Can you discern a persons nature from the genre of classical music they like ?

[some guy]

Maybe the human mind is empty as you say and it's all nurture and the influences around us, though those influences are pretty much of other human beings anyway, so it's almost like a circular argument.

Dear starrynight, I did not say that the human mind is empty.

Read my post again, maybe?

What I said was that "The human mind" in quotes, denoting that I am commenting on the phrase, on the concept. The concept expressed with the words "the human mind" is an empty concept is what I said, as the rest of my post makes clear.

Nothing, therefore, about "nurture" or "influences."

Everything only about how your post about the problem of stereotyping was full of stereotypes. (I'll bet you like Wagner, don't you? )

[Brian]

Blues fans have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, gentle and at ease
Jazz fans have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing and at ease
Classical music fans have high self-esteem, are creative, introvert and at ease
Rap fans have high self-esteem and are outgoing
Opera fans have high self-esteem, are creative and gentle
Country and western fans are hardworking and outgoing
Reggae fans have high self-esteem, are creative, not hardworking, outgoing, gentle and at ease
Dance fans are creative and outgoing but not gentle
Indie fans have low self-esteem, are creative, not hard working, and not gentle
Bollywood fans are creative and outgoing
Rock/heavy metal fans have low self-esteem, are creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, and at ease
Chart pop fans have high self-esteem, are hardworking, outgoing and gentle, but are not creative and not at ease
Soul fans have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, gentle, and at ease

I haven't read through the thread carefully, but did anybody else point out that, according to this chart, only indie rock, rock, and heavy metal fans have low self-esteem? And everybody else has high self-esteem? That's weird.

Also, I assume the opposite of "at ease" is neurotic, but none of the fans were neurotic.

[Ken B]

but I do not think anyone claimed that.

Right. The only thing anyone has actually claimed here is that it's so obviously impossible that the question is stupid. That's a big claim. All I see in evidence for it is various forms of "I like Chopin, what does that tell you?"

Whoops. I amend. There has been one other enormous claim presented without a shred of evidence or argument.

"The human mind" is as empty of meaning as this shell here on my table is empty of walnut.

Just when we were looking for science denial, pretty much the entire field of psychology is denied! So much at least for the computational theory of mind!

[Florestan]

I haven't read through the thread carefully, but did anybody else point out that, according to this chart, only indie rock, rock, and heavy metal fans have low self-esteem? And everybody else has high self-esteem? That's weird.

Also, I assume the opposite of "at ease" is neurotic, but none of the fans were neurotic.

Never mind, actually. 

[Florestan]

"I like Chopin, what does that tell you?"

I was the very last person in the world to question your English reading comprehension skills -- until now, but much to my chagrin I was apparently wrong. Here is the OT question:

Can you discern a persons nature from the genre of classical music they like ?

Putting aside the persons / person´s issue, your posts here seem to imply that yes, you think it possible to discern a persons nature from the genre of classical music they like- Therefore, I ask you again: what is the nature of a person who listens mostly to Baroque music?

[Jo498]

I perfectly understand that there are biases inherent in those experiments and that therefore their results are not as generalizable as chemistry experiments. (I am not sure if anyone claims that psychology results could ever be as general as chemistry.)
But I think that this cultural bias is in this case an unavoidable feature, not a bug. (It might be a bug with a lot of psychology results generalizing from WEIRD people to the whole world with respect to all kinds of behavior that is common throughout the world.)

It is very simple, almost trivial: When you want to find connections between the reactions to or preferences for certain cultural artifacts such as musical styles or pieces and other traits of the test population, you simply need a subpopulation that has been exposed to a certain range of these musical styles. This restricts the populations you can use for your experiment. And this will of course introduce all kinds of biases.
If you go to New Guinea and play Mozart, Louis Armstrong and the Beatles for the Natives there you will very probably get rather different reactions than when you use me as a test subject who has heard music by all these before and has an aesthetic position as well as background knowledge etc. But this is just a different experiment.

[some guy]

I wonder. Can you discern a person's nature from spending time with them--going to concerts and movies together, talking about art and literature and science and politics? Maybe having dinner once and awhile, just the two of you?

[Karl Henning]

I wonder. Can you discern a person's nature from spending time with them--going to concerts and movies together, talking about art and literature and science and politics? Maybe having dinner once and awhile, just the two of you?

I may come to discern the person's nature.  Or I may come to mistake the persona that the person is presenting to me, with purposeful consistency, for his nature;  and his nature may be quite otherwise to the stage show.

[some guy]

Yes, I see. Like that time I visited you in Boston, and you thought I was a pretty nice guy in person.

Yeah....

[Karl Henning]

Sometimes the guy you think is a nice guy, is simply a nice guy 

[Brian]

I wonder. Can you discern a person's nature from spending time with them--going to concerts and movies together, talking about art and literature and science and politics? Maybe having dinner once and awhile, just the two of you?

My mom's grandmother had an aphorism for this. "You don't really know somebody until you eat with them, and travel with them." In my experience, this is close to the truth!

[Jo498]

travel is certainly a situation when you get to know people. Especially if some things do not work as expected and there is usually not an easy way to "get out" (in any case, opting out quickly when confronted with minor inconvenience would also be very telling).

[starrynight]

Dear starrynight, I did not say that the human mind is empty.

Read my post again, maybe?

What I said was that "The human mind" in quotes, denoting that I am commenting on the phrase, on the concept. The concept expressed with the words "the human mind" is an empty concept is what I said, as the rest of my post makes clear.

Nothing, therefore, about "nurture" or "influences."

Everything only about how your post about the problem of stereotyping was full of stereotypes. (I'll bet you like Wagner, don't you? )

I think you're just trying to sidetrack things with your last point again.  I never said 'all' and I said 'beyond'.  As I said I go by my own experience, including on popular music forums.  It's very obvious that older people can use music for other purposes beyond listening as well, I never suggested otherwise.  On this forum it's been seen in the past when people want to take sides on something it becomes at its worst a kind of childish game of who has the last word, as if it is some extra-musical game.  Some find it fun though to me it seems to go nowhere and seems without any serious point.  While it would be foolish for anyone to claim they are perfect, everyone is trying to improve their knowledge and objectivity, I would put myself among the more critical ranks of people rather than someone who is more aligned to taking sides.

But really the main point, as was succinctly put, is psychology.  Arguably the human brain is what makes us human, it's the thing that makes us very different to any other animal (to our knowledge).  If you don't think the human mind is important or is a concept that can be discussed then that's fine, that's your opinion.  I'm just not sure you've made a good case for it.

[Elgarian]

Why not? The question is very broad. Maybe there are some characteristics that are common to certain types of music. It may also depend just how specific you get, but it is an interesting question.

I like that distinction between the general and the specific, Neal, and I think I find myself with two responses.

The first, wearing my scientific hat, is to say that I doubt whether any generalised answer about this can be predictive to any useful degree. That inclines me to think it's not worthwhile pursuing - or at least, spending much effort on.

And yet, and yet ... something niggles when I 'look inside'. (I can't know about other people, but I know something about myself.) My love of English landscape, for instance, has always seemed strongly associated with my love of Elgar and Vaughan Williams. A strong inclination towards the power of myth surely played a huge part in my hooked-as-soon-as-I-heard-it response to Wagner.

Now, I can't work this backwards - I can't deduce that someone else's love of Wagner implies they're attracted to myth; or that someone else's love of Elgar implies that they want to tramp over the Malvern Hills. But I do know that within me, there is a link between some of the music I'm most drawn to, and these aspects of my personality. (I wonder if this realisation has any bearing on what drove the original question?)

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but at the moment I'm inclined to think that the most interesting and potentially useful approach may be not to look at others and try to guess what we can never know, but rather to look inside ourselves and compare notes. That might get at some neat 'after the fact' correlations - but I still doubt whether any generalised hypothesis will ever be predictive enough to be useful.

Afterthought: it might be possible to get some probabilities though - a bit like weather forecasting (and about as reliable!). You know, along the lines: 'If John likes Wagner there is a 25% probability that he will respond strongly to the idea of myth'. Or some such.

[some guy]

Nicely done, Elgarian!

I would add that one can also not deduce that someone's love of myth will translate into a love of Wagner. Nor that loving to tramp over the Malvern hills would translate into a desire to listen to Elgar or Vaughan-Williams after one has showered off and is having a nice cuppa.

If it were me, I'd be likely after such a tramp to spin a Karkowski disc. Or maybe Santorsola. That is, open a sound file. My disc spinning days went out with my discs.

[Karl Henning]

Afterthought: it might be possible to get some probabilities though - a bit like weather forecasting (and about as reliable!). You know, along the lines: 'If John likes Wagner there is a 25% probability that he will respond strongly to the idea of myth'. Or some such.

'... and a 15% likelihood he may have a penchant for Death Metal ....'

[Elgarian]

I would add that one can also not deduce that someone's love of myth will translate into a love of Wagner. Nor that loving to tramp over the Malvern hills would translate into a desire to listen to Elgar or Vaughan-Williams after one has showered off and is having a nice cuppa.

Yes, exactly so. But again, just as in weather forecasting, there may be a probability factor that could be established: we might find that there's a 25% probability that Jill's love of myth will lead her to a love of Wagner, for instance. Likewise that Jack's Malvern tramping will lead him towards the Introduction and Allegro, etc.

Maybe these aren't quite the kind of associations the OP had in mind, but I suspect it's about as far as we're likely to get.

[Elgarian]

'... and a 15% likelihood he may have a penchant for Death Metal ....'

Aren't these statistical fantasy posts of ours fun to do? Or rather, perhaps we should say only that there is a 25% probability that they are ....

[some guy]

Yes, exactly so. But again, just as in weather forecasting, there may be a probability factor that could be established: we might find that there's a 25% probability that Jill's love of myth will lead her to a love of Wagner, for instance. Likewise that Jack's Malvern tramping will lead him towards the Introduction and Allegro, etc.

Maybe these aren't quite the kind of associations the OP had in mind, but I suspect it's about as far as we're likely to get.

If we knew quite a lot more about Jill and Jack, maybe so.

I've always been interested in myth, but there's nothing musical about it. And I've never been all that keen on Wagner, even when I was young and could enjoy a few things for a little bit. And I cannot see how my interest in myth (literary) could every translate into any sort of prediction about what sort of music I might fancy.

And, for me anyway, my enjoyment of Introduction and Allegro would never lead me to wanting to indulge in any Malvern tramping, nor vice versa contrariwise neither nohow.

For me, tramping on one place does translate into wanting to tramp somewhere else as well.

And one piece of music does translate into wanting to listen to another piece of music.

Not that I compartmentalize in any way, but each thing that I do seems totally complete and sufficient and satisfying all on its own, on its own terms. A synaesthesiac I am not.

[Elgarian]

If we knew quite a lot more about Jill and Jack, maybe so.

I've always been interested in myth, but there's nothing musical about it. And I've never been all that keen on Wagner, even when I was young and could enjoy a few things for a little bit. And I cannot see how my interest in myth (literary) could every translate into any sort of prediction about what sort of music I might fancy.

And, for me anyway, my enjoyment of Introduction and Allegro would never lead me to wanting to indulge in any Malvern tramping, nor vice versa contrariwise neither nohow.

For me, tramping on one place does translate into wanting to tramp somewhere else as well.

And one piece of music does translate into wanting to listen to another piece of music.

Not that I compartmentalize in any way, but each thing that I do seems totally complete and sufficient and satisfying all on its own, on its own terms. A synaesthesiac I am not.

I was reading all this and thinking ... yes but, yes but, I really DO relate these things, myself, even though you don't. ... And then I realised what was happening. You are one of the noble 75% for whom the hypothesis doesn't work! You are the sunshine that we thought we were unlikely to get on this rainy day, but still hoped for!

I rest my case, M'Lud.