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Archived subliminal message discussion from User talk:Audacity.

Fnord

Hullo! Please forgive me in taking some time in getting back to you. Your message had a bunch of questions, let's see if I can get through them...

  1. The pronunciation of Fnord is debatable. Myself I use "FUH-nord". Not quite two syllables, maybe one and a half. ;)
  2. I see what you mean about Subliminal message being duplicated. I have just now removed it from the See also section.
  3. My user name is, as you assumed, using fnord as a verb. From Rene Descartes's, "Cogito Ergo Sum" I somehow got, "Cogito Ergo Fnord". I think therefore I Fnord.
  4. While I am indeed an atheist I am also a member in the local Anglican church, though it is Episcopalian here in the US. I used to have userboxes identifying myself as both socialist and monarchist (being from Canada that's not hard to understand) and I don't see how it's mutually exclusive. I benefit from going to church and enjoy the rituals; I just don't belive in G_d, God's, or other divine forces.

Thank-you for your kind words and stopping by to leave a message. Ifnord 02:41, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress! The quintessential Libertarian novel! In Time Enough for Love Heinlein writes, "Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something." All through his writings it appears he keeps mulling over the problem of just who or what should be "in charge". Ifnord 03:16, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

fNord '

Nice on the hidden fnord.

Theomatics

That anonymous user edited the Theomatics page again. I hadn't seen exactly before what he was doing before, but now I see that he's repeatedly stripping out all the end notes for no apparently reason. Is there a way he can be flagged to receive a warning? Kazim27 12:05, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Any science backing this?

Copied from Talk:Backmasking. Λυδαcιτγ 04:48, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The whole idea that running a message backwards would be comprehensible on even a subconsious level is a little difficult for me to get. Has there ever been any study about whether backwards messages can have a subliminal effect akin to that of, say, hypnosis? Or whether they can even be understood if, I don't know, repeated over and over? --Lenoxus 04:02, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've only seen pseudoscience, at best (example). I think that the failure of the Judas Priest lawsuit indicates that there is no hard evidence of that effect. Λυδαcιτγ 16:14, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There's no science backing that people can perceive the message backwards; however, certainly some artists, (Tally Hall) have deliberately added backmasking to songs, obviously for artistic effect and not for the intention of subconscious control. If the backmasking is obvious enough, people can easily tell that the track IS backmasked, though they won't be able to understand what it means.

Thanks for responding. I guess, to rephrase my confusion, I have little more to express than my own awe that someone "thought of" this idea in the first place; to me, it's like saying that a message printed on the reverse side of an opaque sheet of paper will have a subliminal effect, because it seems humans are just as capable of reading that as they are of "listening backwards." --Lenoxus
While not wanting to give too much credibility to the subconscious influence theory, I wonder - why wouldn't a transparent or translucent piece of paper be a better metaphor? Λυδαcιτγ 20:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, it would. What still makes a "wall" for me (hence the "opacity") is the element of time. After all, it's not that hard to train yourself to read something backwards, even at the exact same rate as one reads forward, because the direction of reading is naturally arbitrary. But to "listen backwards" would require the memorization not only of phonetic sounds in addition to a kind of intrinsic understanding of the fact that imperfect articulation/recording means that a "perfect reverse" isn't the same as the "real thing", and varies considerably from one speaker/accent/etc to the next. --Lenoxus 04:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But why do you assume the backwards sounds would have to be memorized? Couldn't your brain reverse them while listening, just as it would reverse the words in a book read in a mirror, despite having never seen the letters written backwards before? Λυδαcιτγ 21:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, an interesting counter-point... this is starting to look like a discussion for another forum; what do you suggest? --Lenoxus 02:43, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll copy everything from here on up to my talk page. Λυδαcιτγ 04:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So, in response to your last point, I'd just have to repeat my point about time — Consider how much more difficult it is to, say, recite the alphabet backwards from only hearing it, but considerably easier when reading it, regardless of what alphabet you're talking about. --Lenoxus 16:21, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But the alphabet takes a fairly long time to say out. If you just heard a few letters - "JSD" - it wouldn't be that hard to reverse them.
On the other hand, sound is extremely complex. According to Bitrate, your brain needs to hear four thousand bits of sound information per second to understand speech. So perhaps reversing a half-second-long sound in your head would be as difficult as reversing two thousand letters. -Audacity 02:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I won't deny that what we need more of is science, but of course this point naturally raises questions about how comparable the human brain is to a computer. It's nice that neither of us has to defend a position, because I think I might have just supported evidence against mine. Hmm, I remember an old handheld electronic game thing called "Babbel" or something, produced by Mattel, in which the object was to guess what phrase another person had secretly whispered into the machine by imitating the reverse of the sound. The Babbel machine would then reverse the reversal attempt, and what you got would resumably resemble the original (but it usually took a few tries). Playing with this machine helped me realize the complexities and interesting qualities of reversed sound, and the fatc that one could design an entire code or song or whatever around reversals and phonetic palindromes (there really should be an article on those). --Lenoxus 01:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I found Babble, as well as a Java version of it, which you can try if you have a microphone.
Anyway, after all these hypotheticals, we're left with the simple observation that you have no idea what all the messages from List of backmasked messages are until you listen to them in reverse. -Audacity 17:37, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll definitely make an article on phonetic reversal / phonetic palindrome (or you can). A lot of them are mistaken for backmasked messages, and it'll be good to be able to differentiate. This page has an excellent analysis of phonetic reversal. -Audacity 21:48, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Message from LegendaryBk

Thanks for your help , i think you are right maybe it is alittle phony reverses , anyway About the korn one i found on Wikipedia itself http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twisted_Transistor I Am Still new here anyway , i would appreciate it if you help me more and teach me how to edit Pages And to create a nice user page :) thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by LegendaryBk (talk • contribs) 11:39, 14 February 2007

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