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There are certainly differences in medium. Lego sculptures and interpretive dance are different things. But within a medium? Genre? The composition of the expre

There are certainly differences in medium. Lego sculptures and interpretive dance are different things. But within a medium? Genre? The composition of the expression? There are no real lines, only imagined ones. What is the difference between an interpretive dance and a walk? A shuffle? Falling down the stairs with elegance? You can try to come up with rules but there will be someone who stands completely still in a dark theater just because you said they couldn't, and calls it a dance. And it will be a dance, a kind of negative space of dance. You've already accepted that you can't draw any definitive lines, that there is no specific criteria by which you can say a given work does or does not belong to a certain taxa of expression. Now we're just bartering over how uncomfortable with the vibe you're willing to be. You can't say why Eminem isn't country because you can't really say what "country" is. For any single definitive criteria we could come up with a counter example, so none of it works. You just know it doesn't vibe. I have no criteria, I recognize that such categories are totally arbitrary and useful only in a very limited scope of suggesting a general set of characteristics in communication between like-minded people, but ultimately hold no exclusionary or binding power. And frankly, the bartering isn't an interesting discussion. If you want to say the Beastie Boys aren't jazz, more power to you, I probably agree. If you want to say meter is a requirement for poetry, again, whatever floats your boat, but recognize that's just your vibe, your personal ephemeral understanding. These things aren't useful or productive criticisms because they don't have any inherent value. If someone else says that, in fact, Eraserhead is a RomCom nothing is gained by saying they're wrong other than your own smug satisfaction that you have a superior vibe-o-meter. We can't derive further facts from that rejection. We can't say, "Well we know definitively it is not a RomCom, and therefore it will definitively will or will not possess any of these characteristics". The only purpose of genre is communication between people who are vibing on the same wavelength. It isn't an objective fact of the universe, it is itself a human expression, saying as much about the taxonomists as the subject of their taxonomy.

taeric 2y ago
I wasn't bartering on anything? I'm trying to learn your viewpoint, but nothing is at trade here. And I could easily say that Eminem is not a predominantly country artist because his work is predominantly not country in styling. Just as I can say a cardigan is not a t-shirt. Despite the existence of cardigan shaped t-shirts. Can he also do country music? Of course. Am I going for a David Allan Coe "perfect country western song" in this? Of course not. You seem to think only things we can mechanically judge would be fair categories. Falling back to math, even. This is why you accept medium as a distinguishing thing. If you were to argue that some points are easier to mechanically distinguish than others, I'd fully agree with you. Just as I'd agree that spelling is more of a social contract than an objective fact. I'd still argue that "wat" is an objective misspelling of "what" in the popular memes. An artistically objective misspelling, but still a misspelling. Amusingly, I think appealing back to math would be largely where I would go here. Leaving aside that LLMs can almost certainly pick up on differences between prose structure and poem structure; my argument would be that most categorizations are predominantly nearest neighbor calls. Very multidimensional, but also fairly discernable. And sure, some items would be on the outskirts of a cluster, sometimes even between clusters. I'd still say the clusters exist and have major commonalities. To that end, I think we are at a point I can agree to disagree. I would be with you that some things are largely by agreement of the audience. You lose me when you assert it is at the deign of the artist. (And please note that I'm comfortable with disagreeing here... I'm not trying to persuade you.)

taeric 2y ago

I wasn't bartering on anything? I'm trying to learn your viewpoint, but nothing is at trade here. And I could easily say that Eminem is not a predominantly country artist because his work is predominantly not country in styling. Just as I can say a cardigan is not a t-shirt. Despite the existence of cardigan shaped t-shirts. Can he also do country music? Of course. Am I going for a David Allan Coe "perfect country western song" in this? Of course not. You seem to think only things we can mechanically judge would be fair categories. Falling back to math, even. This is why you accept medium as a distinguishing thing. If you were to argue that some points are easier to mechanically distinguish than others, I'd fully agree with you. Just as I'd agree that spelling is more of a social contract than an objective fact. I'd still argue that "wat" is an objective misspelling of "what" in the popular memes. An artistically objective misspelling, but still a misspelling. Amusingly, I think appealing back to math would be largely where I would go here. Leaving aside that LLMs can almost certainly pick up on differences between prose structure and poem structure; my argument would be that most categorizations are predominantly nearest neighbor calls. Very multidimensional, but also fairly discernable. And sure, some items would be on the outskirts of a cluster, sometimes even between clusters. I'd still say the clusters exist and have major commonalities. To that end, I think we are at a point I can agree to disagree. I would be with you that some things are largely by agreement of the audience. You lose me when you assert it is at the deign of the artist. (And please note that I'm comfortable with disagreeing here... I'm not trying to persuade you.)