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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35390 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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I think this is stretching relativism a little too much. A person who prefers listening to a low quality version of a song over a high quality version is someone who is odd, or interested in it for non-musical reasons like nostalgia. The vast majority of people prefer high fidelity music (that they can perceive). Sites like YouTube and phones like the iPhone make the default audio card high quality because so many people enjoy this. Similarly, only a very rare person enjoys watching videos on 480p, or collecting lo-res images.

There really seems to be a clear association between greater sensitivity/detail/perception (whichever word we want to use, they refer to the same cognitive antecedents) and increased enjoyment. Why go see a symphony in person if the experience is not greater? Why bother with greater graphics?

whether or not they get actual greater enjoyment out of it is an open question

Is it really open? What bird song enjoyer would not desire to hear bird songs in maximum fidelity? It’s considered a tragedy when bird song enjoyers have reduced hearing sensitivity

You're comparing the difference within an individual and the difference between individuals in terms of enjoyment from different fidelity. Different individuals have intrinsically subjective experience of what they enjoy, and this difference is even more pronounced when comparing different species. The leap in how a dog's taste sensations translate to the dog's experience of "enjoyment" is something that's not really understood, even worse than how the leap exists in humans. So positing a sort of straight-up relationship between the higher sensitivity to higher enjoyment (or potential for such) isn't justified.

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