music , mind , thought and emotion

Ohn: thank you for your wondeful response. Next I would say, what is the nature of those patterns constructed in the mind? A materialist will default to purely a quantitative orienation to this question and will say that you put the patterns together like counting sticks, or placing blocks on top of one another; the interpretation of patterns is didactic, linear and, accordingly, is seen as a SUMMING of patterns. This mind sees music in the mind as equal to a sum of patterns (hence, no coincidence that materialists are also invariably mathematically orientated).

But a question: are patterns in the mind summed? Is the recognition and receptivity to the beauty of music synonomous with a summing of patterns? Just because the ears sums sound patterns, does this mean, necessarily, that the way those patterns are conjoined in the mind must also be linear? (this is my point above about the mode of the mechanism dictating the process of interpretation).

Two points.

If we look at Chaos/Turbulence theory, we see that order - or rather, what our mind interprets as "order" - arises out of chaos. Or another way, the creative formation that we recognize arises from a formation that we characterize as un-formed (evolutionarliy speaking, we use objectification to order things with our minds, so we instinctively label what is not-order as Chaos). Importantly, this arisement is characterized as one that, in a fractal mathematical sense, arises from non-linear to linear.

Applied to listening of our stereos, can we perhaps say that the recognition of creativity in patterns is not simply a linear summing, but is perhaps characterized by both linear and non-linear recognition. In other words, perhaps could we say that at deep listening levels where thought is relatively absent we experience the patterns in a non-linear way, and when we first sit down to listen, and when our cognition is more pronounced, we listen in a linear way consonant with that faculty.

If we are experiencing the music as a summing of patterns when we first sit down, does this mean that that mode of perception must continue? If thought is absent at deeop levels, and summing is a linear process wholly characteristic of thinking, then what type of percieving happens when we are not thinking, yet still perceiving the music?

Could, perhaps, the deep listening mind be percieving music from that level in a way that is different from the thinking mind's way of listening, particularly if the non-linear aspect of creative arisement is recognized?

At surface levels, the mind is linear, looking out at reality and objectifying what it sees. In this mode it sees linear relationships between these objects and its main mode of assimilation is summing experience. At trans-thinking levels, the mind merges patterns into currents and these currents, the meaning they impart/that we percieve, is greater that the sum of their parts.

An interesting article on the subject:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/brainmusic021213.html

Ohn: thank you for the article.

Active/receptive perception - the moment of interpretation - is not the same as memory engrainment, or the storing of the interpretive impression of that moment. I have no doubt that memory data is stored in nueral pathways/centers etc in a material sense, but again, this material condition subsequent is not necessarily determinitive of the process of original discernment. In other words, because memory is found in matter does not mean necessarily that matter causes the original creative thought.

Most new evidence shows, and the pattern of dicovery is quite revealing, that thought produces movement of nueronal cells. Its being called neuroplasticity. Prior to 1989 or thereabouts, scientists maintained the old idea that the brain never changed, which of course fit nicely with their assumption that brain matter determines thought (ie only the material exists as assumption). This, of course, becomes interesting because the causal sequence of matter-to-thought maintained by science is being eroded in favor of a modified model where consciousness is primary to brain matter. This model would also be consistent with the memory being subsequent and easily located in matter.

Of course, if you only want to watch billiard balls bounce off each other to discern truth - even denying the mind's existence, the same mind that came up with your scientific method, because, underneath it all, you are so attached to the power of that same mind over matter - then you are not too crazy about hearing that interpretive consciousness is casually primary to matter. Because, it means that the mind that science has tried so hard for two hundred years to discount is, even by their emerging measures, existant and primary.

The question then becomes, what is forming in brain matter when you are percieving but not thinking. What mind do you form in deeply listening to music?

Hmmmm. Karmic overtones from the dicoveries of science. Geez, that science ended up proving the mind, implying that you reap the brain matter that your perceptions sow, do you think that's a coincidence?

BIG Hmmmm....

Yes, I can hear the minds of materialsts everywhere scampering as we speak, saying that if a monkey writes to infinity he's bound to write a poem, stretching their probablistic assumptions to a tight thread, nearly breaking in their effort TO STAY WHERE THEY ARE.

But here's a BIG question: if thought arisement engrains brain matter, and matter is responsive to thought in that regard, then what is engrained in the mind that denies the mind and says only matter exists? Isn't the attachment to staying where you are an implicit denial of what you might become; a denial of future possibilities?

A man said, "Argue for your limitations and sure enough they are yours..."

You create your world, and the limits of it, and what you will see; you choose how deeply you want to listen to the Music. Of course, you may have to "take a step into the dark (the chaos you precieve)" [Saint John of the Cross]

But, perhaps, the dark-ness is only the limits of possibilities that you have already chosen...

Ohn: when I said "you" or "your" I didn't mean you personally; just a foil, of which i thank you in advance for your indulgence.

Oh, how painful, one on top of the mountain; nowhere to go but down. Can't walk down because, one's back to square one. Can't jump down because it means an end to live, path, all that times and knowledges are wasted. The only way is to jump up. But where? The door is right in front, yet far away; far away yet, like right at the nose. I'd felt the pain/beauty. :-). I also felt. ;-).

When the mind (internal) rises, everything (external) rises; when everything (external) rises, the mind (internal) rises. When the mind falls, everything falls; when everything falls, the mind falls. When is it end? When is this dualism end? And How?

Twl, "Koan" = "koh'an/ n" is a Chinese pronounciation, but it means "to ponder".

It's Friday, time to jam people.