The Prog Mind

Oh the battle is done. Peace is a lovely way to get back on track.
Anyway, whose up for some Subterrenea?? What an album that is.

It guess it depends on what you feel is important.  Philosophy tries to tackle the human experience, metaphysics, the problems of sin and pain and death, and other deep reflections.  How can rumination on these topics be a waste of time?  If anything, pondering them can at least sharpen your mind or stabilize you as a thinking person.  As someone else stated, if philosophy is a waste of time and mind; then stories, art, and even just listening to other people are all wastes of time.  Philosophy asks "Why are we here?", and I think one of the answers is "For other people".  That said, I definitely can listen to great music without powerful or well-written lyrics (Seventh Wonder's cliche poetry comes to mind).  I also love a good instrumental album, but I find I like it more when the music is highly emotive.  Some of my favorites in this category are Lunatic Soul (the last album), Hostsonaten (the Season Cycle), and Joseph Magazine.  

^ Do they have any lyrical profundity?

Dayvenkirq wrote: ^ Do they have any lyrical profundity?

Edited by dr wu23 - May 17 2013 at 14:35

Dayvenkirq wrote: dr wu23 wrote: Dayvenkirq wrote: ^ Do they have any lyrical profundity?   Not sure if you were talking to me but...I think they do at times. I guess it depends on how one wants to interpret lyrics also. I think the songs Frequency and Ryker Skies are very interesting lyrically. But nothing serious or enlightening to offer?

True, but the strongest philosophical messages are highlighted a bit more in Subteranea. Really, all of IQ's albums are saturated with philosophic quandaries. :) ^

In defense of Philosophy, I believe that Philosophy both shapes and reflects upon the patterns of thought held by a society.  If we rewind back to Aristotelian times, his exhaustive and methodical segmenting of the natural world eventually gave birth to our entire study of science and the standards of logic.  We take for granted that these laws of nature, these logical truths have always been there, but if so, where were they?  It's all based upon a set of analogs, the logos of our Western thought, that originated from Philosophy.  This is why cultures so different from our own seem so alien and (sometimes, crassly put), "stupid", because they don't adhere to the basic "truths" that we take for granted.  But their systems work too -- their reality is based on a different set of analogs, a different philosophy.

I would probably agree with Dean that Philosophy has done more harm than good - but not because it's useless and empty, but because the Philosophy itself is the basis for everything good and bad.  It's the whole thing.   Great sea changes in civilization (Renaissance, Major Scientific advances, etc), the growing pains of mankind, all originate from new developments in Philosophy.  I think it behooves us to want to understand what is at the very roots of our belief system, if progress is to be possible.

Plus, I majored in Philosophy biyyaaatch

I find most lyrics (especially in prog) to be banal & trite, and those are the good ones. I'm not looking to be uplifted by lyrics, I looking for them to work well with the music to provide an overall effect. If I'm listening to lyrics in English it's usually Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Bob Dylan or the like. 

HolyMoly wrote: Back to the question though -- sometimes I will be very impressed by an image or a story set forth in a prog song, or just with very poetic use of language.  It's not so much the ideas themselves that impress me, but the author's success in employing them - do they MOVE me or not.  For some reason, the "Blue Tail / Tail Fly / Luther / In time /etc" section of Siberian Khatru really affects me emotionally, even though I don't really know what he's singing about.  Married with the music, it conjures an image of spiritual awakening that really works wonders.

Not exactly life-changing, but changing the person's thinking.