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  #76  
Old 07-04-2009, 04:33 PM
Howard Klepper Howard Klepper is offline
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Like anything else: Esse est percipi.
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  #77  
Old 07-04-2009, 04:50 PM
Jeff M Jeff M is offline
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Originally Posted by Howard Klepper View Post
Like anything else: Esse est percipi.
And the absence of perception makes things "not be"?
A heart attack in the middle of the night resulting in instantaneous death is no less real because the person who suffers it didn't have the opportunity to register it with their senses.
Or the bullet to the back of the head....or the rock that knocks somebody out (I've "experienced" that one. One minute, I'm up and about, the next I'm waking up on the pavement.)

Like it or not, things ARE or ARE NOT.
Now...the question comes up, if something is NOT (lets use a guitar opening up for instance ) yet the person believes that it IS...does it really matter to that person?
No...if it doesn't matter if other people "hear" it or not, yes, if the guitar is hooked up to a device which can actually measure whether it has "opened up" or not..and if it HASN'T, it sets off a bomb under the guys chair. ("Schroedinger's guitar" )
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  #78  
Old 07-04-2009, 05:13 PM
Howard Klepper Howard Klepper is offline
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And the absence of perception makes things "not be"?
Not exactly. Calling something a "thing" and saying it can be made to not be presupposes its existence. I.e., it's question begging (in the proper usage of that term, not the misuse that has become popular).

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(I've "experienced" that one. One minute, I'm up and about, the next I'm waking up on the pavement.)
I think the Bishop might say you have just made his argument for him.

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Like it or not, things ARE or ARE NOT.
I'm good with that.

Bigger point: There is no logical inconsistency in Berkeley's idealism/immaterialism. Nor is he unable to explain within his theory all the things and events you can come up with. Of course it flies in the face of common sense and how we talk about the world, but he knew that. You can't refute it by simply denying it, which is what Johnson and most others try to do. People try to dress up their "refutations," but they are reducible to some version of "We know these things have material existence, so Berkeley is wrong." Johnson (who was surrounded by a bunch of groupies who were impressed with his every quip and, led by Boswell, wanted to preserve his every utterance for posterity) "knew" Berkeley was wrong because he saw the rock, felt it on his toe, heard those around him agree that it was there, etc. No problem for Berkeley. Every way anyone knew the rock was there relied on perception.
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Last edited by Howard Klepper; 07-04-2009 at 05:18 PM.
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  #79  
Old 07-04-2009, 05:48 PM
Jeff M Jeff M is offline
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.. Every way anyone knew the rock was there relied on perception.

Boils down to "perception" again. Or, as a physicist would say, "observation".
Schroedinger's cat once more.
Does the cat exist in some half dead/half alive state until you perceive it to be one or the other?

The rock, observed or not, is either there or it isn't.
You can't make it go away by failing to perceive it...just as you can not will it into reality by "observing" it to be there (as somebody suffering from schizophrenia might.)

Swinging back to the subject at hand....
Either a guitar opens up, or it doesn't.
A person may perceive that it has when it hasn't...or not notice when in fact it has.
Their "perception" is what matters to them...but it may in fact not be based on reality.

Buying a guitar based on the belief in the sales persons line of "when it opens up..." or others assertions that all guitars open up in x months to such an such a degree is a recipe for disappointment.
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  #80  
Old 07-04-2009, 07:56 PM
SongwriterFan SongwriterFan is offline
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Schroedinger's cat once more.
Does the cat exist in some half dead/half alive state until you perceive it to be one or the other?
Most people don't know this, but Schroedinger was actually using the cat example to demonstrate the absurdity of quantum mechanics.

Sorta like how "The Big Bang" was actually a derogatory term when it was invented.
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  #81  
Old 07-05-2009, 06:51 AM
brian a. brian a. is offline
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......Sorta like how "The Big Bang" was actually a derogatory term when it was invented.
"The Big Bang", is that when then universe "opened up"??????

Sorry, I couldn't resist.
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  #82  
Old 07-05-2009, 07:00 AM
HHP HHP is offline
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"The Big Bang", is that when then universe "opened up"??????

Sorry, I couldn't resist.
But after a couple of trillion years, the Bang is louder and the universe is smoother.
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  #83  
Old 07-05-2009, 11:26 AM
1cubilindo 1cubilindo is offline
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Lot of deep thinking going on here. The view from us superficial types is that guitars seem to change over time due to the various forces at work on them 24/7. Different people have different names for it. Sometimes change is good...but not always.
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  #84  
Old 07-05-2009, 02:16 PM
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ljguitar ljguitar is offline
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...Sometimes change is good...but not always.
Hi 1c...
I suppose if one extrapolates the entire life of a guitar from birth to total degradation, it will eventually get 'worse'.

But I've played a lot of older instruments from the 1920s and 1930s, (vintage type) and have never played or heard one that got worse as it aged.
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  #85  
Old 07-05-2009, 02:18 PM
Herb Hunter Herb Hunter is offline
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If I had the opportunity to play a 1920s vintage guitar, how would I know that its present tone wasn't worse than what its tone once was?
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  #86  
Old 07-05-2009, 02:26 PM
Jeff M Jeff M is offline
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If I had the opportunity to play a 1920s vintage guitar, how would I know that its present tone wasn't worse than what its tone once was?
Because....well.....it's VINTAGE!!!!
(And, if you listened to a recording of the guitar from the 1920's, you'd hear the OBVIOUS differences. )
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  #87  
Old 07-05-2009, 02:31 PM
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If I had the opportunity to play a 1920s vintage guitar, how would I know that its present tone wasn't worse than what its tone once was?
Hi Herb...
A really good question. Many of the vintage guitars I've been fortunate to play over the past 45 years, I've been able to play episodically over that 45 years. Several were instruments which were bought 'used' in the 1960s, and they have continually improved since then till now.

I'm guessing - based on my experience with them - about the rest I've played which are earth-shaking examples. I have been fortunate to know original owners of gutiars from the 1940s (they bought them in the 1940s and own them today) who tell me about improved tone of their instruments over the decades. I'm guessing about the rest I've played which are earth-shaking examples - based on my experience with the ones I've played for the past 40 years plus.

I have two friends with 000-15 Martins from the late 1930s, and the same models are still being built today. The new ones sound nothing like the vintage ones...not by a long shot. Not in the same league, not even close to similar tone.

There are a variety of reasons vintage guitars are sought after (investment and sound/tone). When I find myself playing one of these instruments-built-way-back-when, the reasons they are prized become immediately apparent.
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  #88  
Old 07-05-2009, 04:04 PM
SongwriterFan SongwriterFan is offline
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Originally Posted by ljguitar View Post
I have been fortunate to know original owners of gutiars from the 1940s (they bought them in the 1940s and own them today) who tell me about improved tone of their instruments over the decades.
Hearsay doesn't count.

I wonder if anybody has ever taken a "challenge" like the one I'm about to propose, and passed it?

Have somebody play 30 guitars for the subject, from behind a curtain that prevents the subject from seeing the guitars. Label the guitars 1 to 30. Play the same exact passage on each guitar.

Then, come back an hour later, and play the guitars again (in random order). Same guitarist, same place, same piece of music, etc. Have the subject assign the correct number to each guitar.

Repeat the next day, the next week, the next month, and then the next year . . just for fun.

Maybe there are a FEW who could pass such a test with statistical significance (at least an hour or day later).
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  #89  
Old 07-05-2009, 05:11 PM
jeremy3220 jeremy3220 is offline
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Originally Posted by ljguitar View Post
I have two friends with 000-15 Martins from the late 1930s, and the same models are still being built today. The new ones sound nothing like the vintage ones...not by a long shot. Not in the same league, not even close to similar tone.
There are guitars of the same name(000-15) being made today but they're built differently. Just like Martin still makes a guitar called the "D-28" but it's very different than a 1935 D-28. You can't expect to know how a 1930's 000-15 sounded when it was new by going out and playing a 2009 000-15.
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  #90  
Old 07-05-2009, 08:37 PM
brian a. brian a. is offline
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Originally Posted by jeremy3220 View Post
There are guitars of the same name(000-15) being made today but they're built differently. Just like Martin still makes a guitar called the "D-28" but it's very different than a 1935 D-28. You can't expect to know how a 1930's 000-15 sounded when it was new by going out and playing a 2009 000-15.
Sorry, I don't want to nitpick but Martin didn't make the 000-15 until 1998. The 000-16 started in 1989. They made one 000-17 in 1911 and 25 in 1952. So maybe you guys are thinking 000-18, 000-21 or 000-28's.
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