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I think you are missing...

>>The descriptions people give, for example, are that they 'hear' the sound stage to be wider, higher, with more depth, better separation of instruments, much more natural, instruments playing in the background that they had not been aware of before and so on.
Explain all that under the headings 'suggestion', the 'placebo effect', 'imagination', 'mood changes', 'effective marketing' !!<<

...the key point of what I've been arguing, and what neuroscience--particularly fMRI--has finally been scientifically demonstrating: that the things you dismiss--placebo effect, marketing, etc.--do indeed change what people hear, in the most literal sense. These things--marketing, other senses--cause changes in the deepest places of the mind (including the auditory cortex). The mistake you are making, in my opinion, is in dismissing these as superficial effects. They are not superficial. See, I think you're error is fairly small--like many things in audio, small but profound. You are dismissing as superficial suggestion, placebo, marketing, and other superficial effects, and insisting that what you are perceiving is REAL.

But REAL does not mean physical. Because hearing fundamentally has two parts--what happens in the air, which is not effected by those factors (placebo, etc.) and what happens in your brain--which is effected profoundly. And both are fundamental parts of the act of hearing.

So when you claim that these effects are real, you are absolutely right, and I could not agree with you more. But when you claim that they have a physical cause, I could not agree with you less. What you're missing, I think, is that a perceptual effect can be absolutely real and profound without having a physical cause.

I'm not meaning to be offensive. I now believe completely that you're sincere. But I also think you are wrong. The mistake is subtle, but it's important. Read the science, relax your convictions and allow them to change. I will do the same.

With respect,
Jim

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  • I think you are missing... - Jim Austin 16:49:46 05/28/06 (0)
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