The Logic Off Topic list

> >  To outdo each other...? c'mon Kool man, this reads like a bad movie 
> script.
> >  The type of competition that's based of ego completely destroys the music
> >  for me. I play in a guitar quartet, when we're competing we generally
> >  suck bad, the idea is to play for something bigger than oneself.
> >
> >  Hmmm.. that sounds like a bad movie script too!
> >
> >  howard

Kool Musick read this and thought it both hilarious and 100% contradictory 
for he had already clearly and plainly said that the whole point of 
competition was 'to play for something bigger than one's self'. This given, 
he therefore thought the most sensible thing to do with the above remark 
was to say nothing further. But he thanks his fellow competitor Dennis Gunn 
who has done his best to bring the best out of this rather absurd competition.

And then concerning this remark from Wilson Zorn:
> >I don't see Einstein as in competition with
> >Newton - or in his case even his peers, at least in terms of seeking a prize
> >or seeking something exclusive.
... Kool Musick was so gob-smacked upon reading it that he simply could not 
believe what he was reading. So he had originally also decided to say 
nothing further. However .......

Albert Einstein's explicit aim - read any biography of the man - was to go 
one better than Sir Isaac Newton. Einstein was very specific and very clear 
that he wished to show how and where Newton's theories had failed to 
explain the evidence and then to demonstrate how and where his own theory 
of gravitation had succeeded in describing many anomalies such as the 
advance of the perihelion of Mercury's orbit. Specifically, Einstein wanted 
to incorporate relativity. Einstein was so determined to outdo Newton that 
he laboured mightily for over 12 years before he was able to produce 'the 
general theory of relativity'. This did exactly what Einstein wanted: 
transcend Newton's theories. It was the same with Einstein's photoelectric 
theory - and indeed everything else he did. Einstein's very first published 
paper was about Brownian motion. It was an overt demonstration of something 
very important: that the molecular theory could explain physical phenomena 
that other contemporary theories could not. He was being competitive. He 
was trying to prove that he had the best idea. Having trounced the 
competition with his rendition of Brownian motion he then submitted a paper 
about the photoelectric effect. This demonstrated that the molecular theory 
was SUCH a good theory that he could use it to explain things that no-one 
else could. He invented 'particles of light'. We now call them photons. And 
Albert Einstein's photoelectric theory - just like a great guitar or 
song-writing technique - was so competitive that anyone else who wants to 
'explain' light has to copy Einstein's riff. Regarding gravitation, the 
situation today is that Newton's theories are perfectly adequate for 'most' 
purposes - but when you want to do 'better' you have to turn to Einstein's. 
However, many scientists find even Einstein's theories inadequate for 
explaining the large structure of the universe. So they are struggling to 
find a 'better' theory.

Far from Einstein being an example of someone who was not competing, he was 
actually very very competitive indeed all his life and was always 
struggling to find a better explanation than anyone else could. He was a 
very very nice man, personally, and most self-effacing. But ... still a 
great competitor and a fountain of good ideas. He did always seem to have 
better ideas, and whenever Einstein started laying down a riff, everybody 
else listened. About the only stupid melody he ever laid down was his 
'cosmological constant', and even HE admitted that that was a really stupid 
song. We all write them though, right?

Scientists are ALWAYS struggling to find 'a better theory'. If they were 
not competitive then there simply would be no science and no progress. 'My 
way is better' is the cry ... 'prove it to me' ... is the counter-cry. 
Musicians are also always struggling to find a 'better way' to express 
themselves. If they were not we would still all be playing crumhorns or 
lutes and there would be no electric guitar. It is because musicians at 
some point want to say things better than anyone else before them has said 
anything that new instruments come and go.

To strive to excel ... even if one describes it by saying 'all I want to do 
is be a better musician' or 'I'm not competing against anybody I just want 
to play well' is to compete.

To try to find 'something better' IS to be competitive. Without such an 
effort one is hardly human. All seems simple enough to me.


Yes Dennis. It is ironic. The refusal to accept this account of the human 
drive to excel is in itself competitive because the refusal is grounded in 
the desire to have a better explanation. This is to try to win the 
competition in which the first prize is the satisfaction of having proved 
that human beings do NOT compete.



Funny old world, ain't it??!!!

(By the way ... I too apologize for having dragged this over to the other 
list. I hit reply to a message without looking carefully at where it was 
going. Sorry again, Phil Angus).

This old so-and-so is also finished with this thread. Anyone else who wants 
it is very welcome to the last word.

Kool Musick
Keep Musick Kool


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