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Comment by vunderba | Hacker News Reader

> Beethoven seriously composed music based on a secret formula, which is entire mechanical and required no effort for him at all.

If he discovered the formula, then yes I imagine most people would appreciate the music just as much, if not more so.

If he copied the formula from somebody else, then he was just turning the crank - a far more sterile and mechanical affair.

Using Suno to "create" music is just turning the crank.

Related but much of Bach's music is just as incredible for its incredible mathematically relational structures as it is for its pure virtuosity and brilliance.

https://mathscholar.org/2021/06/bach-as-mathematician

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To clarify, what Nozick meant was what if Beethoven was just turning the crank.

"Yet our experience of Beethoven's string quartets would be diminished if we discovered he had stumbled upon someone else's rules for musical composition, which he applied mechanically". (p. 38 of https://archive.org/details/examinedlife00robe/page/n15/mode...)

I guess another way to put the question is this. Suppose there is an alien civilisation where their brains are hard-wired to make Beethoven level music automatically. Most of us can hum a tune without effort: these aliens can hum music that would strike us as original and compelling without much effort. How would we react then?

Plus: nice pointer on the math scholar link. I remember loving the musical parts of Godel Escher Bach. Wish there is a good interactive website where I can revisit all the content (and listen to all the music) there in the browser.

This stolen valor mindset becomes absurd if Bach anonymously open-sources the formula he discovered and dies before releasing any music himself.

Whatever music that follows, however hard fought for - even if 1:1 Bach output that he kept in a drawer, isn't beautiful? Just string plucking? That's not music appreciation, that's love of reputation you can easily grasp and associate with.

I think Nozick's example is meant to make us re-think whether there is a strict separation between music (or other artistic) reputation and love of reputation.

In Anarchy, State and Utopia, he tackles some utopian theorists' claim that, if equality prevails, everyone will rise up to the level of the greatest writers and artists. Would people be content then? Or will they still want to vie for "eyeballs"? If the latter, should we just admit that there is just a deep-seated human desire to compete for dominance?

For what it is worth, I've written up my reflections on skimming Anarchy, State and Utopia here: https://books-blog.3willows.xyz/posts/2024-10-26-anarchy-sta...

The artistic value isn't magically generated by the piano itself, nor by the LLM in isolation. It's the result of the skilled interaction, the human artistry expressed through this new and powerful instrument.

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