Since I said nothing of 'cures', but wrote only of treatment for a *belief*, nor do I hold that one can be 'cured' of *bias*, apparently you had some other axe to grind.





Thank you ever so much again, Obvious Man.




I've had about enough of your sophistry for one session, Scott. (btw, remind me, are you or are you not the same SWheeler from rahe and Hoffman's forum? He too was prone to such tedious rhetorical game-playing. The resemblance is uncanny if not). By 'subjective truth' I mean 'what you conclude to be true *about the objective world*, based only on your impression'. I don't mean that the perceptions don't exist...or are insincerely believed -- I mean that the conclusions we draw from them can and are often WRONG. Clearly our subjective truth-claims -- our models -- often turn out to be wrong -- they are INACCURATE models of reality.


Like, arriving at the 'subjective truth' from a 'sighted' audition that one CD player sounded better than another, when the objective truth was that the same CD player was simply played twice.

That wasn't pure ad hominem at all. He wrote:

What about all the listeners who derive an equally great amount of subjective pleasure on an otherwise equal setup, in spite of the cheap cables they listen with? Surely you won't deny that they can enjoy their system just as much even though their systems are wired more cheaply?



(1) They don't get on the internet blathering about how ordinary cables constitute a killer sonic upgrade.

(2) Since they enjoy their systems just as much, they don't have to deal with cognitive dissonance in having to justify to themselves the big bucks spent on cables that generate "benefits" that aren't objectively measurable.

Point (2) points out the unhealthy feedback loop audiophiliacs find themselves in. They end up spending more to justify their belief that their system has been improved as a result of the added expenditure. Then to prove to themselves that they haven't wasted their money, they inevitably find themselves arguing with objectivists, who might just happen to be subjectively enjoying their sound systems every bit as much (and at lesser expense).

Comparing the two sets of subjective experiences, what would make audiophiliacs think their expensively-cabled systems sound any better to them than a cheaply-cabled system sounds to someone else? Y'know, it's actually possible for a listener, with science on his side, to believe that his cheaply-wired system sounds every bit as superb. If audiophiliacs feel the need to spend a lot more to feel equally good, well doesn't that constitute some form of pathology?

More nonsense. I clearly wrote that anyone can derive pleasure from anything they like (provided it is legal) but that doesn't mean it is true, right, correct, or based on fact.

Big fat NO, because I don't base my judgements on nonsense. But of course anyone can do so if they wish, it doesn't make them right, and ultimately just demonstrates that some people buy into delusions.