3 ms·

This post has it all wrong. Music is the shadow of spoken language syntax, ornamented with mathematically recursive patterns, enigmatic suggestions, and all of

This post has it all wrong. Music is the shadow of spoken language syntax, ornamented with mathematically recursive patterns, enigmatic suggestions, and all of the other various cerebral plumage humans are attractive to, all for one simple evolved purpose: “you gotta get down with the get down.” ;) Dreaming has much more to do with core memory processes which remain a deep mystery. Nobody has put forward even a plausible explanation of how memory actually works on a physical level.

1propionyl 7y ago
I find your assessment of music to be (not personally, but conceptually) insultingly reductive. (Paraphrasing) "It's just math, linguistics and biology" is just about the least convincing reductivist statement possible to make. The idea that music simply exists to "get down" is frankly laughable. To give an example, I think many people who listen to music a lot would agree that it somehow interacts with memory in a subtle yet profound way. I may not be able to remember the exact details of a certain experience precisely, but if I happened to be listening to some music then, and I listen to it again now, it often recalls a memory of emotion I wouldn't otherwise have access to. Further: the experience of listening to song you've listened to many times over many years tends to accumulate and integrate associations, like a perpetual stew. The experience of listening to a song you've known and listened to for many years is about as close to the experience of dreaming as I've found in waking life.
- pandiatonicism 7y ago
  I’m sure the female peacock would say the same thing about her experience of seeing those fancy feathers for the first time.
  - 1propionyl 7y ago
    There's really no outlook on life quite more drab and dull than believing you've figured it all out simply because you've read Hitchens.
    - pandiatonicism 7y ago
      Again, seeing connections where there are none.
      - 1propionyl 7y ago
        I’m sure the pigeon would say the same thing about the female peacock's first experience of seeing those fancy feathers for the first time. ;)
- telesilla 7y ago
  Music isn't alone in triggering memory recall, all other senses do this as well. I'm not sure I'd assign music special powers in this context, although because it's time based music does seem to be a more profound effect.
  - 1propionyl 7y ago
    Agreed. It's not that music is somehow special in of itself, but rather I think it's a form we've constructed and implicitly optimized to trigger certain forms of recall. A lot of early chamber music (and music from way back when in antiquity) was based on the idea of reproducing and augmenting voice, which very clearly carries emotional content. It's evolved and mutated since. Put more simply: I think music is a medium humans have optimized over time to effectively trigger emotional and (less so) experiential recall. In the process of doing so we've found that certain systems of harmony, tone, timbre, rhythm, etc are effective in emphasizing recall of certain emotional qualities. I don't think anyone is born thinking the Beatles' Blackbird evokes a particular emotion, but to those who have lived in the world long enough there's a stunning commonality in what it affects in us. Put even more simply: music is the "language" that best approximates common/shared emotional recall (though obviously there are regional and cultural variations).

1propionyl 7y ago

I find your assessment of music to be (not personally, but conceptually) insultingly reductive. (Paraphrasing) "It's just math, linguistics and biology" is just about the least convincing reductivist statement possible to make. The idea that music simply exists to "get down" is frankly laughable. To give an example, I think many people who listen to music a lot would agree that it somehow interacts with memory in a subtle yet profound way. I may not be able to remember the exact details of a certain experience precisely, but if I happened to be listening to some music then, and I listen to it again now, it often recalls a memory of emotion I wouldn't otherwise have access to. Further: the experience of listening to song you've listened to many times over many years tends to accumulate and integrate associations, like a perpetual stew. The experience of listening to a song you've known and listened to for many years is about as close to the experience of dreaming as I've found in waking life.

pandiatonicism 7y ago
I’m sure the female peacock would say the same thing about her experience of seeing those fancy feathers for the first time.
- 1propionyl 7y ago
  There's really no outlook on life quite more drab and dull than believing you've figured it all out simply because you've read Hitchens.
  - pandiatonicism 7y ago
    Again, seeing connections where there are none.
    - 1propionyl 7y ago
      I’m sure the pigeon would say the same thing about the female peacock's first experience of seeing those fancy feathers for the first time. ;)
telesilla 7y ago
Music isn't alone in triggering memory recall, all other senses do this as well. I'm not sure I'd assign music special powers in this context, although because it's time based music does seem to be a more profound effect.
- 1propionyl 7y ago
  Agreed. It's not that music is somehow special in of itself, but rather I think it's a form we've constructed and implicitly optimized to trigger certain forms of recall. A lot of early chamber music (and music from way back when in antiquity) was based on the idea of reproducing and augmenting voice, which very clearly carries emotional content. It's evolved and mutated since. Put more simply: I think music is a medium humans have optimized over time to effectively trigger emotional and (less so) experiential recall. In the process of doing so we've found that certain systems of harmony, tone, timbre, rhythm, etc are effective in emphasizing recall of certain emotional qualities. I don't think anyone is born thinking the Beatles' Blackbird evokes a particular emotion, but to those who have lived in the world long enough there's a stunning commonality in what it affects in us. Put even more simply: music is the "language" that best approximates common/shared emotional recall (though obviously there are regional and cultural variations).