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What is music? A unified theory of music and dreaming

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Re: What is music? A unified theory of music and dreaming

#31

Post by telesilla »

1propionyl wrote: post #29
pandiatonicism wrote: post #24

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 plaus…

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 s…

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.

Re: What is music? A unified theory of music and dreaming

#32

Post by 1propionyl »

pandiatonicism wrote: post #30
1propionyl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

I’m sure the female peacock would say the same thing about her experience of seeing those fancy feathers for the first time.

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.

Re: What is music? A unified theory of music and dreaming

#33

Post by 1propionyl »

telesilla wrote: post #31
1propionyl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

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.

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).

Re: What is music? A unified theory of music and dreaming

#34

Post by pandiatonicism »

1propionyl wrote: post #32
pandiatonicism wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure the female peacock would say the same thing about her experience of seeing those fancy feathers for the first time.

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.

Again, seeing connections where there are none.

Re: What is music? A unified theory of music and dreaming

#35

Post by john61 »

dmitshur wrote: post #20

From https://whatismusic.info/blog/HypothesisMusicLetsUsPracticeH... : > Now let us suppose that the person enjoys listening to music. > > Music enables the person to feel very strong emotions that lie outside the range of their normal everyday emotions. > > Music lets a person feel these emotions, almost, but not quite, as if those emotions were real. I’m quite puzzled by these statements. I enjoy listening to some…

Well what is it else than emotion when some Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin or Mozart make me cry?

Re: What is music? A unified theory of music and dreaming

#36

Post by skolskoly »

>Music, on the other hand, seems to be limited to the human species

I'm not sure how you're defining music, but I would consider a bird's song to count. On one hand I don't believe music can be reduced to a mating display, but I'm skeptical that music has a biological root in processing memories/emotional response. Sure, it can stimulate memory/emotional processing, but so do most other social activities. Moreover, I think conversation, games, music, dance, etc. are much more similar to each other in that regard than dreaming is to any of them.

In my experience, dreams are wild extrapolations/interpolations of various waking experiences. When I'm awake, I would call this imagination, but the unconscious mind appears to put the imagination into overdrive in a way that is not possible while awake. It's almost as if the brain is trying to generalize memories, possibly to optimize them for storage space. (or some biological equivalent)

Interestingly, /u/undershirt mentions that it might be that you don't actually experience the dream until you wake up. This would make sense, as this process would be interrupted, leaving you with some bizarre false memories. The unconscious then quickly cleans up it's mess and hands control over to the conscious mind.

On the other hand, I think music is explained fairly satisfactorily as a positive social activity, related to dancing, both of which were ubiquitous and inseparable in ancient cultures. In a world where you have to make friends and be wary of enemies, it's not hard to see how bonding activities that signal friendliness are valuable for natural selection. Even birds sing, humans just have a much more complex songs.

Re: What is music? A unified theory of music and dreaming

#37

Post by 1propionyl »

pandiatonicism wrote: post #34
1propionyl wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Again, seeing connections where there are none.

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. ;)

Re: What is music? A unified theory of music and dreaming

#38

Post by newnewpdro »

irrational wrote: post #5

Interesting. I don't dream and music has no emotional response for me. I wonder if they are related?

Have you ever tried taking Melatonin?

In my experience it causes crazy dreams, if you'd like to experience some and haven't tried it maybe give it a shot

Re: What is music? A unified theory of music and dreaming

#39

Post by mlang23 »

dmitshur wrote: post #20

From https://whatismusic.info/blog/HypothesisMusicLetsUsPracticeH... : > Now let us suppose that the person enjoys listening to music. > > Music enables the person to feel very strong emotions that lie outside the range of their normal everyday emotions. > > Music lets a person feel these emotions, almost, but not quite, as if those emotions were real. I’m quite puzzled by these statements. I enjoy listening to some…

This comment feels like Commander Data having a similar discussion with Picard...

I can tell you, appreciating music and emotions are deeply connected.

Re: What is music? A unified theory of music and dreaming

#40

Post by mlang23 »

fg6hr wrote: post #28
dmitshur wrote: post #20

From https://whatismusic.info/blog/HypothesisMusicLetsUsPracticeH... : > Now let us suppose that the person enjoys listening to music. > > Music enables the person to feel very strong emotions that lie outside the range of their normal everyday emotions. > > Music lets a person feel these emotions, almost, but not quite, as if those emotions were real. I’m quite puzzled by these statements. I enjoy listening to some…

Music produces sophisticated colorful shapes that aren't visualizeable, yet visible to our mind, so it sees the shapes, appreciates their complexity and order and creates emotions. Classical compositions produce exceptionally complex structures that can be appreciated only by a few.

Are you a synaesthetist? I am, and your description pretty much sums up how I experience music.
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