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The author starts out by complaining that current music theory is not scientific. I completely agree. The field is astoundingly full of technical-seeming, well-

The author starts out by complaining that current music theory is not scientific. I completely agree. The field is astoundingly full of technical-seeming, well-accepted textbooks containing a biological "explanation" of harmony that is either totally unproven or trivially false. But then he precedes to dive into a mountain of unsubstantiated conjecture, saying: 1. Our brains are just computers 2. Evolution motivates less computation 3. Finding the fundamental frequency of a sound is worthwhile 4. Doing that is computationally easier if all other frequencies are in harmony 5. That is what has lead to harmony giving us pleasure (The rest is essentially fluff around this core argument) It's a nice theory, but there's nothing to substantively back up any of these points. He comes the closest on point #4, but only by making strong assumptions about the flavor of #1. The whole thrust of his argument is just totally tangential to addressing his initial complaints about the lack of science and rigor within the subject of biological harmony. - One thing he does get right is avoiding most common mistake that textbooks and laymen alike think about hearing: Our ears do not perceive the waveform of sound directly (for the most part[1]). Rather, we perceive sympathy vibrations at different parts our cochlea, rather directly sending nerve signals according to the Fourier transform of the original waveform. This can be measured (scientifically)! This Vi Hart video does a remarkably good job at giving a layman's tour of our some of the phenomena in our ears: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_0DXxNeaQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_0DXxNeaQ0 [1] If this were totally true, we wouldn't be able to perceive phase at all! But it is the case that these sympathy vibrations are perceived with much more sensitivity than our perception of phase, and are linked more closely to peoples' idea of harmony.

TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
We don't even perceive the Fourier transform. What we perceive is pre-processed by complex "sonic object" recognition systems we barely understand. Obvious example: you don't hear formants and spectral distributions when someone is speaking. You hear words, which are parsed into sentences, which are processed into meaning. Along the way a lot of redundant elements - background noises, breath sounds, ums and ahs, and even distortion from electronic transmission systems - are all eliminated. Music is similar but even more complicated, because while there are stylistic conventions, there doesn't seem to any single consistent grammar. There's a superficial listening level which parses a mix of sounds into the sounds of different instruments, a "theory" level which listens for horizontal and vertical groupings and structures, an "emotional" level which reacts to implied emotion and mood, and sometimes a "metaphorical" level which listens poetically and associatively. It's not a simple process.
- unholiness 9y ago
  True! I won't risk getting out of my depth. My comment was simply saying there are unique nerve signals from unique points across the cochlea which uniquely convey the information "this frequency is currently being heard at this volume". To say that that information is what we perceive... that's not an argument I'd make. But it is a step along the process. Everyone knows we "see" in rgb, but few people seem to know we "hear" in frequencies more than we "hear" in waveforms. That's my point.
naasking 9y ago
> It's a nice theory, but there's nothing to substantively back up any of these points Of course there is. 1. All of physics is computable, and dualistic theories of mind are far more problematic than monistic ones. Also, computational minds are consistent with all of our scientific knowledge, and require no further ontological commitments; not true of other theories of mind. 2. That evolution favours less computation, all else being equal, follows trivially from natural selection. Using more computation than is needed requires more food, which would not compete well against mutations that are more efficient. 3. Finding a fundamental frequency is adaptive for identification of predators, prey and allies. 4. Well defined frequency separation does make the problem of separating frequencies easier. It's practically tautological. 5. This is the only thing requiring additional empirical support.
- unholiness 9y ago
  Hypothesis is different from evidence. Your arguments roughly address the phrasing of my summary but don't back the full scope author's actual conjectures. 1, for instance, is not philosophical. He's literally carrying the metaphor down to additions and multiplications of waveform samples. There's no evidence that this is mechanistically similar to how our brain thinks, nor is there evidence that "easy" problems of addition are easy problems of our mind. 2 is an argument of strong evolutionary force... strong enough to overcome the fact that my emotional reactions to harmony will change my behavior, despite them not being a good signal of how to survive And the rest is pure conjecture. I'm not saying it's a bad hypothesis. It's just not anything beyond hypothesis.

TheOtherHobbes 9y ago

We don't even perceive the Fourier transform. What we perceive is pre-processed by complex "sonic object" recognition systems we barely understand. Obvious example: you don't hear formants and spectral distributions when someone is speaking. You hear words, which are parsed into sentences, which are processed into meaning. Along the way a lot of redundant elements - background noises, breath sounds, ums and ahs, and even distortion from electronic transmission systems - are all eliminated. Music is similar but even more complicated, because while there are stylistic conventions, there doesn't seem to any single consistent grammar. There's a superficial listening level which parses a mix of sounds into the sounds of different instruments, a "theory" level which listens for horizontal and vertical groupings and structures, an "emotional" level which reacts to implied emotion and mood, and sometimes a "metaphorical" level which listens poetically and associatively. It's not a simple process.

unholiness 9y ago
True! I won't risk getting out of my depth. My comment was simply saying there are unique nerve signals from unique points across the cochlea which uniquely convey the information "this frequency is currently being heard at this volume". To say that that information is what we perceive... that's not an argument I'd make. But it is a step along the process. Everyone knows we "see" in rgb, but few people seem to know we "hear" in frequencies more than we "hear" in waveforms. That's my point.

naasking 9y ago

> It's a nice theory, but there's nothing to substantively back up any of these points Of course there is. 1. All of physics is computable, and dualistic theories of mind are far more problematic than monistic ones. Also, computational minds are consistent with all of our scientific knowledge, and require no further ontological commitments; not true of other theories of mind. 2. That evolution favours less computation, all else being equal, follows trivially from natural selection. Using more computation than is needed requires more food, which would not compete well against mutations that are more efficient. 3. Finding a fundamental frequency is adaptive for identification of predators, prey and allies. 4. Well defined frequency separation does make the problem of separating frequencies easier. It's practically tautological. 5. This is the only thing requiring additional empirical support.

unholiness 9y ago
Hypothesis is different from evidence. Your arguments roughly address the phrasing of my summary but don't back the full scope author's actual conjectures. 1, for instance, is not philosophical. He's literally carrying the metaphor down to additions and multiplications of waveform samples. There's no evidence that this is mechanistically similar to how our brain thinks, nor is there evidence that "easy" problems of addition are easy problems of our mind. 2 is an argument of strong evolutionary force... strong enough to overcome the fact that my emotional reactions to harmony will change my behavior, despite them not being a good signal of how to survive And the rest is pure conjecture. I'm not saying it's a bad hypothesis. It's just not anything beyond hypothesis.