Let's solve Harmony!
The first scientific experiment was conducted by 5th century BC Pythagoreans. They wanted to show that the basis for musical consonance was math. From that, they inferred that harmony in math accounted for the harmony of the cosmos. This integration of math+physics was very forward thinking.
But, if we fast forward to the present, we still don't have a complete scientific explanation for the basis of consonance and dissonance. Really! To make my own contribution, I've been running psychophysical experiments to investigate why consonant chords that are mathematically slightly dissonant actually sound much better than chords with perfect mathematical consonance. I've been gathering data with sounds but also with haptic vibrations and with visual flicker frequencies. This multisensory approach is fun because it produces visible rhythmic entrainment in the brain, as seen with EEG. My goal is to contribute to a general theory of neural resonance and harmony in human experience.
Why does this matter? Happiness is great, but I'd argue that what we really want is personal and global harmony. Note that harmony isn't sameness, it is unity in variety -- the resolution of conflict and dissonance into an integrated wholeness. We want inner harmony with our selves, harmony in our relationships with others, harmony in society, harmony with technology and harmony with nature. Happiness is individualistic but harmony involves the pleasure of virtue. I hypothesize that harmony can help set a better objective function for the future of humanity.
Harmony was also the objective function for the first deep learning neural network, Paul Smolensky's Harmonium.
Finally, harmony is also a central theme in classical philosophy. The concept had a massive influence in the Italian Renaissance and in the English Scientific Revolution.
I recently put together a reader for understanding Plato's views on Harmony. Comments are welcome:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lqXpXgWI5YMBCz1O0gCmrEwz...