Thouths about beauty (update)

[mikkeljs]

2.5 years ago I started trying to describe beauty in its very essence. Since then I was cyrcling around Abels Theorem of the unsolable quintic equation, and I used the idea, that if something is complex enought, it goes beyond algebra. In fact, that is what Abel says...

But it is not true! After having read about the ultraradical or Brings radical, I was shocked, that theise two theorems are saying the opposite.

Near the end of the Abel theorem, is says something like: there are no algebraic solution to the general quintic.

conclution on the theorem of Bring radicals: there is an algebraic solution to the general quintic. 

--------------------

So now, for a couple of days, I felt there was absolutely no meaning of life! I wanted to ask my piano teacher, if she thought the Good exists, but then I already knew, what she would answer: that she don´t care. And then I realized something I never even thought about - that the good doesn´t necessary need a justification. Perhabs everything in the world is full of eternal beauty, every number, every soul, and I think everything has a soul. And the feeling of that existence, is exactly what we can expect of the idea of beauty.

I used to be 100% convinced, that beauty existed, and was very different from the normal. I thought as well, that the phenomenon of beauty should contain

1) a will

now, how could we construct a will? The will could be an object, that was a thematical process with the minimal complexity of degree 5, with an unalgebraic common value, a mystirous common value as the result of the process. Then the process of the piece would be a will for a result, which would be thematical with the will, so it creates a cyrclus of energi stronger than anything.

Now the problem with the Abel theorem, is that there doesn´t exists such things as algebraic holes.

But this phenomenon can also be reflected into my new theory, that everything is good. I think it makes very much sence, that the existence of a number in itself has a common value (in itself), and it is exactly the process with no variables or displacements of any kind.

Do you think any of this is right?

[mikkeljs]

please, I hope you will not explode when reading this. It´s so weird and hard to understand (and explain as well), but it is very serious! When I was thinking about taking my own life, I always ended up with theise thoughts as the only thing that made sence for me. It may seem a bit stupid, but anyway there is nothing in the world as important for me as this.

[cx]

Do you think any of this is right?

No

For one thing, you seem to misunderstand Abel's theorem, and this whole algebraic theory of life doesn't make any sense to me.

Maybe start by giving real meaning to the terms you use, if you can. What do you mean by "complexity", i.e. in "thematical process with the minimal complexity of degree 5"? Or "thematical process"?

Feel better.

[mikkeljs]

For one thing, you seem to misunderstand Abel's theorem,

So it is a misinterpretation, that ´there is no algebraic solution to the general quintic´ means that there doesn´t exist any algebraic logic to the general quintic?  because there do exist an algebraic solution to the general quintic. The two sentences are 100% in conflict. So I would think, Abel made a mistake of textwise formulating (not that I don´t do that myself!)

Maybe start by giving real meaning to the terms you use, if you can. What do you mean by "complexity", i.e. in "thematical process with the minimal complexity of degree 5"? Or "thematical process"?

Feel better.

complexity: in this case I mean higher or lower degree of an equation, fx that a 5.-equation is of higher complexity than a 4.-equation.

the practical of a thematical process with the minimal complexity of degree 5 would be like this:

start with at least 5 random numbers in one set:

2,4,5,7,9

then combine them into new sets, so that all numbers must be used for every operation, fx:

2+5, 4+4, 5+7, 7+2 and 9+9

I would call this a thematical operation, since all numbers depents on eachother.

then I keep making operations untill I get the original set, which I thought was an unalgebraic common value, since it couldn´t be calculated but only succeed by experiments and intuition. But now I know that this is all wrong.

But do you follow me, that if any equations were unsolable, one could create such a mystical common value, so that the whole process would transcent a "will", and the unalgebraic common value would be the target of the will, since that target would be thematical with the will, and be "selfexpressive".

[cx]

The two sentences are 100% in conflict.

No, Abel's theorem says that not all 5th degree polynomials have solutions expressible in radicals. Some of them can be solved with Bring radicals, however (apparently).

But do you follow me, that if any equations were unsolable, one could create such a mystical common value, so that the whole process would transcent a "will", and the unalgebraic common value would be the target of the will, since that target would be thematical with the will, and be "selfexpressive".

I don't follow. If this mystical common value is just a solution to the equation not yet defined in the system, this is done in math all the time (i.e. if a polynomial takes integer coefficients one extends to the rationals so e.g. 2x-1=0 is solvable; one extends to the irrational reals to allow x^2-2=0 to be solvable; one extends to the complex numbers for x^1+1=0 to be solvable).

[mikkeljs]

No, Abel's theorem says that not all 5th degree polynomials have solutions expressible in radicals. Some of them can be solved with Bring radicals, however (apparently).

I don't follow. If this mystical common value is just a solution to the equation not yet defined in the system, this is done in math all the time (i.e. if a polynomial takes integer coefficients one extends to the rationals so e.g. 2x-1=0 is solvable; one extends to the irrational reals to allow x^2-2=0 to be solvable; one extends to the complex numbers for x^1+1=0 to be solvable).

Thanks very much for helping!

So you would say, that this mystical common value doesn´t exist?

Does it mean, that everything is solvable? That one can calculate the day tomorrow?   

[karlhenning]

I used to be 100% convinced, that beauty existed, and was very different from the normal.

Why did (do?) you insist that beauty and the normal are at [complete] variance?

Why is will a necessary component of beauty?  Why cannot beauty just Be?

[DavidW]

So you would say, that this mystical common value doesn´t exist?

What in the hell is a "mystical common value"?  Do you know how many equations can be found routinely in science and engineering that don't have beautiful analytic solutions?  How many functions can be written down that are non-elementary?  How many numbers are transcendental (i.e. not algebraic)?  What does any of that have to do with mystical mumbo jumbo?  Where you sober when you came up with your "theory"?

[mikkeljs]

Why did (do?) you insist that beauty and the normal are at [complete] variance?

Why is will a necessary component of beauty?  Why cannot beauty just Be?

I think it has simply been too far away for me to see beauty in the world for many years. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sence, that a number doesn´t need anything else but itself to become beauty. I am now working on a piece with no structure of any kind. I just write random numbers down. And when something doesn´t sound good, I just keep trying to enjoy it, and it actually works.

For me the world has been a hell of evilness bigger than I will ever be able to understand. I think that´s why I have always wanted to be on another planet and live in a sociaty only for musicians, and everything should be done in such a way, that would bring out the best possible musical possibilities.

[karlhenning]

I think it has simply been too far away for me to see beauty in the world for many years. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sence, that a number doesn´t need anything else but itself to become beauty.

Not sure I understand you, Mikkel.  You mean number, as in a figure (42, e.g.)?  How does the noun beauty apply to a number?

[Josquin des Prez]

Sorry, but it seems to me you are digging deeper and deeper into the proverbial cave while turning your back to the light. You really believe you can find truth by arbitrarily defining the answer then working your way around until you get the numbers to match the theory? Do you think that it was by such means that Plato came so close to the truth, to be sure, closer then most but a selected handful? Do you mean you never got a glimpse of the world of immortal and eternal things, you never learned to follow the shadows until you saw the light, if even for a mere instant?

[Josquin des Prez]

But the more I think about it, the more it makes sence, that a number doesn´t need anything else but itself to become beauty.

Can a number be ugly as well? Can it be evil?

[mikkeljs]

Sorry, but it seems to me you are digging deeper and deeper into the proverbial cave while turning your back to the light. You really believe you can find truth by arbitrarily defining the answer then working your way around until you get the numbers to match the theory? Do you think that it was by such means that Plato came so close to the truth, to be sure, closer then most but a selected handful? Do you mean you never got a glimpse of the world of immortal and eternal things, you never learned to follow the shadows until you saw the light, if even for a mere instant?

My old composition teacher always told me the same thing, and that I should be careful about thinking too much. But I never thought that thinking could be dangerous!  Of cause my life is full of different experience, both of light (I have composed since I was 7 years) but also overwelming dark. The dark have made me closing my eyes to many things such as people, who are not musicians - I see them as unimportant hopeless beings with little or no value. And therefore I was also convinced, that beauty was an isolated and special phenomenon.

Not sure I understand you, Mikkel.  You mean number, as in a figure (42, e.g.)?  How does the noun beauty apply to a number?

but if beauty can be found anywhere, 42 should be beautyful enought to kill for as well, shouldn´t it? If beauty need no explanation. Or would you say, that beauty doesn´t exists, if beauty is interpreted as the reason for existence, and existence as something that just happens?

Can a number be ugly as well? Can it be evil?

If beauty could be found in any number, then a process on that number could be evil as well, if it leaves the result changed. fx +3+5 would be evil to 4.

but I could also ask in a more simple way: why do you compose?  I really want to know. I usually have a strong light to follow, but in rare cases I have the feeling that even logic can fail.

[mikkeljs]

Music gives me the most convincing feeling that beauty really exists, but on the other hand people tells me that it doesn´t and that my strongest beleive is false, even if it were only subjective.  No matter how strong you beleive in something, if everyone keeps disagreeing with you, it will bring you out of ballance after some years. Why is it bad to think, why can´t other people see the light, that I can see and which have helped me toward depression and away from suicide? When this light seems to become foggy when everything collapses for me, I only have to listen for a few seconds to Allan Pettersson and there it is!  Is there any stronger feeling of commonness with the experience of beauty?

[mikkeljs]

When even logic fails, try odd logic. <imagine your favorite smiley emotikon here>

I agree with you about music and that "commonness of the experience of beauty." It is not always easy or comfortable to present ourselves to one another, but music (among other things) provides a pool from which we can all drink and commune, sometimes all at once in a concert, or over time or distance through recordings. As a group, mostof us have some rich image of say, the Eroica in our heads, and there is some charge that comes from encountering others who have some version of the Eroica in their heads too (far more interesting to explore than haggling over which is the greatest recording of the Eroica of all time).

Have you looked into Kant on the sublime and beauty? A theme that recurs (not just with Kant, although he captures it nicely) has much to do with a component of the experience of beauty is what we supply to the experience, and that beauty just can't "be" on its own Nature and mathematics  come up in discussions of beauty and sublime, and I think of that as some aspect of how mathematics/numbers is something we have devised (a way of mediating ourselves with nature). Some of the Kant stuff seems as silly as phrenology to me, but most of it not.

A number I have used in composition is 85,417,632:  I stumbled on it while walking to work 30 years ago.

P4 M2 P4/(m2)/M2 P4 M2 (it has a sort of carillon sound to it)

retrograde
2367 1458
inversion
1458 2367

So the retrograde = the inversion with the tetrachords swapped.

It also mirrors how tournaments are "seeded." In NCAA college world series there are 8 teams in 2 balanced brackets:
the top seed (1) plays the bottom (B) in bracket A
2 plays 7 in bracket B
3 plays 6 in bracket B
4 plays 5 in bracket A

A: 1458
B: 2367

And what I like most, is that, in English, 85417632 are the numbers between 1 and 8 in alphabetical order.'

I´m so glad you wrote that! I think it saved my day and christmas too. That example of a number showed me something that I can absolutely relate to, just like if I had listened to a peice of music - which I, in a way, have - though I didn´t understand all of it. So do you think the beauty we feel is a generalized interrest for the world? Just like math arises from a flow of interrest? It seems like the more we can mirror from a number or even generate new knowledge, the better, because it supports the number.

Then if we open up our minds to what is not only appealing to our basic human interrests, what could be anything, but also for something completely new that seems at first pointless and strange, which we experience when we hear music we don´t immediately like. If so, one could just write down random numbers, and afterwards spent all his energy to get into it. On the other hand, if we already have an idea to follow, we simply just have a natural musical experience already.

I digged into Kant some years ago, but only shortly. I will try to get time for him again.

Thanks so much for your post! 

[The Six]

2.5 years ago I started trying to describe beauty in its very essence. Since then I was cyrcling

hrm