[sdiy] Phase shifts and instantaneous frequency

[GRAHAM ATKINS]

Can we end this debate please, it is getting boring and turning into a
slanging match and has little relevance to day to day synth DIY  
issues.....

Graham
On Jul 18, 2008, at 10:46, cheater cheater wrote:

> Dear Aaron,
>
> I know, appreciate, understand, and really like how this theory does
> let you develop great things, and all the prople involved are doing a
> magnificient job.
> However, the causality isn't there, and just because 'it works' it
> doesn't mean that you can definitely state that 'it's true' or that
> 'it's not true'.
> For example, until modern chemistry was conceived, there was a theory
> that all things that would burn had fire inside them, and it was
> simply released. This theory worked quite well until it was abolished
> by a theory yielding better results. It's still a theory, though, and
> was abolished by what is merely another theory. Not disproven.
>
> Even after going past the problem of our brains not doing
> computational algebra in a well-ordered field, etc, looking at this in
> a more relaxed fashion, and permitting using terms such as 'Fourier
> analysis' and 'frequency domain' for lack of better words, there's
> still a slight problem. You can't disprove either the 'inherent fire
> theory' or chemistry or quantum chemistry. Just in the same way, you
> can see that  [frequency-oriented approach](A)=>[works with the
> ear](B) and that's a well established fact that's a wonderful
> achievement, but there is no way that from this you can synthesize the
> truth of the statement that `the ear works in a frequency-oriented
> fashion` (B => A).
>
> Nature doesn't solve Maxwell's equations - just like grass doesn't
> chew itself in a cow's mouth - Maxwell's equations are a quite
> simplified model of a system which is infinitely more complex. They're
> still a great tool, because the simplification is done in the right
> places enabling us a wholesome understanding of a problem at a certain
> level, just simple enough for humans to understand. Go a bit further
> and the problem becomes so wild that you can't make any sense out of
> it, because you're looking at too many things at once.
>
> Psychoaccoustics are a purely observational science and thus,
> depending on what you observe, you will yield different theories (but
> still the same results, which makes it a scientific theory). In this
> way, I find that, until we get an envelope from God with a letter
> describing how things work, we won't be able to grasp the true,
> inherent, essence of the human auditory system, and there will be
> always one more tiny element of the picture that we can't work out.
> That's why I encourage not to get locked into thinking 'that's how the
> ear works, period', as this can truly hamper the development of
> alternate theories which could seem weird and unlikely to be true, but
> could yield very good results. Actually, even generally untrue
> theories sometimes have very narrow applications that yield great
> results extremely easily.
>
> And until I get the forementioned envelope, I feel free to believe
> that wood contains fire.
>
> But ears don't integrate and don't do Fourier analysis. 8^)