Does the Shuffle feature on your iPod/iTunes send you into a deterministic universe where free will is dead?

Let's find out.

Most of us have been acquainted with the phenomenon i'll call "iPod favoritism", to be defined hereafter as:

the playing of two or more songs back to back which have been previously played back to back

or

that extremely fucking annoying coincidence that finally forced me to delete Tori Amos' 'Boys for Pele' because my iPod liked it too much. i mean Tori Amos is alright, but Jesus Christ, i caught a light sneeze a few too many times becuase of this shit.



So what causes this? Is it a feature of the algorithm apple uses to determine it's shuffle? Is it just lazy coding? Perhaps it skips a certain number of tracks in the playlist when shuffling. A quick experiment will show that's probably not the case, as certain artists or songs get played in a row...so it's nothing strict.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN!?

Well since there is not really any such thing as true mathematical randomness, it's got to be some kind of deterministic thing, the mechanism of which we must sadly abandon the quest for.

NOW WHERE WERE WE?

Oh yes, here's a quick sample of 10 songs which followed one another in my iPod which i have listened to in a row:

Iron Maiden - The Thin Line Between Love & Hate
Frank Zappa - The Nancy & Mary Music
XTC - Generals & Majors
Radiohead - The Gloaming
R.E.M. - Ignoreland (iPod favorite track)
Elvis Costello - Imagination is a Powerful Deceiver (a song i skip alot, such that the first two seconds are stuck in my head alot in an annoying loop)
XTC - New Town Animal in A Furnished Cage
MF DOOM - All Outta Ale
Steel Pulse - Roller Skates
Edan - Sylable Practice

So what have we learned other than ian is very weird and has few discretions when it comes to genre? For one thing, I immediately recognized the first two seconds of that Elvis Costello song, but out of context that little guitar part is something else entirely. It's its own thing in my brain, an entity separate entirely from the track itself.

You see, the shuffle feature robs us of free will if only slightly by putting our music into a deterministic framework, instead of letting us decide. music can set the tone for the day, affect your mood, remind you of an obligation or event past or present, the list goes on. If you let (demonstrably crummy) math decide how your day will be, you're surrendering a little bit of that which makes us human. Now, you may think this is ridiculous, that radio stations and even the fact that it's all YOUR music surely defeats some of this surrendering of will talk going on here. I don't think so, because too often has my soulless music machine gone through the same loop over and over and over.

Which brings me to my next condition, "iPod finger" which shall be defined hereafter as:

the uncontrollable infinite cycle of 'nexts' being pushed while iPod is on shuffle to get to a "good" song.

This brings up all sorts of discomfort among those who are far too neurotic about music. When asked, "do you only have music that you like on your iPod?" answers ranged from, "nope" (#1 answer) to "its just music that i thought i would like but ended up hating and i listen to it only if it comes up on random play all or i forget what it is and decide to listen to it again"

when prompted "and if it comes up randomly, do you generally listen to it or skip it?"

the most common response was:

"ill usually let it play for a little and then skip it"

"so why does it stay on there"

"because i'm too lazy to delete it"

This, pretty much verbatim was 9/10 conversations given this topic that i just had with friends via aim.

So what have we learned? Nothing, really. Well, we learned that most people are the same, lazy, impatient, and mostly unwilling to give something new a chance (like me!). Have these personal music players taken away our free will, or simply given us new avenues through wish to express our laziness and lack of decision making ability.

OR

have i overanalyzed everything once again!?

Tune in this week for the 50Cent/Kanye article (FINALLY)

i promise it'll be a great one.