess that what I meant is that the quote and the correlations can be verified.

So yeah, we agree. Reconstruction is not objective in an absolute sense, and I don’t care, this was never the point. I only care that people can relate it to the content without ambiguity.

The painting is conceptually reconstructed — Raymond

Do you have a link to the painting?

Yes, I know what the words mean, but not in the context they are being used. I don't know their significance, why we should be paying attention to them. — T Clark

That's the sort of things the other thread was about.

After that effort, I still don't understand the purpose or methods of your system. — T Clark

That's a bit ironic in the context of this thread, but your decision is totally fair. It was cool to discuss with you. I wish you the best.

Is it worthy of an independent discussion? — Outlander

There's already a thread like that.

Maybe pm one of the mods? — john27

OK I just did, it's not permitted. Thanks

But who determines what parts of the piece are mosaic parts? — Raymond

It's a mix of convention, habits, utility. Cf. intro paragraphs.

The work that is conceptually reconstructed has to be looked at in an a priori defined manner. Somehow, your theory reminds me of the scientific approach to reality, where empiricism plays a role. — Raymond

It's basically the hedonistic thing.

I will try to come up with a narrative for a painting. The narrative, by definition, has to be spoken or written or spoken. Or can we give a visual narrative of music, and a sound narrative of a painting? — Raymond

It's described further down in the Manifesto.

What you mean by medium specific narrative? — Raymond

Have you read the Manifesto? This would save me from repeating myself.

Do you mean you want to reconstruct the song? My method is to memorize the shape of the melodies as the music plays (doesn't have to be perfect). When a phrase happens, I compare it to previously encountered melodies in the song, and correlate motifs within them. This process is reiterated in real-time until the end of the song. A medium-specific narrative thus emerges, and if I find it great, I will write it down. Note that it can take many listens, because it's not always easy to memorize, especially with complex pieces like in classical music, and it requires an attention span that is not compatible with our "instant consumption" (or fast-food consumption, if you will) tendencies. I have a lot of experience, so it helps. Of course, whether the resulting medium-specific narrative is rewarding depends on your experience/value system, and the song. No amount of reconstruction will make a song sound great if its medium-specific narrative isn't.

What pieces of sound are objective properties? — Raymond

A very basic one would be relative position of notes (whether note is higher or lower than another note). This is constantly used in reconstructions.