Talk:Aleatoricism

Comments

I have to say that all the insertions of "[citation needed]" in this article come across as merely obnoxious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Clocke (talk • contribs) 23:54, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

The Books

How does this jump from John Cage to The Books

and what about The Books computer music is random, as opposed to worked out on the computer.

The article discusses Cage and then mentions The Books. The "jump" happens through a paragraph break indicating a new point or idea. Just because a computer is involved doesn't mean that aleatory isn't, and though I find nothing on AMG's band article or album reviews to indicate that this is the case with The Books, I did find a website mentioning but not explaining their aleatory ([1]). Hyacinth 09:55, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I can't see anything aleatory about the Books' style either. They use a lot of samples in their music, and there is always a chance element when working with processing and such (i.e. you don't really know how the clip is going to sound when you reverse it, until you've done it). This isn't aleatory though. I guess it would be closer to musique concrète. In any case, I don't think that the Books belong here. (This is a slightly different topic, but I think that the distinction between Boulez and Cage on this page is unclear. Cage didn't use the term aleatory, as far as I know, and their conflict had to do with intention vs. nonintention. Perhaps a more neutral, technical definition, not immediately connected with a composer could start the music section, followed by a brief list of a few composers and representative works, and a link to the longer article on aleatory music. Unless there are any objections, I'll do that soon.) JonathanDS 09:16, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

If you don't do it, I will. I noticed The Books being on here a few months ago, there is nothing aleatoric about their music (as far as I'm aware). On their page it also says they're aleatoric, which should also be changed. I agree, musique concrete is a much better classification. Why does this article exist at all? It seems to me that it should just become a disambig that leads to, for example, Aleatoric music and Automatic writing, and something for the film example (which I'm not sure exists yet. - Achristl 15:06, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've taken out the Books. Actually, I'd also question whether Automatic writing belongs here. The term aleatory, I think, is often misused as meaning completely random. However, with a die (and that's the original root of the word) you have a controlled randomness--you'll get one of a limited number of possibilities (i.e. with a die, the numbers 1-6). Mallarmé did some writing that was truly aleatory in this sense, as did Cage. Reducing this page to a disambig might work. After all, there's a more in depth article about aleatory music already. However, I don't know if there's enough material on aleatory work in the other arts to make much of an article, and I don't know that it'd be best to have them all on their own. What about going the other way and bringing the musical stuff here (as well as expanding and correcting the other arts)? What about adding a section on aleatory techniques in the other arts to the music article? I'm not sure if those solutions are any better. Either way, a fair amount of work needs to be done. JonathanDS 21:43, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup

I removed the October 2005 cleanup tag as there is no explination on this talk page. Hyacinth 09:55, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

The Dice Man

I added a short paragraph about The Dice Man, realizing that although its story is aleatory, the book wasn't written in an aleatory way. Feel free to change/delete at will. jkl 08:06, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

aleatory or indeterminate: we should take care...

It's fine to expand the perspective from music (my speciality) into more arts. comparisons could be interesting, even if the word "aleatory" might not be used in literature studies ... or am I wrong? Do literature people mention it ?? Anyone knows? This should be made explicit ...

Can anyone find documentation for the statement that aleatory means "pertaining to luck" ??

The Dice Man is a nice clear example of something aleatoric - judging from my knowledge of the notion as it is used in instrumental music. Automatic writing would, if there's any clear parallel between the music use of the concept and possible other uses, belong not here, but to indeterminacy - see [indeterminacy in music]. Because aleatoric is the use of a limited number of possibilities - as is the case when throwing a dice. (To thicken the plot, coin-tossing may appear even more limited, but the crucial thing here is not the isolated action which generates randomness, but how open the overall design is intended to be!!)

But automated writing should rather be transferred to indeterminacy. We would need to make a new article about that in general as an aesthetic attitude, if it is really a concept used seriously outside music. With links to indeterminacy in music and maybe more. In case...

No time to work this all through right now. Will just try to put on an "unreferenced" tag. [[[User:Intuitive|Intuitive]] 13:53, 2 July 2007 (UTC)]

Aleatory Democracy

I'm surprised to find no mention of this application of randomness.

"Aleatory democracy" refers to a form of democracy where representatives are selected randomly from a pool of qualified volunteers.

Random selection already plays a significant part in the political realm. For example, jurors and members of political focus groups are often selected randomly. Polls use random sampling.

Advantages:

Although electoral democracy -- the prevailing alternative -- is purported to give the voter control over the government, the election outcomes are more random than we might like to admit. The issues are often too complex for voters to understand, and the politicians are too duplicitous to be judged accurately by many voters. Thus, voters are required to make educated guesses, flip a coin, or take a stab in the dark. In electoral democracy, however, the random results are biased in favor of those best able to manipulate the voters -- those with money and power and media access.

Aleatory democracy removes this bias. Pure chance is incorruptible. Because aleatory democracy replaces or supplements elections, it eliminates all of the ills associated with elections: dependence on campaign donors, exclusivity, dishonesty, demagogy, divisiveness, scapegoating, broken promises, voter cynicism and apathy. There is no need for candidates to distort their positions to appease the powers-that-be. Candidates are free to represent their constituents honestly. Eliminating the electoral filter makes it easier for ordinary people to participate directly in self-government.

Since pure chance is without bias, aleatory democracy, over time, yields direct proportional representation.

The value of the aleatory approach to democracy becomes apparent when we consider the debilitating effects electoral democracy would have, were it applied to juror selection. If we were to elect jurors instead of selecting them randomly, we would turn juries into instruments of corruption, dissension, elitism, and cronyism.

Electoral democracy often brings incompetent or undesirable people into government, and aleatory democracy has the same deficiency. The deficiency can be remedied with provisions for recall elections, censure by peers, waiting periods, etc.. NonZionist (talk) 17:45, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

If it's reported in reliable sources (see the link), then feel free to add it in the article and cite the source(s). Thanks! HG | Talk 15:12, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Other Categories

There might very well be other categories to include, outside of the current Literature, Music, and Film. I suspect it would fit under a Photography section, but was not absolutely certain, as it is more related to chance in the presentation of the photos that in the creation of the photos. The example I am talking about is: http://mintyforest.com/random-foresty-pairings/ There are two defines sets of 365 photos, and a photo from each is randomly selected, to produce interesting juxtapositions. I'm very new to editing, so I bring it up here, instead of the main page. Stakor (talk) 18:08, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

aleatory vs. indeterminacy, revisited

I notice that, more than two years ago, Intuitive pointed out that this article is probably misconstruing the term "aleatory" to mean "indeterminacy". Scrutinizing the article now, I see that this observation appears correct, especially in light of the fact that the main source used for definition of the term directly contradicts the main claim that there is no difference between the two. I have consequently modified the lede paragraph and tagged several claims in the discussion that appear to be confusing the two concepts.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:00, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

The opening paragraph

It should have definition of aleatoricismm not just it's etymology, and what it is not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.27.25.12 (talk) 21:26, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Fred Camper

I appreciate the reference to my own film "SN," which has been on this page for a few years, and which I did not put there; I don't know who did. However I just made two small factual corrections, changing "18" to "16" and inserting "in one section."

I would appreciate it if someone would add a link to my Web site, http://www.fredcamper.com/, which has much more information on "SN," and on my own more recent art, which makes a variety of extensive uses of randomness. There is a page on "SN" with a few stills at http://www.fredcamper.com/F/SN.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fredcamper (talk • contribs) 21:19, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Oops, I see there is in fact a link to "SN" in the footnotes. All that I might hope for now is that my name in the footnotes be made into a link to the main page of my site... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fredcamper (talk • contribs) 00:07, 4 July 2011 (UTC)