[HN Gopher] Marin Mersenne on the Consolation of Sad Music
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       Marin Mersenne on the Consolation of Sad Music
        
       Author : pepys
       Score  : 26 points
       Date   : 2023-09-20 00:24 UTC (22 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (jhiblog.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (jhiblog.org)
        
       | rollcat wrote:
       | From TFA:
       | 
       | > Many explanations have been given, among them explanations in
       | terms of the Aristotelian doctrine of catharsis, according to
       | which it is beneficial for humans to purge their negative
       | emotions by experiencing art.
       | 
       | I'd change the last sentence to:
       | 
       | > [...] purge their negative emotions by experiencing them.
       | 
       | Negative emotions are easy to repress: we don't want to show
       | weakness, in what's an everyday rats' race. How many times did
       | you have to put up a happy mask when entering the office,
       | coworker asking you, "how are you", like on auto-pilot you put up
       | a smile and respond "good, and how are you?" while dying a little
       | bit inside. You're wasting your life on a 9-5 job you hate, your
       | best friend's old cat died, your ex posted a vacation picture
       | with their new partner, you're in conflict again with a person
       | you love, and you're a shoulder-to-cry-on short. You go home to
       | the safety of your noise-cancelling headphones and you put on
       | some Anathema to force the tears out.
       | 
       | (inb4 depressed rollcat, don't worry, I'm actually OK.)
        
         | avgcorrection wrote:
         | No wonder that many people find social interactions to be
         | draining.
         | 
         | I am perfectly okay with putting on the usual polite/fake
         | persona when I'm in a good headspace. When I'm not though I
         | just want to avoid those interactions as much as I can.
        
       | svilen_dobrev wrote:
       | same Mersenne as of Mersene Twister randomizer?
       | 
       | seems so: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mersenne_prime
        
         | compiler-guy wrote:
         | That's him. He was both literally and figuratively a
         | renaissance man.
        
       | _a_a_a_ wrote:
       | From para 1
       | 
       | In fact, we usually believe that only sentient beings can express
       | emotions. Given that works of music are not sentient, emotions
       | cannot be expressed in them. However, many scholars have recently
       | begun to show renewed interest in organicist cosmology, in which
       | objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual
       | essence
       | 
       | Suggest avoid.
        
         | avgcorrection wrote:
         | That's a fantastical explanation for humans just fetishizing
         | stimuli as being real (map vs. territory). Which is a close
         | enough approximation for most practical purposes.
        
         | MeteorMarc wrote:
         | Was my first thought, too, but the writing improves later on
        
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       (page generated 2023-09-20 23:01 UTC)