the critic as clairvoyant

Every December, I think I'm setting aside enough time to comfortably finish making mix CDs for people, and every year I run myself a little ragged actually doing so.

Daniel Dennett talks about 'blindsight' in Consciousness Explained: a phenomenon where damage to the visual cortex leaves someone with a blind spot that has certain unusual properties. In particular, if an experimenter asks "Did I just flash a light in your blind spot? If you don't know, just guess." they will be right substantially more than 50% of the time, despite being sure that they have no idea and are just guessing because they were asked to.

It struck me yesterday that this is often how I evaluate songs when trying to pick from among them. I'll listen to something and feel like I can't make any finer-grained an aesthetic judgment than "I like this" (which doesn't help, since I like all of them). And yet, if I force myself to assign a rating, I'm very good at guessing right off how much I'll like something after I've listened to it another two dozen times.

Taste is subjective, so why should that be surprising? For one thing, it *feels* surprising. The process keeps working long after I've gotten tired of doing it and am not enjoying the music anymore. Or at least, not consciously enjoying it; I also don't feel as though I'm making predictions about what I'll think in the future. It's very much like being asked to guess about a recent physical stimulus that I just don't think I perceived, nor could have perceived.

(Predictions do happen, but feel different. "That seemed catchy this time, but I bet the resolution will sound too pat once I'm familiar with it.")

I still love the whole process, of course. I wouldn't do it if I didn't. I'm continually grateful for the resources and free time necessary to have a favorite song from each of 300+ new records in a year. But I think crunch time numbs me a little bit to the rest of life. [Edited to add: I'm not saying this is unique or even unusual. I have no idea. I just didn't realize it was happening with me until recently.]