chebby:
hammill:So to paraphrase your argument, if someone tells you they have fairies living at the bottom of their garden, unless you have personally investigated the fairy situation, you cannot have an opinion on whether the suggestion is reasonable. Futhermore, even if you do not find fairies, that does not prove their non existance, as other people may be able to see or hear them
I am minded to be a bit more sceptical that that.
So what faculty do you engage to hear all those imaginary, three-dimensional, musicians in your living room? They really are not there you know? I engage... 'suspension of disbelief', but you are '
minded to be a bit more sceptical'.
The quantum physics going on inside any amplifier or CD player relies upon some pretty strange phenomena (philosphical as well as mathematical and physical) being true for them to work. Anyone trying to explain them to a layman would be assumed to be a fantasist or a crazy person.
We all accept an enormous amount without question, without scepticism, and without a clue every single day. We simply could not function if we had to have an understanding of everything before we accepted it.
Common sense (or more accurately 'mob sense') is redundant nowadays, and can't explain anything in the modern world. (It never could really.) But it prevails as an attitude especially among people who pride themselves on 'straight talking', 'speak as I find', empiricism and a 'no-nonsense' approach. The sort of people who will
never give us breakthroughs in scientific understanding, but will
always assume it's mantle to defend closed-mindedness.
Common-sense is a fraud and it is often dangerous, but it is a very comfortable place to go.
Morning Chebby, intersting point but have to disagree with your mid-sectiopn statement that 'quantum physics' and 'some pretty strange phenomena' play a part 'in what's going on inside any amp or CD player...since when ??
Amps and CD players are simply a boxed collection of passive and electrical components that are coected together to produce an impulse current for your loud speakers to be able to produce sound...nothing more I'm afraid. No matter how you try to disguise it, and no matter how expensive, or inexpensive those boxes are, they are just better or lesser quality components packaged in more superior and technically efficient materials.
There is no mystery or 'phenomena' going on, the chosen components and materials produce a variety of outcomes; influence the current and signal supplied therefor providing a so called 'signature' sound...simples !!!