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Does everything need to have an application in order to be useful? What problems does music solve? Do poems facilitate solving some problems more quickly or ea

by hkopp 5y ago

Does everything need to have an application in order to be useful? What problems does music solve? Do poems facilitate solving some problems more quickly or easily? And if not, are they useless?

Iv 5y ago
> Does everything need to have an application in order to be useful? By definition yes. Other things can be enjoyable, of cultural or historical interest, or just interesting pieces of knowledge, but to claim that something is useful is to claim it has applications.
makeitrain 5y ago
Listening to music can help us focus and work harder. Poetic experiences let us appreciate life and understand people around us. Some things give practical utility and some aesthetic value. Neither is more important than the other. We have to eat to survive, but that is only the bare minimum. I definitely appreciate things more that provide valuable utility or some other derivative value. You're right that some works are appreciated beyond their utility, for how they are experienced. I do think there may be utility in these things even when the pattern is more apparent than the application. A good poem makes us feel something. I just wouldn't get the same feeling from a math problem unless it solved something for me. Not to diminish your appreciation for this, just that I find a poem more accessible.
- noduerme 5y ago
  I was with you about valuing things that are utilitarian until you mentioned math. Solving math problems isn't really akin to the other things you mentioned. After all, you don't read poetry to solve a poetry problem and walk away feeling as if you benefited from it. Hopefully not. But poetry is a fantastic analogy, and I think you may have selected that subconsciously. A great moment of seeing something mathematical with total clarity is exactly like the moment you suddenly understand a poem and have access to what the poet meant. Math doesn't actually have problems and doesn't need to be solved. It exists whether you figure it out or not. What's sort of neat about this is that it physically demonstrates that fact.
a_c 5y ago
Having an application definitely help spreading the concept. It is my first time hearing the term Chu Space, without an application, I have hard time motivating myself why should I read the article. We are more welcoming to new things when we see similarity to something we already knew. We use metaphor, analogy for this purpose - to establish conceptual linkage. As for music, I do think it fits the human nature (not necessarily a "problem") of longing for company. Or put it other way, we can't have our mind "empty" for long. The practice of "mindful emptiness" is meditation imo.
taneq 5y ago
Isn’t being useful the same thing as having at least one application? Music is entertaining and enjoyable to listen to. Poems can communicate mental states and feelings succinctly.
spekcular 5y ago
The desiderata I listed are generally considered the point of introducing new abstractions in mathematics. I'm open to the idea that there are other ways in which abstraction could be useful, but still, I haven't seen this case made for Chu spaces.

by hkopp 5y ago

Does everything need to have an application in order to be useful? What problems does music solve? Do poems facilitate solving some problems more quickly or easily? And if not, are they useless?

Iv 5y ago

> Does everything need to have an application in order to be useful? By definition yes. Other things can be enjoyable, of cultural or historical interest, or just interesting pieces of knowledge, but to claim that something is useful is to claim it has applications.

makeitrain 5y ago

Listening to music can help us focus and work harder. Poetic experiences let us appreciate life and understand people around us. Some things give practical utility and some aesthetic value. Neither is more important than the other. We have to eat to survive, but that is only the bare minimum. I definitely appreciate things more that provide valuable utility or some other derivative value. You're right that some works are appreciated beyond their utility, for how they are experienced. I do think there may be utility in these things even when the pattern is more apparent than the application. A good poem makes us feel something. I just wouldn't get the same feeling from a math problem unless it solved something for me. Not to diminish your appreciation for this, just that I find a poem more accessible.

noduerme 5y ago
I was with you about valuing things that are utilitarian until you mentioned math. Solving math problems isn't really akin to the other things you mentioned. After all, you don't read poetry to solve a poetry problem and walk away feeling as if you benefited from it. Hopefully not. But poetry is a fantastic analogy, and I think you may have selected that subconsciously. A great moment of seeing something mathematical with total clarity is exactly like the moment you suddenly understand a poem and have access to what the poet meant. Math doesn't actually have problems and doesn't need to be solved. It exists whether you figure it out or not. What's sort of neat about this is that it physically demonstrates that fact.

a_c 5y ago

Having an application definitely help spreading the concept. It is my first time hearing the term Chu Space, without an application, I have hard time motivating myself why should I read the article. We are more welcoming to new things when we see similarity to something we already knew. We use metaphor, analogy for this purpose - to establish conceptual linkage. As for music, I do think it fits the human nature (not necessarily a "problem") of longing for company. Or put it other way, we can't have our mind "empty" for long. The practice of "mindful emptiness" is meditation imo.

taneq 5y ago

Isn’t being useful the same thing as having at least one application? Music is entertaining and enjoyable to listen to. Poems can communicate mental states and feelings succinctly.

spekcular 5y ago

The desiderata I listed are generally considered the point of introducing new abstractions in mathematics. I'm open to the idea that there are other ways in which abstraction could be useful, but still, I haven't seen this case made for Chu spaces.