What is your theory of music? Life, the universe, everything and the number 42. All in relation to the topic of "What is Music" come and read, have fun, enjoy and comment if you will grab a cup of coffee and a few years worth of knowlege in the feild of academic research and wrap your minds around THIS! yeeehaw!

Philosophy? Purpose? Why? What does it do for you? What does it do for other people? How does it "work" and I don't mean the mechanics, how does it acheive the effect it acheives? Why does it unite so deeply with the human condition? Why is it here? Why do you do it? Where did it come from? This is the philosophic rambling thread... have at it 

(god i love that evil smiley face! lol)

I have a theory that what we call music comes about from our innate ability to perform mathematical computations very quickly and the endorphin rush we get from this. I think music begins in the hind brain (monkey brain) which we share with all animals and is part of, or related to, our fight and flight responses.
  When we catch a ball, we make incredibly complex calculations regarding actions and consequences within space and time. When we get it right, we feel good. The more complex the action relative to space and time, the better the buzz, ie, more endorphins.
  Space and time are a mathematical phenomenon which can be represented in numerical patterns. These same numerical patterns are present in music, therefore it stands to reason that we will also get endorphins, (and other neurotransmitters) released as a response to music.
  The difference between us and animals is that we have language. This is why we can hear and remember patterns of sounds as music rather than as a fuctional set of noises which help us navigate space and time.
  In short, our hind brain recognises these patterns and gives us a reward. Our forebrain gives meanings to these patterns and is able to retain and/or alter them. This is why some music makes us sad and some happy.  (maybe,,,, I think)

props to OrlandoDibskitt for having the ballz to post his own theory of music. most people aren't this creative.

well... i'm glad someone got this thing started... and yes i've got my theory but i'm gonna wait to share it until some more people become active... for now i'll play devil's advocate and rhetorical logic buster. this might come across as harsh but just imagine me laughing like a big fat buddha while i say everything and that'll keep this from starting a flame war. i do mean what i say but i also mean it to be light hearted. also please don't get hung up on my semantics... even i fail to qualify my phrases at times. i.e. if i say that "all blueberries are blue" please don't start an argument with me. just assume that i mean to say "most blueberries are blue... when they are ripe" just try to figure out what I mean rather that figuring out all the exact grammatical possibilities of what my words mean.

I Also don't like the quote feature of this forum so i'll use my own style anything in italic is a quote, and my replies are in plain text.

I have a theory that what we call music comes about from our innate ability to perform mathematical computations very quickly

well this is less of a theory and more of a straigh up fact. number one our brains are indeed fantastic mathematical calculators when it comes to things like perceptics of distance. take for example the ability to play tennis. in particular, our ears are in fact one of the most precise mathematical instruments we have. the human ear can detect between 2-10 cents difference in a note and can detect with almost complete accuracy the mathematical ratio projected by two simultaneous notes. on a side note, the "hind brain" as it has been called is a rather primitive term in itself. brain theory IMHO is a pointless field of research (more on that when i post MY theory of music) but regardless there are a few known areas of the brain... the back of the head is known as the occipital lobe and is usually understood to be responsible for vision. i don't remember where the hearing portion is but i don't think it's in the back.

and the endorphin rush we get from this.

well this is indeed a nifty theory but i think it oversimplifies the situation. it's essentially the "brain chemical" argument. and while we know we have them (brain chemicals that is) there are no lab tests proving anything regarding their balance or imbalance. this could be a very probable scenario but i just think there's more to it, and that this is not the crux of the issue concerning "why we like music so much" or "why we are musical creatures."

I think music begins in the hind brain (monkey brain) which we share with all animals and is part of, or related to, our fight and flight responses.

and i obviously disagree but we've already established that... I don't see how music is related to fight or flight in any way. and in this case, then monkeys can play and enjoy music as well. my dogs seem to have an uncanny preference for certain types of music, as does my cat. and, no... i don't think this has anything to do with the brain.

When we catch a ball, we make incredibly complex calculations regarding actions and consequences within space and time. When we get it right, we feel good. The more complex the action relative to space and time, the better the buzz, ie, more endorphins.

so musicians = drug addicts? well... that's already obvious! lol this is a rather oversimplified argument IMHO of a stimulus response mechanism. by this argument then i'd be satisfied by playing my scales faster than any person alive - which by the way i don't care about. one of the things I've learned personally over the years is that, now that i can play fast, playing fast or playing in a complicated manner doesn't really make the best music. sure there is some great music which is complicated and fast, but there is also great music which is not fast or complicated at all... which, in fact, a monkey could probably physically execute.

Space and time are a mathematical phenomenon

whoa! that opens a whole can of theoretical worms right there but i won't delve into it very far. i think (yeah i know i'm being semantic but i wanna clarify this) that what you mean is that "Space and time can be mathematically represented.

which can be represented in numerical patterns.

yes i thought that's what you meant but the exact way it's phrased lends one to think that The Physical Universe = Math. which i don't beleive is true.

These same numerical patterns are present in music, therefore it stands to reason that we will also get endorphins, (and other neurotransmitters) released as a response to music.

ok, but you probably know what i think about this by now... this is a rather weak supporting argument if i do say so myself. no ad-hominem attack here mind you, i just don't really see much evidence in this peice of supporting data. still just an interesting theory, which i don't agree with.

The difference between us and animals is that we have language.

hmm... no, animals have language, we just don't speak the same one. dogs and cats and dolphins and fish and bugs and reptiles all have ways of communicating. koko the monkey knows sign language. so what if their vocal chords are not as dextrous as ours? i think what separates man from the animals is a much greater overall gap in physiology (just look at us for instance lol) which when all the differences combined are considered, gives a human. in the end a body is just a peice of meat.

This is why we can hear and remember patterns of sounds as music rather than as a fuctional set of noises which help us navigate space and time.

hmmm.... no i don't think thats why, especially given that the "language" reason for this argument doesn't seem to be logical to me, this would not follow. dogs can see hear and remember... "sit" "stay" "rollover". can they remember music? i really don't know, that'd be a hard one to proove in either direction. but my guess is yeah.

In short, our hind brain recognises these patterns and gives us a reward.

this is also too simple to me. if music was a pure stimulus response, reward punishment type of thing, i doubt anyone would much care about it any more than they cared about going to work. and yeah, some people love their jobs but many many more people seem to hate them. and the person who doesn't like ANY type of music is few and far between indeed. i do agree there are elements of reward-punishment/stimulus-response in the world of music but i don't think that the essence of music is hinged on this concept.

and also by these statements you are (perhaps) increasingly contradictig yourself. you have at least an implied argument that humans are musical and animals are not. i know this may not be your main intention but by way of what you've said this argument IS at least implied here. however have you ever seen dogs howl at the moon? ever listen to whales sing? ever listen to birds sing? i think that nature is full of musical animals.

Our forebrain gives meanings to these patterns and is able to retain and/or alter them.

hmm... actually i don't think its our forebrain that retains them. it's been mathematically prooven in neurological science that if memories are stored as energy in our brains then our brains don't actually contain enough mass or room to hold more than 3 consecutive months worth of memories... now factor in that we do such things as learning, in which we often cram in much more information than just the pysical perceptics we receive and one must ask... where does it go?

This is why some music makes us sad and some happy.  :)
hmm... well this argument, even if the previous statement was true, just doesn't seem to follow at all. simply because our frontal lobes retain memories doesn't in any way indicated to me the reason for which some music makes us happy and some makes us sad. yeah i know you have your language argument... but essentially for this purpose that is a different beast and also void by way of other animals have language as well. also in that case it would primarily be the words in a song which create the intended emotional effect, which is partly true, but even music without words conveys emotion.

(maybe,,,, I think)

lol! you seem a little uncertain... heheh 

hope i didn't just bring your world crashing down... anyone else interested in posting their theory of music for me to tear to shreds? lol... naw, i won't do this with every idea, i just saw some particulars in these ideas i personally have rather fundamental differences on. nothing personal, i just wanted to help keep this thread alive by expressing my view as well. aight peace yall

"[i]hope i didn't just bring your world crashing down... anyone else interested
in posting their theory of music for me to tear to shreds?"...

   Not at all, I summed something up in a couple of hundred words that would take
thousands to go through fully therefore it was obviously gonna be simplified.
  No offense m8 but the idea that my world could come crashing down because of your
comments sounds a little pompous, (probably not intentionally), especially when
most of your arguments are qualative and in response to what is, afterall, simple
speculation on my part.
   I'm just trying to say that I have noticed some correlations that could point to the idea that what we perceive as "music" is, at its simplest level, an extension of our
ability to recognise patterns in space and time and this, in turn, is rooted in our own fundamental survival mechanisms. At its highest level, I see some correlations that suggest to me that those patterns ARE space and time.

   "The Physical Universe = Math. which i don't beleive is true."

   But I DOOOOO believe this is true, The two are totally interchanagable and
therefore the same thing. It is what we experience as humans in our normal, every
day  environment that is not a true representation of the universe. It is what's 
left after our brains have received mathematical data and processed it according
to what we need to survive.
   I read another post of yours which touched on this, (very interesting and
informative btw), and am surprised you don't see what I am getting at here.  
   Although the effect of "music" feels "magical", I don't think that the
mechanisms by which it happens are magical.
   Everything in the universe needs a mechanism including the experience  of
"liking or disliking". The mechanism for us is simply an interaction between
various chemicals and the information stored in our brain. It really is that
simple whether we "like" it or not. Its obviously not a simple matter to know how
an individual arrives at the particular chemical interractions they do but the
fact remains that, in order to assign an emotional value to anything, one needs
brain chemicals!. Without brain chemicals, "music" would simply be noise.
   The other factor needed for the perception of music is some hardware capable of "language".
   By this I mean the ability to represent and express ideas about space, time, objects and abstract ideas, within a system of sounds and/or gestures, which uses a set of grammatical rules. as far as we are aware, NO OTHER ANIMAL ON EARTH DOES THIS TO THE SAME EXTENT WE DO!. This is because they don't have the same hardware we do.

   "and also by these statements you are (perhaps) increasingly contradictig yourself. you have at least an implied argument that humans are musical and animals are not. i know this may not be your main intention but by way of what you've said this argument IS at least implied here. however have you ever seen dogs howl at the moon? ever listen to whales sing? ever listen to birds sing? i think that nature is full of musical animals."
 
   Precisely. But these "noises" are formed in the hindbrain that we all share as animals, (first paragraph- first post). The difference is that there is no "language" involved. Have you ever heard a dog howling in pitch perfect semi-tones, (don't know what that means actually but you get the point , or a cat tap its paw in precise time to its chaotic meowing?. Animal noise is functional and simply serves a purpose The sounds follow no "musical" rules and are motivated by brain chemicals. In this sense, animals are not "musical"
  As humans, we do the same but we are able to assign linguistic rules to sound, thereby creating "music". as opposed to the "shag-me!" sounds of animals. Bird song is lovely, (sometimes!), but its not "music". If one decides it is music, it is a human attributing something of his own to a basic, animal instinct...( the "music" is still happening inthe human brain!).  The difference is in the linguistic abilities of our forebrain. (How many linguists do you know who are also highly competant musicians btw? because I know a few).

  "if music was a pure stimulus response, reward punishment type of thing, i doubt anyone would much care about it any more than they cared about going to work."
 
  Again,I DOOOO believe that music IS about the reward from brain chemicles because its objective is, ultimately, the search for pleasure and pleasure IS a function of brain chemicles. Your statement makes no sense. We ARE ALL addicted to endorphins to some degree. Without them we actually feel pain Anything that releases them will ALWAYS be interesting to us.
    
  "by this argument then i'd be satisfied by playing my scales faster than any
person alive"

   Firstly, are you saying you don't get pleasure from playing scales quickly and
accurately because I do :P.
   You are right though because scales are simply a means to an end and this is just practice. Speed alone has nothing to with complexity in music. The important thing are the ratios and patterms of the overall piece, not just between the notes themselves but between changing volumes, spaces, changing time signiatures, etc...   My favourite classical piece is the Adaggio Sostenuta from Moonlight Sonata. Its soooooo slow and seemingly simple but the underlying pulse is very complex indeed. I get a definate endorphin rush from this. It makes me melancholy but that is still a response caused by brain chemicals combined with pre-aquired data. 

   "there are no lab tests proving anything regarding their balance or imbalance."
 
   There HAVE been some tests and experiments regarding such things but you are right that nobody knows exactly what's what. We know enough though, to be able to mess about with SSRI's and other drugs when it comes to depression etc... Knowledge is improving all the time.
   I disagree that brain research is pointless btw... because a thorough knowledge of its workings could help many, many people. I don't believe its not possible either if that's what you meant.
 
    "I don't see how music is related to fight or flight in any way."

  Firstly, why then, have armies throughout history used rousing music to cause an
adreneline rush and rally soldiers in battle?.
  Why does some music make you drive faster, (and more accurately imho),?         
Obviously there IS a very definate link between music and our fight and flight
responses. As you say, I don't think that anybody knows exactly what ratios of
what chemicles are released as a response to what types of music but I'm sure
that any studies would show quite a uniformity of such reactions for most people
within a given culture when exposed to certain types of music.
       Secondly, You already said that our ears and their corresponding brain
structures, (wherever they may be), have extraordinary mathematical abilities. I really do think that this is simply part of the mechanisms with which we keep ourselves safe in our environment.
       The best example I can think of is that of high speed motor sport. You will
often hear drivers talking about the "rythm" of a track and making the engine
"sing". You will also hear them talk of the incredible pleasure that they get from
this. This is because the driver is making complex mathematical calculations based
as much on sound as any other sense. Failure to do so would result in either a
very slow time or probable death or injury.Space and time, in this instance, are
being represented as much by sounds as  by shapes and sensations.  If one were to rely only on eye sight at 200mph whilst sitting almost on the floor, one would crash into an object shortly after one had seen it. Memory of the shapes and preplanning accounts for some of it but in order to go really quickly, one needs to be able to hear the rev' point that signifies its time to brake for a given corner or the the traction point that signifies that the gas needs to go back on. In short, "music" or our ability to represent space and time as repeating patterns of sound are able help us navigate safely through our environment.  

   "it's been mathematically prooven in neurological science that if memories are
stored as energy in our brains then our brains don't actually contain enough mass
or room to hold more than 3 consecutive months worth of memories..."

   Firstly, the relationship between brain mass and computational power is itself
not a  "proven" fact. That whole concept is quite a qualatitive and annectdotal
one. Also, an assumption is being made here that our brains are working as a
classical computer does but that would be far too inefficient an architecture to
explain some of our ablities.
  I think there is good reason to believe that the brain, (in particular the hind brain), works more in line with quantum computers, ie, we are able to utilise
super states etc... This may explain how we can instantly "know" musical signiatures who's mathematical structures are "unknowable".
    Such speculation aside, my idea is that "music" happens due to the interaction of basic survival functions located in the lower brain, the linguistic  functions in our upper brain and  a coctail of brain chemicals.
  The only thing to add is that either the music is an unavoidable result of this interaction or, more likely, we have found / evolved a way of using our forebrain to dupe our hind brain into releasing more endorphins with no risk. (unless your a particularly bad musician playing to a very hostile crowd that is

precisely mate!

i'm glad you took the time to respond and i love a good debate. though i see this as less of an argument and more of simply sharing of ideas but the two cross boundaries.

anyway... lets see... from the top

firstly, whenever one discourses it's important to have common definitions. Obviously our definitions of what music IS are quite different. I think we share common experiences related to music and in that our definitions are similar but our ideas of where it comes from and why it is etc etc ultimately form different definitions for both of us. This is the beauty of our world. As einstein said about relativity, neither of us is right neither is wrong, in order for someone to find the right answer they must actually accept that we are BOTH right at the same time. Fascinating premise if i do say so.

So that's cool... i see this thread evolving more towards "what is your definition of music" because by the end of your most recent post that's what i was left with, which is what i was asking for in the first place, but it's been much further clarified now where you're coming from. I would like, for the sake of debate to adress one or two things. awww hell who am i kidding, i'd like to adress everything LOL!

as for the "world crashing down" comment, yeah i am at times a pompous ass, simply ignore my arrogance 

I'm just trying to say that I have noticed some correlations that could point to the idea that what we perceive as "music" is, at its simplest level, an extension of our ability to recognise patterns in space and time and this, in turn, is rooted in our own fundamental survival mechanisms.

well i do agree with the first part about recognizing patterns in space and time.

I don't, however, think that the survival mechanism is enough to explain it for me. Again it's too simple... but that's just me and not really worth debating because in our own ways we are both right I'm sure. I just wanted to express my view yet again.

I would also like to comment on the fact that yes, this more recent post of yours IS much more well constructed and shows much more precisely the nature of what you're saying, so nice work.

as for the stimulus response comment we are debating different topics which is rather pointless. i didn't explain my statement very fully so i see why it makes no sense to you. i was also speaking about one very specific subject and my statement did not in any way directly concern brain chemicals or endorphins even if they are as you claim involved in stimulus response mechanisms so that response of yours while perfectly valid is a little bit of a departure from what i intended. The monetary systems of the world are a very blatant example of crude stimulus response systems. Pavlovs dog was the first testing of reward based conditioning. This is the type of thing i'm referring to when i talk about stimulus-response. I guess i perhaps should have said "reward conditioning" as in we are told we must jump through hoop A to receive prize B, then we must jump over hurdle C to receive prize D. Jump through the hoop, get the prize. Tada, good way to teach people to jump through hoops... or is it? I'd like to note that this system of conditioning has worked flawlessly on many animals but has failed in one primary notable realm, that of the human. We have countless individuals who don't give a rats arse about going to work to get paid. Sure, lots of people do care about money, but lots don't. So that stimulus, the stimulus of money is not very effective. Many people dislike going to their jobs, but they do it anyway because of the "reward" of money, or perhaps it's because of the punishment of being homeless, who knows probably both. My point was that if that's the only mechanism pushing people to play music, i doubt many people would play music, there's just not enough reward there in my opinion. We do know there IS some sort of great reward to be gained through the perception of aesthetically pleasing music, but i mean the actual act of the playing it. There is some other different center of the brain responsible for computing aesthetic pleasure which I think is different from the one responsible for calculating surival actions based on stimulus response reward mechanisms. I don't think it's the stimulus response portion responsible for the, well the whatever regarding music, the playing of it the doing of it the enjoying of it.

also, as for the playing scales comment... you twist my words a bit... i never said "i don't get pleasure from playing my scales quickly and accurately" what i meant, which is more important than what i said, is that if the only basis for music was stimulus response, then i'd probably be SATISFIED with having played my scales quickly and accurately and it would probably end there, it wouldn't go any further into the realms of creating beautiful harmonies or slow emotionally evocative compositions. anyway, i see that you did get my point because you agree with me at least in a certain respect and i understand your initial comment was in jest.

ok... lab tests... which ones? can you show me? that is my challenge... show me which ones. There are no lab tests proving the theory of brain chemical imbalance. That previous sentence is exactly what i mean and is true afaik. As far as SSRIs "working" for depressed people... hmmm... i dunno, i ask myself if they really work of if they're just a bandaid over the more fundamental root cause of the problem, which yes i think they're just a band aid.

I understand your reasoning for why you think brain research is important and with your line of thinking i agree with you, except that i've got another theory which I think trumps the need for brain research and renders the world of that subject null void and pointless. That's all I'm saying, you'll get my argument on this topic later as it is also much too long to be described without horrid logical jumps of incomprehension.

Ok, I see your connection to fight or flight... i still don't think that makes the essence of music fight or flight. Music is connected in that way to LOTS of emotional mechanisms, not just fight or flight. I'm not saying your point is that music is fundamentally fight or flight, but if one were to argue that music is fundamentally fight or flight related, i don't think that works.

Well.. it has been mathematically prooven, go look it up I can point you to the reference via PM if you like. Also you make a mistake in apprehending what I said when you speak of "computational power" which i made no reference to at all. Obviously we have no prooven facts regarding this. This mathematical proof is after all a theory, just as the theory of gravity is STILL a theory. By way of inductive logic even if you've seen something happen 9999 times out of 9999 times the same way, you can't say for sure that it WON'T happen the other way. You can say that probability and statistic wise it won't, but you can't say for sure that it won't. No proof is not proof of nothing, in other words. Anyway this theory states that IF... yes IF, memories, not computational power, are stored in our brains as energy then our brains do not contain enough mass or room to hold more than 3 consecutive months. This is memories, and this is a theory, and by the way is not just anecdotal. However even by your own estimation there is something else we don't understand going on there which allows us the comprehension of much more than 3 months worth of memories and far greater "computational power" than would seem available based on the mechanics and wiring of the brain system. Regardless, my main point was about memory not computational power, and in the end we agree on this premise anyway.

And you are correct, our brains most likely function in a very different manner from the classical computer, but our brains probably DO function in many very similar ways to a classical computer. In fact i would go so far as to call our brains a type of biological computer, as certainly apprehended as different from the classical computer.

Ok that's about all for me, i do understand your point though and why you think that way... when all is said and done and the dust clears I do think you've got an interesting theory, I simply don't agree and that's the ultimate kicker in the end. Truth. What is true for you is true for you. What is true for me is true for me. And yeah we can say things like up down on off stay constant in this world, but so much does not stay constant, the most we can do in an exchange of ideas or in a debate is qualify the thought flow of the other until it makes sense to us, but once we hit the core, your truth is your truth and truth is not very debatable... very strange beast that beast of truth. thanks for participating in this thread... hope to see some more of yall step up and give a shout out to your favorite musical origins.

 

1) In truth m8, I've no idea if I'm right . I, like you, (obviously), often wonder about where music comes from because when I try and step back and look objectivly, music is a really strange and interesting phenomenon. Who'd have thought that a bunch of monkey descendents would become so transfixed when listening to or playing a bunch of frequencies and rythms. This explanation is the best I've managed to come up with . It would be great if somebody could pop up one day and say, "no actually, it's like this!!". (Actually I'd prefer it if somebody popped and said, "actually m8, I've done some test and experiments and you are exactly right... youre very clever btw, have a nobel:)).

2) you're right that there is no Laboratory based proof around the neorotransmitter based theories of depression in terms of measuring the actual  amounts physiological and interractions of the chemicals themselves. Behavioural "proof" however does exist but, like you, I greet it with some sceptisism
   Actually. I totally agree with you about SSRI's being a band aid for underlying causes but there have been test on mice etc... which do show alterations in behaviour, mood etc... Either way,SSRI's are unfortunatly the best we've got presently and they can provide a nice break from feeling crappy in the short term.
   I was more talking about endorphines,(technically neurotransmitters but more observable in their effect). Again, although, as far as I know there is no laboratory proof for this either,I am convinced that the pain gate theory is pretty damned close to the truth if not spot on.   I adminster morphine to people in pain on a daily basis and also come into contact with opiate addicts daily. The patterns of behaviour of both groups "prove" the theory to me.
   If you watch these people and read between the lines, you kind of realise that pleasure is the absence of pain and not the other way around. With opiate users, there are so many receptors open that they don't produce enough morphine of their own to cover them. In short, the more you have, the more you need. This is why we do progress from simple scales to more complex things.
  When I was a child I could happilly listen to nursery rhymes and Old Macdonald for hours. With experience, however, those patterns are now deep in my brain, I get no reward from playing them unless I was to alter the pattern somehow. These days, In order to get the required shot of endorphins I need to play more complex things.

3) As far as other emotions are concerned, I'm sure they all have a physiological basis. I don't believe in cause without effect and I am pretty sure that emotions are also created by monkey brain, human brain and brain chemicals. Music, (either played or listened to), in my theory, is a kind of software "work around" for our own hardware. This allows us access to those emotions and the relevant endorphins,  whilst avoiding the dangers and/or unpleasentness we would have to subject ourselves to to achieve a similar effect. I think that's very clever of us and not simple at all.

4) From my own personal experience, money in itself means very little to me. I go to work 'cos it pays the bills therby avoiding the unpleasent sensations of being evicted etc... and allows me to buy instruments etc... Its still a long term strategy ,for the delivery of endorphins, devised by my higher brain.
   However, when it comes to doing other things like going the bank or post office to sort out my financial life, I've lost count of the ammount of times I've picked up my guitar at 11am and the bank's been shut by the time I remembered to put it down again. Too many immediate endorphins can be very bad in the long run

5) come on then, where's your theory m8. I've bared mine to you so I need to read yours. Maybe, we will be able to combine them somehow and somebody will give us a joint nobel for extreme cleverness

hehehe... maybe they will maybe they will...

Actually I'd prefer it if somebody popped and said, "actually m8, I've done some test and experiments and you are exactly right... youre very clever btw, have a nobel :)

LOL!!! I hear that!

i'll think about how to devise mine... it's soooo long...

you are making more and more sense now... even though i still don't think the same fundamental principle is the main root of it all... endorphins... though you do present a good case and I certainly see the reality of how they exist and affect people... your particular analogy of the opiate addict is pretty spot on... there's a minor point concerning opiate addicts on which i disagree but I think that's a semantic argument so i'll leave it alone.

ultimately i think you've got a good point... in the mean time i'll write up my theory as best i can... it's actually a sort of treatise hehehe, and it includes all the songs I've ever written, which is many more than two... plus all the thoughts and realizations i've garnered about life over the years...

i think based on what we're relating this subject to we'll both agree that music = life in a major way... or at least most things in music deeply paralell those things in our lives in a major way... so that is, i think, the thesis of my treatise for now...

Music = Life

but there's soooo much more to it than that, in fact that equation is much too broad and simple and is only one of the few equations that i've got, AND that thesis requires a fundamental investigation of what it means to be alive, have a life, to be living and to be human... in essence by that logic... if we figure out the answer to the question: What is life? then we know what music is... and a whole lot more! lol...

for all these reasons is why i cannot just whip up my theory and slap it on the page here... but i think through this discourse we've essentially uncovered our common ground here... which does paralell my main theory... thanks

i want at least a couple more people to put their ideas down here... cmon guys! even if it's one sentence

nothing is wrong... i might slap you around a bit with a large trout, or some syllogistic ramblings, but in the end what you think is what you think...

i've GOT the answer... so before i say to yall "Ok here it is mate" i want yall to pipe up... i really do wanna hear what you guys think...

aight, ENOUGH rambling from me... laterz

Theres always one little kid isn't there...
...Sits on Santas lap...
Then pulls his beard off...
Christmas is never the same for that kid after that.

I read OrlandoDibskitts original post, Entheons reply and OrlandoDibskitts second post...
I am but a simple child and didn't understand a word of it...
But heres what I think...

My reason behind the little santa thing at the begining:
In my opinion, as soon as something 'magical' is explained, it loses something important.
If people actually knew the meaning of life, the universe and everything, where would we be as a species? If we knew what it was all about then what would be he point in carrying on?
The impression I got from your posts is that you think the world and everything in it is just a mixture of maths and chemistry. If thats the case then its we're like a part of some huge cold computer and emotions aren't real at all...Maybe I interpreted it in the wrong way, but if this is the case, its bloody scary and makes me want to give up, as I'm sure lots of other people would if it was true.

I see the correlation between languages and music, like OrlandoDibskitt explained. That was one of the ideas I actually understood.

The theory that music is a series of mathmatical patterns, does not wash with me at all. I know that there is some mathmatical process involved but its not all about that.
For example, one of my friends who was in my music class at school, straight A student, briliant at all things achademic, with a mathmaticallly correct and logical brain, could read music fluently bla bla...and me...who doesn't do well achademically, is the most ilogical and irrational person you could ever meet and can't read music at all...Well we both did compositions as part of the course and she wrote all hers out on the stave and everything, and it was all shiney and perfect from her mathmatically correct computer mind, whereas mine came directly from somewhere else. From pure emotion (only cause I had no other choice though)...and guess who got higher marks...? Me.

I had a load more other points to add but I have the concentration span of a 2 year old and 'stuff to do' apparently...I will come back to this thread though! Its very interesting, even if I don't understand.

In my opinion, as soon as something 'magical' is explained, it loses something important. If people actually knew the meaning of life, the universe and everything, where would we be as a species? If we knew what it was all about then what would be he point in carrying on?

I agree with you fully... it comes back to one of my many fundamental theories that life is a game. And that's more than just a jesterly comment. Living live, for us humans, is all about games. Life is also all about control. A game we can win too easily is never really very fun for very long. Thus after Santa's beard comes off, the jig is up... game over. No more interest. Same thing with life... if we knew all the answers and more precisely if we had fully mastery and absolute control over everything... essentially if we had the powers of God... there would be no more Game left and we'd be bored and there would really be no point. Sure it seems like a great idea to be able to summon in the snap of a finger the sexiest peice of meat you can imagine and have ravaging animal intercourse... but even that would bore eventually if absolute control were available. This fits into Orlando's picture by way of his dolphin argument hehe... er I mean endorphins sorry, yeah... anyway, a game which is not challenging doesn't release endorphins, simple as that.

The impression I got from your posts is that you think the world and everything in it is just a mixture of maths and chemistry.

Let me be very very clear about this and state for the record: I think that the world and everything in it is much more than just a mixture of maths and chemistry. In fact this is the fundamental area in which Orlando and I disagree and have been discoursing. Orlando and I do have some fundamental common ground which we share, but interestingly we both arrived at those conclusions which we have in common from a deeper beleif and approach in regards to the univers. So at the lower level we disagree, yet where those lower levels find us ending up is rather similar. I'd like to state again, that I do not beleive that Physical Universe = Math. Math is an abstract linguistic concept invented by humans. An apple is an apple and an apple will be whatever color it will be, it will exist... and all independently of whether we call it an apple or call it red. Ceasing to call it an apple doesn't make the apple cease to exist.

If thats the case then its we're like a part of some huge cold computer and emotions aren't real at all... Maybe I interpreted it in the wrong way, but if this is the case, its bloody scary and makes me want to give up, as I'm sure lots of other people would if it was true.

I understand where you're coming from however I do think that this conclusion is a fundamental misunderstanding of our discussion. By your own admission there was a lot you did not understand directly after first reading. I don't mean to insult your intelligence at all so don't take this the wrong way, but a good idea is to go grab a dictionary and sit down with it and re-read over our posts and look up any of the words you don't know. Afterall if you don't know what the words mean, how can you know what the concepts mean. I do this all the time actually... anytime I ever read a book, whether it be fact or fiction, I have my trusty dictionary with me.

As far as "living in a computer where emotions aren't real" well that's a little too much of a sweeping emotional statement for me to deal with shortly... so I'll address it... mmm... shortly First off I do think we're living in a computer simulation of sorts... more on that later, in fact I think the theory proposed by the Matrix is very novell and very real in many ways. But regardless of if we are or aren't the fact occurs that we arrive at a point at which we say "well if we are here, then what do we do about it and what do we do with it." It's all well and good to debate the question "What is reality?" Except for the fact that it never really got anyone anywhere. Your emotions are as real as they feel. Should it matter how they are created? I think not. I think it should matter what you do with them and how you deal with them.

The theory that music is a series of mathmatical patterns, does not wash with me at all.

nor does it "wash" with me either hehe... being american it's fun to hear new brittish slang. anyway, I don't beleive that music is primarily a math based endorphin rush. I beleive that both math and endorphins are components which are present in the realm of music, but I beleive that music comes from an even more primal place, more primal than the hind-brain, more primal than the nervous system, and more primal than the body itself. I know that our nervous systems have a lot to do with our perceptions and thus they have to do with our interactions involving music, but I don't think that the mathematical responses of our brains and nerves dictate music.

As for your anecdote about your friend, I've seen that many times. The best music doesn't come from the hyper organized mathematically precise minds. The best music comes from the most creative most balanced most intuitive most open and most emotionally solid minds.

As for you having an attention span of a two year old... well, no you have the attention span of a distracted 16 year old. I'm plenty older and my attention span is crap on most subjects aside from music so you're not alone and no you don't have a brain chemical imbalance because those are fake, so you don't have ADD or ADHD and you certainly don't need ritalin. Just had to make my stance clear on that end of it as well... less for you 'Doll and more for the general everyone who reads this. Anyway... looks like it's time for me to cut a worthy version of my first bandamp.com posted song. bbiab.

1) I do think the universe is a mixture of maths and chemistry!, even chemistry is really physics at its lowest level and physics boils down to a heap of mathematical probabilities.  I find this very beautiful.  Science, ("the search for reality"), throws up really beautiful paradoxes and philosophical conundrums, far more beautiful than can be conceived of from from the day to day emotional world of humans but when humans look at the result in an emotional context, its utterly beautiful. Einstein said it was like mind of god and I'd like to think I know what he meant. The universe is more than the sum of its parts as is all the "best" music.
      Music gives us more than the sum of its parts but it remains mathematical and physiological at its heart. Again, I don't find that scary or pointless. I find it to be quite a beautiful paradox and the numerical universe is full of such things.
    From Newton , Darwin, Einstein, Bohr and beyond, the search for reality has taken us to where we are. without it, there would be no computer on which to have such discussions. There would be no aircraft for us to go on holiday, no modern medicine and no freezer for me to store my ice-cream in.
    Musical notation IS a scientific, numerical process discovered by the ancients who explored the mathematical patterns INHERENT in cogent sound. Those patterns HAVE to be processed somewhere in our brains in order for us to recognise and manipulate them!... we know when something is out of tune and this seems "instinctive" but we are actually measuring whole heaps of frequencies, timings etc...,, very quickly, if one tried to do it on paper, it would take hours and hours. 
   I think that the initial calculations  happen in the same place responsible for making calculations in space and time. This is because they are the very same calculations.... musical ratios also describe space and time, this is what is meant by "the music of the spheres", (Fibonacci, pythagoras, Kepler etc...),.  Therefore, It would make no architectural sense to have a separate area for music when the processing ability required is exactly the same as that for catching a ball or making a cup of tea, playing doom3 or driving a race car. Evolution is too stingy to give us anything so unnecessary as a "music gland" because it is concerned with survival and has no emotional sense of aesthetics or "fair play". Those things are our own.
 
 2) I do think emotions are not "real" in any absolute sense. I think they exist as a result of physiological response to stimuli. This doesn't make them meaningless, just subjective. "Feelings" simply serve a purpose. When I was a baby I would cry my eyes out if I needed my bocky but as I've got older, less things can put me in that kind of emotional state. In short, the more one learns and experiences, the less emotional impact things will have. I see death often. When I first started I would become emotional. These days, however, I feel very little and react in a more intellectually based manner. I believe this is known as "stoicism", an ancient Greek philosophy which I have a lot of respect for.
   If one experiences the idea of a "cold computer" being "scary", this is simply an emotional reaction, ie a bucket of chemicals swimming around different areas of the brain. The idea then, that music isn't worth carrying on with is a conclusion arrived at through subjective means and only valid for the person who "feels" that.I think it makes music MORE imortant because its a way we can esperience structures and form that we otherwise couldn't. Looking at it like this, we could almost see it as a 6th sense, (7th if you already believe in the 6th).
  I really do believe that the universe is a huge, (from our perspective),  computer of sorts. I see enough evidence ,in what little I know of physics, to "prove",to myself at least, that the universe and everything in it is built on fundamental mathematical laws governing the "movement" of energy. Scary at first but quite comforting and aesthetically pleasing now I'm used to it.

3) Two posssibilities could account for poor preformance in academic maths. If one can make a cup of tea or catch a ball, one must have quite a grasp of maths already present in their brain.
   firstly, What we learn in school is the "language" and "technnique" of maths, not maths itself, at least not in any real context. Its more like playing scales ovr and over again with no greater purpose in mind. We all know that this can be quite boring and boring means no endorphins!. No endorphins means no practice, no practice means no development, no development means low performance.
   Secondly, In order to fully utilise the counting abilities of monkey brain, higher brain must communicate with it. Maybe higher brain is missing something in this particular area of language or maybe the connection hasn't been made for some reason. (There is some evidence to suggest that these things happen as a result of not practicing btw.)
   Either way, performance in academic maths does not equate to mathematical ability innate in monkey brain, just to the ability to access it efficiently.

4) (and final... honest!).. This is what I had to reply to in the first place btw..
 
  Where on earth did this come from?...

    "The best music comes from the most creative most balanced most intuitive most open and most emotionally solid minds."

  How the hell could you know that???. More importantly, there is tons and tons of evidence to suggest that nearly all the greats in all of the fields you can think of, had at least one sort of emotional imbalance at some time, to some level. Even in common knowledge, great poets, musicians, scientists and artists  are always portrayed as tortured geniuses who are misunderstood by the peer group.
   There is evidence of this gained from letters and descriptions of how some of these people lived etc and it doesn't surprise me in the least....
     , Einstein... High level autism. Van Gogh... Bipolar. Michelangelo... High level autism. Virginia Woolf.. Bipolar. Mahler... BiPolar. Emily Dickenson... Bipolar. Charles Mingus... Depressive. Ludwig Van... Depressive, (not surprising really). The list goes on and on. I would even go as far as to say that it would be impossible to make the "best" music WITHOUT some sort of compulsive drive to do so.The medium of such compulsion is opiates... ie endorphins! 
  Anyway,logging off now must sleep!

don't be sorry hehe i for one am glad at least someone is making this thread interesting...

Science, ("the search for reality"), throws up really beautiful paradoxes and philosophical conundrums, far more beautiful than can be conceived of from from the day to day emotional world of humans but when humans look at the result in an emotional context, its utterly beautiful.s

well an interesting mix of a few very critical ideas there... the basic implication that science is in some way more beautiful than emotion and vica versa is a rather... i dunno... the way you phrased this statement makes it almost uterlly impossible to argue with it... but i yet again disagree...

taking it step by step...

beautiful paradoxes and philosophical conundrums, far more beautiful than can be conceived of from from the day to day emotional world of humans

i'm gonna have to disagree with this, though it's hard to understand exactly what you mean by the wording... did you perhaps mean "perceived" instead of "conceived" and in what sense of the word conceived did you intend...

conceived as dictionary.com defines it usually means:

• 1 To become pregnant with (offspring).
  
• 2 To form or develop in the mind; devise: conceive a plan to increase profits.
  
• 3 To begin or originate in a specific way: a political movement conceived in the ferment of the 1960s.
  
• 4 To apprehend mentally; understand: couldn't conceive the meaning of that sentence.
  
• 5 To be of the opinion that; think: didn't conceive such a tragedy could occur.
  
• 6 To form or hold an idea: Ancient peoples conceived of the earth as flat.
  

in which sense did you mean it? or were you redefining it in a new sense which is not there? because i don't particularly agree with any of the above senses if it is used that way. I suppose you probably mean it as in the sense of number four.

the idea that something is too beautiful to be conceived by emotion just doesn't make sense to me or ring true... in fact i find it often to occur the other way... I often find that emotion is often too beautiful to be "conceived" by the intellect or science. this is really not much worth debating because we could easily both be right. i think a better word would be perceived. for example there has been many a time when the intricacies of quantum physics gave me a startling emotional response. that might sound strange, but I think the emotional centers of the brain are in fact capable of conceiving much more than the intellectual centers. I like to watch PBS, yeah I'm a geek, and particularly I like the show NOVA. Often time the "scientific" ideas they present on there are things which I've already previously "perceived" "conceived" and or "apprehended" with the emotional centers of my brain... i.e. they are things that I already felt to be true.

Einstein said it was like mind of god and I'd like to think I know what he meant. The universe is more than the sum of its parts as is all the "best" music.

total agreement here

Music gives us more than the sum of its parts but it remains mathematical and physiological at its heart. Again, I don't find that scary or pointless. I find it to be quite a beautiful paradox and the numerical universe is full of such things.

fair enough... I personally don't find that idea scary either... it seemed to be mostly 'Doll's reaction to which I was responding. Oh and to set the record straigh, I love mathematics and science, I think they are beautiful and wonderful concepts. But I see them as concepts, not physical reality.

Musical notation IS a scientific, numerical process yes but it is like all the things you previously mentioned, only a tool. and the musical notation is not the music any more than the ink on the page is the story or the alphabet is the language.
 
Evolution is too stingy to give us anything so unnecessary as a "music gland"

yes of course, but I think we do have musical glands... just maybe not the variety that most people think of... in order to find them you've gotta think "outside the box"... that's a riddle... so if you can figure out what I mean more power to ya.
 
2) I do think emotions are not "real" in any absolute sense.

I know there was a lot more you said about this point but I just fundamentally don't agree. I think emotions are some of the most real things we have. I'll get to that later in my full treatise.

I really do believe that the universe is a huge, (from our perspective),  computer of sorts.

me too... but i think our notions of what this thing consists of are greatly different... i don't know... we seem to have interesting areas in which we have almost identical common ground but then the little spaces between are filled with innumerable differences... as they say "the devil is in the details"


3) Two posssibilities could account for poor preformance in academic maths. If one can make a cup of tea or catch a ball, one must have quite a grasp of maths already present in their brain.

I'd like to point out that there is quite a large discrepancy between the motor brain and the intellectual brain. The mathematical calculatory processes of the motor brain are "hardwired" in that they are pre-existing programs or peices of hardware which are already present. The computation of CONCEPTS relating to math uses an entirely different portion of the brain. For example, Stephen Hawking's motor cortex is not as agile as those of the mass populace (an understatemet) yet his conceptual cortex is perhaps much more active and altert than possibly anyone alive. This is almost proof to me that the pysical universe is not math. Math is an infinitely precise conceptual tool and idea which we map onto the physical universe. The actual physical universe is a much different beast entirely, even though it may follow mathematical laws. The fact that we have different sections of the brain for apprehending different "kinds of math" is proof enough of this fact to me. In my view this boils down to a discrepancy in how one wishes to use and create the definition of the word "math"

"Well, that depends on what the definition of the word 'is' is"
- President Clinton

LOL! But yes it does come down to this. Essentially in (my interpretation of) your view math can be a global concept, as in "everything is math" but in my view even if this is somewhat true... we must declare departmental categories of math, each one relating to different areas of existence. In my view, math is an infinite, theoretical, concept in that it is ONLY A REPRESENTATION of what is actually there.

By the way, we know that emotions are essentially rushes of brain chemicals... which ones are not always known, and lab tests which proove the "chemical imbalance theory" of insanity and depression do not exist. I think that's an oversimplification of the process though. The brain chemical is not the emotion. It may create the neurological circumstances for that emotion, but to confuse the brain chemical with the emotion is I think a critical mistake. We do have some data based on radioactive measurement studies of serotonin, wherein radioactive particles have been attached to brain chemicals and or SSRI's and then MRI or other similar brain imaging techniques have been used. Even this data however is too limited to conclude much.

    "The best music comes from the most creative most balanced most intuitive most open and most emotionally solid minds."

How the hell could you know that???.


Because I know what I know and I know what is true for me. I find it likely that you will not like this answer, Orlando, because it perhaps lacks the normal proof provided by a scientific method and a "valid" path of inductive logic. What is true for me is true for me. What is true for you is true for you. This is obviously not true for you. I've had too much experience with this in my life. By way of inductive reasoning this could be purely false, but it works for me and has held true in my life. My life is, after all, only one out of billions of lives on this planet, so just as I am unqualified to speak for men as I am only one man, I am also inqualified to speak for humans because I am only one human. I know all the possible logical falacies of this argument, but then logic doesn't proove anything in this world. If we had to use logic cannot find truth. Logic can only make valid correlations between already existing truths. Truth we have to make on our own. If you don't beleive me read some socrates. It's true for me. I know it, and I'm sure plenty of other people know this too. Anyone else care to voice their opinion regarding this matter?

More importantly, there is tons and tons of evidence to suggest that nearly all the greats in all of the fields you can think of, had at least one sort of emotional imbalance at some time, to some level.

tons and tons of evidence huh? please do share. I highly disagree. By way of this argument then you must be in severe pain or emotional torment in order to write great music. This is not the case, and I guarantee it. Can I proove it? Mmmm, no... but I can guarantee it's true. I can also guarantee there are other people who agree with me, whether they think it's absolutely true or not.

Even in common knowledge, great poets, musicians, scientists and artists  are always portrayed as tortured geniuses who are misunderstood by the peer group.

The key word is portrayed. This is someone else’s evaluation and estimation of their character. A writer looking to do a story on Einstein in his day would, I imagine, often perhaps be pressed to make it sensational as most any writer would.

There is evidence of this gained from letters and descriptions of how some of these people lived etc and it doesn't surprise me in the least.

Again the key piece here is letters and descriptions. Psychiatric diagnosis of someone long since dead is ridiculous, even more than psychiatric diagnosis itself.

IMHO though this is a popular theory but just totally wrong. I have a fundamental disagreement with psychology and psychiatry which is to detailed to go in right here. As you just asked me… but more importantly in this case… how the hell can you know this:

Einstein... High level autism.

Prove it

Van Gogh... Bipolar.

Prove it

Michelangelo... High level autism.

Prove it

Virginia Woolf.. Bipolar.

Prove it

Mahler... BiPolar.

Prove it

Emily Dickenson... Bipolar.

Prove it

Charles Mingus... Depressive.

Prove it

Ludwig Van... Depressive, (not surprising really).

Prove it

Psychiatric doctors love the diagnosis of Bipolar yet they still have no clue what it is or how to cure it. I could in fact call you Bipolar if I wanted to. I think Psychiatrists are often ill suited to be in the positions they are. It’s another interesting logical rhetorical mechanism which can be used and unfortunately I think is often confused by psychiatrists: that is “I’m write and you’re wrong because I can prove you’re insane because I’m the one who tells you what is sane and what is not because I’m a psychiatrist and that’s what we do. So, you’re insane, therefore you’re wrong.”

Note: Orlando I’m not claiming that you are doing this. But it is a convenient method of logical invalidation and one used more often than we might like to think.

Interesting also that the title of the science should be an oxymoron. The word “psyche” means soul. And psychiatry and psychology find themselves in the odd positions of being sciences decidedly dedicated to the denial of the existence of a soul.

The list goes on and on. I would even go as far as to say that it would be impossible to make the "best" music WITHOUT some sort of compulsive drive to do so.

The medium of such compulsion is opiates... ie endorphins!

By the way I often try to stay away from using things that are proovable, not because I think that proof is bad or that any should accept most ideas without proof, but because  real truth is beyond proof. A real truth is something someone can read and agree with without needing proof, in other words they can instantly find enough real life examples of evidence in their own lives or wherever to understand the truth inherent in the concept. I try to speak the truth. I don't get caught up in beleiving I always speak the truth because we can all be wrong. I do however get caught up in debates because they are fun! lol so cheers Orlando! you're a worthy opponent and I could not have asked for more.

holy.  eff.

kids, that took way too long to read through. i swear, this thread wasn't here the other day.  you're both lucky this is interesting, b/c i would have been dual-wielding stapleguns had it turned out to suck by the end.

now, i don't have much time b/c i'm already running into my recording time, however, i wanted to at least make a fumbled attempt to make a comment.

i DID read everything, and i feel confident that i understand it all.  i may not have percieved it the way it was intended to be percieved when written, but that's about the point of this thread, i'd say 

okay, now, just to be difficult, i want to say upfront that i agree / disagree with both of you at certain points (i don't mean to kick miss porcelaindoll out of this, it's just that you two are the main ones holding this .. .uh... debate?  i believe that's what entheon called it )

i don't care to go back and point out every little point that i DO or DON'T agree with, because plenty has be reitterated already, and i care not to repeat it any more.

this is completely off of my thought pattern, but before i forget:

the matrix was a great movie.  not because of visuals or anything, just by concept, as entheon pointed out

okay, back on track.

i can't even remember who said this now, but i would like to emphasize it:

In short, the more one learns and experiences, the less emotional impact things will have.

i do agree very much.  i believe that this has something to do with our individual purposes in life.  (by that, i mean the purpose that we feel we have, not some purpose that is percieved by another.)  now, you've both mentioned the emotions that we have in life.  i can't pick sides because i can't remember who said it which way any more.  so i'll just state it again, MY way:

i can't say that anybody "understands" emotions in a scientific way.  well, to qualify that statement, i mean the word "understand" to be comepletely comprehensive.  we know about these chemical reations sometimes, but altogether, it's so complex to us that we can't always just diagnose it.

which is why i do not care for magic depression medicine.  i've been there.  i've done that.  i can't say that i'd rather NOT have been and done that, because i feel like i have learned a lot.

but the fact remains that i still don't understand it.  consequently, i don't feel confident enough to agree with entheon and say that chemical imbalances are fake. but--that aside--i can simplify and reiterate it and say that they are vaguely understood, and if i'm wrong, then it would mean that the knowledge we have is farily misunderstood.  it's all pretty relative to where we stand, but regardless, we simply don't have perfect explanations for everything.  like entheon said, just because something happens the same way 9999 times, doesn't mean that it CAN'T happen a different way.  there's so much we don't take into account that (in many cases) happens to NOT influence our experiment those 9999 times.  i don't believe that we create anything in this life, other than assemblies of things and ideas that simply were not paired before.  in a brake-the-peices-down point of view, it all already exists, we just fail to understand it all

and so consequently, it's impossible to just label something as "EXPLAINED".  impossible.  there's too much to take into account, and despite all of everything that we consider, there's something more that we didn't even fathom before.

science is perfect example of this.

science is an emulator.  just like ZSNES.  just like Gens.  just like Nemu64.  

science emulates what we understand to be truth.

now, part of my point that i wanted to originally bring up:

the science is there, but i can't say i understand it.  science can't say that it understands the universe.  science admits that it has no idea why many scientists think that the universe is actually expanding at an accelerating rate.  apparently a force beyond that of gravity as developed over the course of time since the "beginning" of time.  (may want to read in-depth analysis of the big bang theory if you are unclear on what force i am talking about)  science can't just pop up and give reasoning.  many people are working to try to better emulate this celestial sphere of a universe we live in, but it's just like a readme file that comes with an emulator.  there's always a section labled "Known Bugs."

this is why i call science an emulator.  i believe science tells a wonderful story that is both full of awe and also inspiring in the ways of knowledge, but i cannot take it any further than that, because i can't prove any of it's theories on the big bang, or chemical imbalances, or any of it.

(there was something else i was thinking just a second ago that i wanted to point out, but i forget right now.  maybe i'll remember later.)


and for my second thought, on the idea that even the "crippled" people of history were the best musicians (or however it was put.  i have not the patience to look for the exact quote.  you all owe me the same grace leadway that entheon asks when it comes to semantics of the words i write)

now, there is much to be said here, but once again, i can't confess to understand it, and because i will not completely deny the existance of possible chemical imbalances (which term is completely relative to what is considered "normal" , by the way.  but that is another can of worms in and of itself.)

... i lost where i was.  i'll take out the parinthesis and try again:

because i will not completely deny the existance of possible chemical imbalances, i can't say that these people were simply problematic in terms of their normality, and thus were able to explore music more efficiently.

(i hope that came out right... i'm getting a headache.)

i believe that such persons did not perform as they did because they were "hindered" at the time by some condition.  perhaps they had one.  i can't say. i can't prove any of the bipolar or depression arguements.  however, obviously they were different that the average joe shmoe.  i think that they had specific challenges that made it harder for their particular self to overcome, and the recovery of their inner mind made them take on a vision of life and music that was astounding to the rest of us.

i believe the RECOVERY of a condition (regardless of how "real" it may be) ... the recovery of some emotional onslaught brings us to an understanding within ourselves that allows us to create something that can never be fully appreciated.

wanna know why?

because i think i would say that music is another emulator.  it's presence is more than satisfactory, and is comprehendable to us as people, but it is almost just another language with which we use to attempt to communicate with.

one might say that music is the most failed language in existance, because of the fact that music can mean almost everything concievable to an audience, yet none of those concieved emotions may be the intended feeling in it's entirety.  time and time again people ask me what their song means, and my answer is very biased by my own experiences.  this is no fault of my own, it's simply a fact.  it is impossible to just sit a group of people down, play a song, and make everyone to walk out in complete understanding.  that is where music might be considered "broken."  it is a boundary it cannot transcend.  on the other hand, music is able to transcend the boundaries of all other languages and backgrounds, if allowed.  but looking beyond that, music has it's own "known bugs".

i want to make a complete u-turn for just a minute and tell you that i don't believe that previous paragraph very much at all.  just like we come to love a spouse or other family member for their imperfections, we love music because of it's imperfections (despite how "precisely" it is designed, built (in a way)  off of mathmatics).

such imperfections keep us looking for ways to get the upper hand and better perform what it is we seek.  if we had cheat-codes for music, it wouldn't be any fun, which is exactly what one (or both) of you said above, that if we had complete control, we would begin losing that emotional impact.

and so we are on this never-ending quest to aquire all of this knowledge, a quest to perfectly emulate, even when we know the result of achieving the highest "rank" , if you will.

so... is that what we really want?  that's what our actions say!  but to u-turn again (and alude to an previous comment) human behavoir shatters all attempts to predict.  besides, we look retarded jumping through hoops for prizes 

it is my firm belief that my life is in existance for it's own sake.  i may very well assist others, but ultimately, it's my "buddha-complex" per-say that matters.  and so i attempt to recover and break down my preformed complexes that life and "beaten-paths" create.

to quote entheon's song now, in a new context:  break down "the wall" that stops you from achieving that which you deisre.  if that "wall" is obtaining more scientific knowledge, then so be it.  but for me, it is something i can't put into words, much more grand than science.

much more.

(read a paper called "The Loss of the Creature"  by a person named "Percy".  if you have not read this and come to the same enlightenment that i have found in it, you will not understand my position in the slightest.)

au revoir, good sirs.

Sorry m8 but this is getting a bit too much now Entheon, To be honest I'd prefer a normal debate to a seperate thread.
  I'm not really happy with my use of English being picked at either... when I say "conceived of", I mean exactly and preciely, "conceived of". Its a perfectly legitimate expression and I'm surprised you are having trouble with it. Maybe its a UK English thing but either way, its dissection is irrelevant and not welcome.   
  I'm trying to discuss with you and anybody else who may want to contribute to your thread. I'm not really interested in some sort of public shouting match. I don't want to post in any thread entitled Orlando vs anybody because that's not the objective here. I just want to know what music is for and where it comes from, bearing in mind that I don't believe in god, the soul or any kind of sentient divinity.
  I've got the beginnings of what, to me, seems  quite a logical,  physiologically based explanation. I'm well aware it's probably totally and uttely wrong and even if it is along the right lines, things are gonna be out of place at times because it's work in progress. for example, Motor co-ordination must be in there somewhere too but I'm not sure where to put it.
  I have many retorts to your last posts but I don't really want to get into this "vs" thing. Also, . I think I've said all I can on my ideas. the only thing I do want to add is that I work with the mentally ill all the time and believe me, "mad" people are "mad" people!. I'm not talking about alternative but equally valid realities, I'm talking about true, honest to goodness mentally ill people.
    Yes there is misdiagnosis and yes there are problems with the way people are catagorised but its the best we have and we DO help lots and lots of people.
 These people are often highly competant with various art forms and tenacious in their pursuit. take it from me, there is at least some truth in the addage, "genius goes hand in hand with madness".