How much money do you want to waste?

If I put a watch into the ground, in a thousand years it may be "priceless." I have a beer can at home that is "worth" $5K. Is it worth it to me? Yes. To my girlfriend? No, she thinks its insane.

Now, here's the interesting thing: in all technology what we are taling about is the rearrangement of matter into various forms, by bending, carving, heating, slicing, dicing, etc. And, our "machines" are only these pieces of rearranged matter rearranged together. This may seem "out there", but its actually the simplist way to cut through the abstraction that we pray to, namely, "Technology".

The second interesting thing: What these guys who decry price are really saying is that the given rearrangement that people are paying for is not justified because its not a complicated enough rearrangement. In other words, if it looked more like a complicated "machine", as opposed to a wire that doesn't move like a machine (or amp), then they would be more comfortable with the price.

Is Van Gogh's 'Night Sky' uncomplicated because it is not "technological", even though, it too, is only a rearrangement of matter?

But hold it. The objectivists who say that we should look at only a circuit tracing to determine if sound is "good" are the same guys saying that the rearrangement isn't complicated enough. In other words, if you believe that science is right and we should only look to the interactions of matter to see our truth, then why are these same guys saying that one given rearrangement of matter is "better" than another?

Rearrangement is rearrangement is rearrangement.

Scientific people who are attached to one type of rearrangement over another? Hmmm, now who is irrational?

Question: How can a mind attached to the concept that the manipulation of matter (and the observation of that interaction, er, "scientific method")will give us all truth also say that one type of rearrangement (and the manipulation that leads to it) is intrinsically better than another (in a value-laden way)?

Now, bite your lip, but here's the psychological current repressed beneath all of this: If you want to argue that we should not be using our relative wealth to buy expensive rearranged pieces of matter when people in sub-Saharan Africa do not possess enough edible matter to sustain the matter of their bodies, well, then that's another argument. An interestingly point -and symptomatically, I would say - that has not been delved into, especially by minds that like "Science" that produces "Technology" that makes wonderful matter-products, that we, in our post modern western capitalistic world, consume (consume like matter...)

Now, that should stir the pot!! (Now, did I use the word "Now" too much..?

ASA, where did you get the panama red from? must be good :) All kidding aside you have an interesting point of view.

Maui wowie, actually ;)

1.machines, audio gear, are examples of rearranged materials, resulting from technology.
2.anti-megabuck cable buyers claim cables and electronics that are equal in monetary costs are not equal monetary and intrinsic values.
3.people in arguement two are objectivists who claim there are absolutes in terms of matter arrangements.
therefore,
4.objectionist are irrational.

I think this arguement is irrational.

Sorry, just stirring the pot.

Note: There is a difference between the validity of objective evidence - the continuum of "technology" from Homo habilis, reaching for a bone and rearranging its matter by carving, to the rearrangement of silicon, etc on a computer chip - and the ATTACHMENT to that cognitive ability, or an attachment to the products of that attachment, namely, the rearranged matter. These are two entirely different kettle of fish. Scientific-derived knowledge is valid for its purposes as a discipline; the exclusive attachment to it by the individual mind is irrational.

When I go deeply into the music and the force of my thinking fades as I let go of my habit of objectifying things I want to see and manipulate, in that state absent objectfying cognition, have I ceased perceiving? Is a perception absent objectifying valid?

An objectivist always believes that when you challenge the validity of an ATTACHMENT to scientific objectivism that you are attacking the validity of scientific knowledge itself and in its entirety. What I am challeging is peoples' minds' attachment to scientific knowlege as exclusive knowledge, its partiality, not its validity in whole. It gives great knowledege about matter, but the listening to stereo is not just about equipment, or producing a stereo soundfield populated with detailed sound sources that "look" like things, but about the mind's ability to seep deeper into the music by transcending the attachment to objectifying sound into a thing. This deepening - and I challenge any objectivist - is characterized by the "letting go" of the attachment to thinking, namely, objective thinking.

Viggens response reveals an interesting bias.

Whenever you say something about the limitations of objective knowledge, those ATTACHED to scientific materialist assumptions claim that you are saying that objective knowledge itself is invalid/irrational in whole. I'm not saying that: I'm saying that the mind's attachment to it is irrational because it denies all perception beyond itself.

Sympotomatically, Viggen, you say that "rearranged matter results from technology", as if "technology" was a thing separate from the matter. "Technology" is not a thing; it is an abstraction. I am saying that "Technology" IS ONLY rearranged matter and the objectivists making it into a thing, as their totem to pray to, is symptomatic of the irrationality described above.

To go deeper into the Music, you must let go of your attachemnt to control the music through your objectifying mind. No objectivist-attached mind who listens to music can deny the validity of this dynamic of the listening mind because he/she is performing the experiment UPON themselves!

And this is why I find the Hi fi microcosm so interesting: because the scientific-attached are finally performing an experiment on their own mind where they have to admit that their attachment to objective knowledge is partial. There does exist perceptive knowledge beyond thinking and the listening experience proves this, empirically, even to the thinking-attached.

So, here's the big question: if even the objectivists must admit that value exists in the non-thinking spaces of their listening mind as they deeply listen to music, then why, when they stop listening and start thinking and talking, are they suddenly once more arguing that nothing exists beyond that thinking? Answer: its the ATTACHMENT.