music , mind , thought and emotion

Thanks for the laugh, Subaru! Very funny.

Does evolutionarily developed recognition of patterns in sound necessarily lead to (even though it may form the underlying matrix) to the receptivity to beauty that we presently experience. The former (pocreation,prey/predator reactions) all represent an active mind directed at the environment to manipulate some object there. Receptivity to beauty/music, however, is characterized by a "letting go" of the active, analytical, objectifying mind as one sinks deeper. What Darwinistic mechanism would account for such a shift, especially if physical viability is decreased by the latter?

Logically speaking, there are two possibilies:

1. Darwinistic evolution of sound perception is not determinant of music appreciation, and each is a separate dynamic of evolution, or

2. Darwinistic evolution on sound recognition (active) is integral with music appreciation (receptive), and, contrary to being a separate mechanism, is one that forms the devolpment for the latter; active mind is not determitive of receptivity, but forms the ground for its emergence.

My evidence? What I've been saying all along (listening Zaikesman?):

When you first sit down to listen, you listen predominantly with the thinking mind; seeing sound as source-objects, interested in detail and accuracy that bounds those projections from the space around it, your language to describe it dominated by visual terms (predators are visually orientated), seeing the sound as if it were "out there", a la Valin's "statue garden", external to you, in the environment outside, something to manipulate. Then, as you sink deeper you "let go" of this urge to think-the-sound, you move from active to receptive, your mind more sensitive to emotions towards the music in the relief of thoughts being absent (hence, the emotion-based language used to describe this level's experience), with thinking fading the dichtomy between inside/outside collapsing, the music is not out there, but integral with you.

The journey your mind takes every time you sit down for that late Friday night listening session is reflective of the evloutionary journey the collective human mind has taken to...get to the place where you can experience music/beauty as you do.

This is not a coincidence....

Asa, I think Subaru's comment could find an easier parallel in the idea of 'harmony & "appropriate" rythm' put forth in ancient greek tragedy. There, harmony (i.e. beauty or perceived "correctness") is interactive UNLESS the forces of nature or the "cosmic rules" foresee otherwise. (We cannot overcome the natural and cosmic rules.) But we are bound/expected to distinguish beauty from its opposite (i.e. dynamic approach)... That presupposes we specifically pursue your 2nd point. Not the first, nor the basic premise.
I may have missed the point, however..:)

Greg, you made my brain think hard. Thank you. Some of what you say are things I don't know, but I will try to answer.

Yes, # 2 option above is correct. The evolutionary development of receptivity to beauty has been developing right along side the Darwinian side (active analytic cognition). When you are an amoeba you are completely focused on the exterior with a binary thought pattern that shifts only two ways (light/dark, pery/predator etc.). With modern humans, the influence of the environment on our evolution has lessened with the inverse increase in our power over matter (technology). This, in turn, leads towards a situation where humans are less prey of the environment and have space in their mind opened towards "beauty"; in the lessened instinctual thoughts towards the external a space is opened in which the dynamic arc towards receptivity towards beauty emerges.

My question would then be, when does sound become "harmony"? It only happens in the mind, ie I can't walk out my front door and point to "harmony", so what accounted for that shift in perception? What caused us to see sound as harmony (read: music). I believe my argument against a Darwinistic catalyst above still holds in the comtext of this question. What caused the primordial mind to structure sound into patterns that had meaning, apart from telling him that the leaf moving behind him was a predator? Why did he become suseptible/open/receptive to that "harmonic" meaning?

Yes, we hear music in the matrix of its structure of sound, but the "cosmic rules" that dictate that structure (a whole different discussion on what they are), do not determine meaning.

Structure does not fall from the sky; it is created by the mind. The will towards that creation is prior to the structure that is produced, regardless of a template for structure. What will manifected in us that caused us to structure sound from that focused on sound instinctually, and towards a structure that moved towrds receptivity towards "harmony"? The structure changed, yes, but that was only a symptom of a change in the orientation of the mind towards sound. The will changed. What caused that reorientation, one that had a contrary purpose from Darwinistic-engrained instincts. Didn't it have to be a "cosmic force" not accounted by Darwinism?

What is a force that moves the mind towards meaning, even as that move makes him/her less viable against the environment?

(Hint: Next answer could be that "harmony" lead towrds social cohesion in group, thus having a social Darwinistic cause. I don't agree but its a good argument...)

Detlof: what is the meaning of "harmony"? Or rather, the meaning of its experience? What was/is its purpose? Beauty and an Opening of the Heart?

That is beautiful. Asa... "Beauty and an Opening of the Heart?"

"What was/is its purpose? Beauty and an Opening of the Heart?"

Asa, if you really want the answer to its purpose. E-mail me off-line.