The Necessity of Vagueness and Ambiguity to the Imagining of Sound

Abstract

Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard takes issue with the objectification and quantification of (and often outright attempts to eliminate) imprecision and subjectivity in the natural sciences, particularly in acoustics and the field of audio testing. Instead, he argues, experiences of vagueness and ambiguity are essential to an imagining of sound, where that imagination aids in the experiencing of an external world. Such imagination, Grimshaw-Aagaard contends, performs a vital role in the emergence of perceptual hypotheses about the external world and thus the presence of our selves in the context of the nonself that is the external world.