Dear Leonid - I don't have an answer, only more futile words .... Anais Nin, on her deathbed, concluded that we were, because of our sins, banned from the country of our origin: music. But when we hear pure music, we are touched, because it reminds us of that far country. Her last word to us are sooo encouraging: "A lovely thing to look forward to - a promised land. So I shall die in music, into music, with music."

Music's a mystery to me, too and my next favourite

thing after the Silence.

Hope the following helps;

"Music gives a soul to the Universe, wings to the Mind,

flight to the Imagination and life to everything" - Plato.

and

"The singing Neanderthals: the origins of Music, Language, Mind

and Body", by Steven J Mithen.

Wow Isabella I am very excited about the book - It's on its way to me.... I've been reflecting about the origins of art in a dry area of South Africa named the Kalahari, and I thought the songs of birds, mimicked by our ancestors while explaining where food was to be found, were the origin of music - I'll see what the book says... can't wait. Leonid, don't you think that could be the purpose of music, and also be the reason why it's so deeply embedded in our collective psyche?

Dear Isabella and Annie,

Thank you for your lovely contributions. Of course music is wonderful and great to our souls. My question is more scientific - why and how this ability emerged in evolution (if it did) ?

The idea that music is similar to bird songs, did not stand to scientific scrutiny: birds do not sing to enjoy sounds of their songs; for them it is just a genetic "hardwired" mechanism, they do not have freedom to sing or not, and which song when to sing.

Mithen's book is interesting to read, but I do not think it satisfies our wonder about the mystery of music. He wrote that music evolved for religious purpose, which he identifies with supernatural beings. According to Mithen currently music is not needed, it has been replaced by language, it only exists as inertia, as a persistent remnant of the primordial animal voice mechanism. An exception could be religious practice, where music is needed, since we do not know how to communicate with gods.

But this is not a scientific explanation. First, religion is not about supernatural beings, it is about the spiritual meaning of life. And second, this dismissing of Bach, Beethoven, or Shostakovich, or Beattles, of even Lady Gaga as "not needed" is obviously wrong.

Dear Leonid

I didn't express myself properly - the theory might that our ancient ancestors, who traveled through landscapes and had to make decisions about where to settle (landscape theory - Appleton, Ulrich, the Kaplans), had to communicate by means of art - drawing pictures against rocks or in the sand, mimicking the sounds of birds or the movements of animals. I know that birds' songs are partly innate, but in their effort to "tell" their fellow tribe members where they saw the bird/mammal (food), our ancestors had to "repeat" the sound made by the animal. This (rather flimsy!) hypothesis would support Mithen's statement that it is a remnant of a primordial animal voice mechanism - BUT I strongly believe that it is still needed/has survival value, since songs still change the way we behave. When Gaga sings

Don't hide yourself in regret,

Just love yourself and you're set

I'm on the right track, baby

I was born this way

then she change my behavior, how I think and act - maybe even my chances of survival. Words, then, and the music with it, create worlds. In that Mithen has dropped the ball.....

Have you read Denis Dutton's "The Art Instinct"?

http://nemcog.smusic.nyu.edu/

Join--just attended semi annual meeting in Boston

Leonid, I recently read an interesting book by Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary biologist - "The Mating Mind". In this book he posits that much of human behavior evolved for the purpose of sexual selection. Music, he suggests, for similar reasons to the Peacock's Tail - as a way for males to advertise their sexual fitness to prospective mates. Here's a quote from the book which I thoroughly enjoyed.

"A major theme of this book is that before language evolved, our ancestors could not easily perceive one another’s thoughts, but once language had arrived, thought itself became subject to sexual selection. Through language, and other new forms of expression such as art and music, our ancestors could act more like psychologists—in addition to acting like beauty contest judges—when choosing mates. During human evolution, sexual selection seems to have shifted its primary target from body to mind".

Miller, Geoffrey (2011-12-21). The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature (p. 10). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Ray,

Of course procreational instinct is one of the strongest. But there is a stronger and more fundamental instinct that Miller overlooked. Perceiving the world around is a condition of survival and procreation. Perceiving even simplest objects is a very complex task, which undoubtedly required a separate instinct.

I wrote recently a book about this. We and higher animals (beginning possibly from turtles) have the instinct for knowledge. Art, beautiful, and music are results of the knowledge instinct. These statements have been proven experimentally.

Language is another fascinating subject, of course closely related to the above. But why no animal has ability for language, art, and music? Why language and music ability evolved so slowly?

Sex is an old and powerful staff. Why sexual selection shifted to the mind? And what does it mean? A better sexual partner is also a smarter one? Possibly so, but it needs more explanation. My explanation is that the knowledge instinct might make sex better, but not the other way around. Miller book might be fun to read, but I have not found there scientific answers. I would add that enjoyment is always a stronger position than not, and apparently many people enjoyed this book.

Yes, I agree that enjoyment can be seductive on many levels. When I read a book like Miller's I usually spend a few months after imagining how his views could be true - or not. I have not arrived at a conclusion regarding his thesis yet but I am enjoying the process.

An instinct for knowledge? Is that like an instinct to learn how to best adapt to the environment you find yourself living in - using your brain in whatever capacity it can help? Like where the food is and where the dangers exists?

Ray,

You are right, but in addition there is an entire hierarchy of cognition including the knowledge instinct (KI), from perceptual features to objects, to situations, to abstract concepts, to more abstract... to the meaning of life, beautiful, and sublime (here standard words are not sufficient, if you care what I really mean you really should look into my paper - they are available open on the web, also here on RG).

KI in the hierarchy works top-down (developing more detailed representations-concepts) and bottom-up (developing more unified, abstract, and meaningful representations). Musical emotions are needed in these later processes. Music helps to unify the world "split" into pieces by language. This last statement has been experimentally proved by two groups (in Kyoto and in Quebec).

The previous paragraph summarizes a book (and/or dozens of papers) .

Leonid, your questions have distracted me from other things & reminded me of a world I like to frequent from time to time. Not just listening to music, but thinking about it; being immersed in it... So, I have some return questions: just like "where is the mind?", "where is the music" when you listen to it? Is it just the sounds & their flow? What about the affective & cognitive contribution to it? The physical experience. The recognition of patterns; the layers of rhythm & harmony? Where is the boundary between music as music & music as noise? ... but they are just questions & mostly irrelevant when listening to music that you connect with ... & so then the questions become noise

Dear Leonid

Dear all

I do believe that music is a big mystery. It is generally accepted that music, like other types of non-representational art, can evoke emotions and moods (Meyer 1956). Music is often mentioned as the art that affects with the most intense way our feelings: it is "recorded" in our brains as euphoria, similar to the pleasure offered by food and sexual mating (see also Blood & Zatorre 2001). But how?

I think that Dissanayake offered us some interesting explanatory views. Dissanayake stated that the importance of music – as well of arts - is to promote collective faith. The rituals of music and dance contributed to the cohesion and unity of the social group and the development of trust among members, providing a sense of belonging. As a result, music rituals (in general) benefit the individual and social well-being by reducing the levels of anxiety (decreasing blood pressure and lowering cortisol levels).

She wrote:

“Indeed, neuroscientific studies have revealed that brain opioids, oxytocin, and prolactin systems are key contributors to social affect and attachment processes (Carter, 1998; Carter & Altemus, 1999; Panksepp et al., 1999, p. 223, p. 225) Although, to my knowledge, the neurobiology of participants in ceremonial/musical events has not been specifically studied, it is arguable that the proto-musical mechanisms that underlie such participation are likely to release these same neurohormones. Evolution would not produce new mechanisms for social behavior if existing mechanisms — such as those that subserve maternal bonding and infant attachment — could be deployed equally well (Keverne et al., 1999, p. 264).‘‘

See Ellen Dissanayake (2008). If music is the food of love, what about survival and reproductive success? Musicae Scientiae - Special Issue, pp. 169-195.

Dear Jon,

I am glad to hear that you found this question worth attending, so much so that you took time from your other activities. Please welcome to music cognition, a field of science, studied by thousands of people. there is about a dozen journals publishing in the field. And many dozen of journals devote their pages to all kind of questions about the mind.

You are right, one can enjoy music without asking questions. Some people are curious enough to ask them. Aristotle, Kant, Darwin, and many great minds have been fascinated by the mystery of music, welcome.

Dear May,

I think you amplified my question well. The question still remains, why sounds produce such effects on people, and why such an ability has evolved? Certainly there has to be a purpose, what is it ?

There have been many neuro-cognitive studies of music, possibly hundreds or more. Still they could not answer these questions.

If you read Dissanayake accurately, you would notice that she dismisses the last several thousand years of music evolution, including Palestrina, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Shostakovich, Beetles, Lady Gaga along with the entire 20 and 21 centuries as "abberation of modernity." Therefore most of leading cognitive musicologists cannot consider her views on music cognition as a serious answer. You could look at summary of the critical views of Dissanayake in my review papers, in "Musicae Scientae," and in few other journals referenced below.

My main idea is that music helps developing unifying representations of the world. Music helps holding contradictory cognitions and by this music has made human cultural evolution possible. These hypotheses have been confirmed experimentally in

Masataka, N. & Perlovsky, L.I. (2012). Music can reduce cognitive dissonance, Nature Precedings: hdl:10101/npre.2012.7080.1.

http://precedings.nature.com/documents/7080/version/1

Masataka, N. & Perlovsky, L.I. (2012). The efficacy of musical emotions provoked by Mozart's music for the reconciliation of cognitive dissonance. Scientific Reports, 2, 694, DOI: 10.1038/srep00694

http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120925/srep00694/full/srep00694.html

Perlovsky, L.I., Cabanac, A., Bonniot-Cabanac, M.-C., & Cabanac, M. (2012). ‘Mozart effect’, cognitive dissonance, and origin of music, ArXiv 1209.4017 submitted to Brain Behavioural Research.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.4017

Still the importance of these questions demands more research, therefore I continue asking.

Perlovsky, L.I. (2012). Cognitive function, origin, and evolution of musical emotions. Musicae Scientiae, 16(2), 185 – 199; doi: 10.1177/1029864912448327.

Perlovsky, L.I. (2012). Cognitive Function of Music, Part I. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 37(2), 129–42.

Perlovsky, L.I. (2011). Music. Cognitive Function, Origin, and Evolution of Musical Emotions. WebmedCentral PSYCHOLOGY 2011;2(2):WMC001494.

http://www.webmedcentral.com/wmcpdf/Article_WMC001494.pdf

Perlovsky L.I. (2010). Physics of The Mind: Concepts, Emotions, Language, Cognition, Consciousness, Beauty, Music, and Symbolic Culture. WebmedCentral PSYCHOLOGY 2010;1(12):WMC001374

http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.3803

Perlovsky, L.I. (2010). Musical emotions: Functions, origin, evolution. Physics of Life Reviews, 7(1), 2-27. doi:10.1016/j.plrev.2009.11.001

Perlovsky, L.I. (2008). Music and Consciousness, Leonardo, Journal of Arts, Sciences and Technology, 41(4), pp.420-421.

Perlovsky, L.I. (2006). Music – The First Priciple. Musical Theatre,

http://www.ceo.spb.ru/libretto/kon_lan/ogl.shtml

oups! A lot of homework for me!

Thank you Leonid, I 'll try to understand your thesis. My own perspective is obviously different... but more angles lead to deeper understanding.

Leonid

I read them all. Thank you!

I respect your thesis. You have managed to construct your own theory for the function of music. The research for the cognitive function of music you contacted and you focus on is really challenging. As for me, I do not feel ready and mature to do so. I continue to study the music phenomenon, within western and non-western cultures, the culture wars (“low” and “high‘‘” art), the dimensions of aesthetic experience and aesthetic pleasure, and the common ground of arts. The last one – the discussion of art's common ground – is in the top of my interests. In Greek classic era, and in other civilizations and epochs, the notion of separated arts was unknown. In ancient Greece, for example, music and poetry were practiced jointly. And in many civilizations, crafts, art, and science (utility, comprehension, inspiration, and pleasure) were included in the same sphere. Our idea of music – and art – is a modern invention. How can we overcome this diffusion?

I've just learnt about the victims in the Connecticut school and I am shocked.

I am wondering.... we teach music, why? Why teach at all if we cannot help our students to become better persons?

May,

Thank you. It is important to know that what one does is interesting.

You have already contributed to this research: you identified another area of differentiation (of art into many arts). Differentiation is the essence of cultural evolution. But people also need meaning and purpose, a unifying power. For many people there are too much differentiation in the contemporary western culture. It is intolerable. This recent tragedy and much of other negative happenings are related to the loss of meanings and purpose. Music helps, but cannot do it all. Today after 4000 years of monotheism many people believe that people are essentially good by nature, and fall into despair when this ideal does not hold. But it is sufficient to look around the world and into our history to see that this is not so. America today is a very good place. It is not as good as some might want, but could it be better? What can we expect in future?

Great questions! I asked my self the same thing 14 years ago when I began my journey in music cognition research. My own research suggests that music has such powerful induction effects. It elicits emotional feelings, because it has the ability to represent emotions/affective states. Music can represent happiness, sadness, fear and surprise. We use it in film, we use it to communicate how we feel, how others feel. It is a means of communication, clearly. We use it to help us change internal affective states (how we feel at a given point in time), or maintain a certain affective state (continue to feel happy, for example). In a series of studies I have conducted with my colleague, Bill Thompson, we found that music and speech share quite a bit in their representation but also induction capabilities. Some affective states can be conveyed through either music or speech, by means of specific variations in their psychoacoustic properties, showing overlap between the communication capability of these two auditory domains. Some affective states can also be induced in the same way in music and speech, not just communicated. Again - showing that the two domains may overlap and create the same results in both perception and experience of affect. However, their function because it is different (we listen to music mainly because the way it makes us feel, we listen to speech because of the information it communicates) leads to some dissociative effects. Thus purpose, function, matters in the effects we observe. As per the function played by music in cognition, it will play the function associated with the affect it conveys, its representational value. Thus its influence on cognition is modulated by the effects emotion/affect have in general on cognition (no matter the mean through which it is communicated). Moderate levels of arousal elicited through music will produce better performance on some cognitive tasks. Pleasant music, that is low in arousal will facilitate performance on some creativity tasks. I hope you may be interested to read some of our papers, especially the 2011, 2006 papers. Good luck with your quest!

......there is something about the music and/or its interconnection

to the Nature, that each time I listen to the Ludwig van Beethoven's

5th Symphony's first four notes, I have the recurrent strong sensation

of "musical deja vu".........and hear the Hammer Bird's calling.

Gabriela,

I would just add that music probably is unique in that it acts on emotions directly, not through representations. I guess that musical emotions are different from basic emotions, whereas basic emotions indicate satisfaction (or diss) of bodily instincts, musical emotions I hypothesize are related to the instinct for knowledge. They overcome cognitive dissonances and help us holding contradictory knowledge. If not music, knowledge accumulation and the entire human evolution would be impossible.

It is a big claim and it would take much experimental proofs.

How many musical emotions exist? How to measure them? Isabella, what you describe cannot be named by a special emotional word, like we use for basic emotions (rage or thirst). Basic emotions are hundreds of millions of years old. But musical ones are only hundreds of thousands of years old. There is a lot of work ahead.

Gabriela, what you did Bill Thompson is tremendously important, of course music and speech share a lot, they came from the same source - undifferentiated animal and proto-human voicing. Semantics of language demanded reduced emotionality of voicing. So what is the role of emotions in voice prosody today, is it just a remnant? or is it fundamental for motivating integration of language and cognition? We should remember, nothing happens without motivation. When language becomes unemotional the meaning is lost. A meaning requires motivation.

Best,

Dear Janice,

Thank you for good words for discussants. I agree with your poetic terms, they are quite applicable here, because we do not really understand all that music does to us and why. My idea of overcoming cognitive dissonance is important because it is necessary for accumulation of knowledge and therefore for entire human evolution.

But there are also interactions of music with motion - rhythm - dance + interaction with the emotions of the beautiful. We understand something about the emotions of the beautiful: these emotions are involved at the top of the mental (approximate) hierarchy. And they are related to improved understanding of concepts (cognitive representations) at this "top". These concepts represent the meaning of our entire experience, - at least this is my hypothesis.

But relations between music and rhythm-dance are not well understood yet. Of course rhythm is involved in our very survival - from cardiac rhythm, to walking-running, to sex. This is a lot, but is that all?

Dear Janice and Ashwin,

Indeed being swept by music is a miraculous feeling. Let us see how far we can understand it scientifically. Janice I appreciate your questions, they are most penetrating. The idea that the emotion of the beautiful is related to understanding the meaning of the entire life experience so far has not been experimentally tested. It is the problem for experimental psychologists, my mind does not work in this direction. The only publication I saw on this topic was by Irving Biederman: he suggested that "higher up" in the mental hierarchy there is an increased concentration of dopamine receptors.

About music and cognitive dissonance we are about to publish a new paper (with. Michel Cabanac and his group). We have shown that music helps to tolerate stress on exams; with music students spend more time evaluating stressful questions and receive better grades. So the 'Mozart effect' might be due to increased tolerance to stress.

A-musical students have lower grades. Is insensitivity to music related to aesthetic insensitivity? I did not see experimental data. Theoretically there is a difference between cognitive functions of music and aesthetic. Aesthetic emotions are related to every process of learning, they become stronger and more conscious at high levels of mental hierarchy. Music helps overcoming contradictions in knowledge. Neural mechanisms are somewhat different: aesthetic emotions measure correspondence between mental representations and the world, life events (knowledge-world). Musical emotions help to tolerate contradictions between various mental representations. These mechanisms could involve different brain areas. But there are little data.

Best,

Leonid

Hello Leonid,

I read all questions and answers with great interest and increasing anxiety.

One off the problems in solving your question is that we consider music as “one” as a “whole”. That is the way we experience it (although, being a musician we can hear the separate parts ). That is also the problem with experimental research; we try to take one part out of the whole to investigate it, but one can ask one-self if it is still music then?

The connection of music with emotion is very obvious and frequently mentioned in the discussion above. But Mario Joao Pires showed us (in an experiment with Damasio) how she can disconnect with her emotion and still play music (although the disconnection is hearable in her music).

In music therapy we use different “powers” in music; the ability to synchronize (unison) on/with music (which brings about a feeling of connection with others and loss of the bounders of oneself), we use the prediction that meter brings about (which makes it “safe” to clients to join in), we use principle of rhythmical entraining (to help clients who have difficulties with movements) and of course the expressive power of music (in case of psychological problems). These are just a few exemples.

Perhaps music is not one thing and it’s power lies in the connections that it requires and also brings about. And with these connections I mean: neural connections, but also human connections and (more psychological) connection with the Self.

Dear Kathinka,

It is an interesting thought that rhythm and melody might have different cognitive functions. To simplify, melody might be related to emotions, whereas rhythm to bodily movement. And what is the role of harmony? These questions could be continued. We need more experimental data that would go from these intuitive guesses to scientific answers. I agree it is very interesting.

Do you think that different aspects of music connect us with Self, with other selves?

A lot of research would be needed to formulate these questions in a way that could be scientifically tested.

I have long suspected that music is directly linked to the structure in our minds that enables us to be truly human (i.e. mind over brain). I call this structure THEE (taxonomy of human elements in endeavour). Details at http://thee-online.com

However, I cannot justify this intuition.

Warren,

My idea is that music has a fundamental cognitive function: to enable us to keep contradictory cognitions. According to cognitive dissonance (CD) ("a most influential and experimentally tested theory" in psychology), contradictions are difficult to tolerate and usually are discarded. If this tendency would not be overcome, accumulation of knowledge and human cultural evolution would not be possible. I suggested a hypothesis that this has been the function of music evolution. There are now several experiments published supporting this hypothesis.

It seems it might fit your intuition, does it?

That's fascinating, Leonid. I love music greatly (it's almost always on) and I live with contradictions and confusion. You could be right.

One idea that I had is that it deals with traumatic states or perhaps helps in their repair.

In traumatic states, the mind is overwhelmed and cannot function (in the sense that a person cannot execute purposefully). Later the trauma is buried underneath two sorts of mechanisms: one is like an emergency protection, and the other is a distortion of reality that keep you away from needing that protection. Very damaged people only use the protective mechanism.

There is a lifelong urge to heal that trauma....perhaps music plays a role here. But I have no evidence for this and have never tried to explore or test it. So the notion may be completely wrong.

Warren,

Very interesting. it is possible that music helps in traumatic states exactly because it enables holding cotradictory knowledge. Aesop's fox cannot attain the beautiful ripe grapes, but even worse is a contradiction between the grape being so near, yet unattainable. So fox resolves this most offending part of the world, it decides that the grape is sour: "if I cannot have it I do not need it." Possibly in trauma this way of thinking is blocked. Living with a contradiction is difficult. Here music might help: it enables living with contradictions.

Leonid, how music can help in cases of trauma, helps accepting contradictions and living with contradictions is theme of many studies an publications. E.g. “Der Wirkung von Musik auf der Spur“ from Fritz Hegi (mixed method study) or publications by R. Tüpker (qualitative studies). I hope you can read German.

Kathinka, I am very interested in the study you mention by Mario Joao Pires and Antonio Damasio. Do you have the reference? I can't find it via google-Scholar.

Hi Sally, Damasio discusses it in : Damasio A (1999) The Feeling of What Happens: Body, Emotion and the Making of Consciousness (London: William Heineman). There also exists a documentary in which parts of the experiment is filmed. But I only have an old VHS tape of it (and it is of bad quality). I don’t know who made the documentary nor who broadcasted it. I’m sorry.

Leonid,

There is no doubt that different forms of duality (your contradictions) permeate psychosocial reality. Each form has dozens of examples or more. In functioning, the duality tension is resolved in various ways according to form. One of these forms of duality is particularly interesting in that 'according to level', the duality either forces the creation of polar opposites or it demands a fusion-synthesis. The point here is that this 'impossibility’ seems to be less about knowledge (?cognition) and more about engaging in deliberate human action. It is a process and functions constantly. When you discuss with someone, the duality springs into consciousness and one pole is usually given prominence— to reduce dissonance, I suppose.

Thanks, Kathinka. I'd read with interest the para in TFOWH and hoped perhaps there was a published study. I'll look out for the documentary. Sometimes these things pop up on youtube.

Kathinka,

I do not read German, but will try to find his publications in English

Very interesting

Warren,

it is an interesting comment; may be you can give more examples?

Sally and Kathinka,

I did not see the beginning of the discussion about Damasio's ideas, please tell me what this is about

Hi Leonid, Kathinka's comment to which I responded was on 1 Feb 13, talking about Mario Joao Pires and Antonio Damasio. This was from Damasio's book 'The feeling of what happens', in which he pursues his theory of emotions as somatic markers. My understanding of this theory is, simplistically, that emotions are nature's solution for managing homeostasis in a highly complex organism. His later book, 'Self comes to mind', addresses what he saw as a shortcoming of previous work by giving far more recognition to this internal-external interaction than in TFOWH.

I would emphasise that this is my interpretation of his ideas. Others more familiar with his work might find my interpretation askew. Best wishes

Sally,

Thank you. I also did not find Damasio's ideas abput emotions useful. I like Grossberg-Levine theory of drives and emotions: drives (instincts) measure bodily parameters (like sugar level in blood), and if those are outside of safe range emotional neural signals indicate this to the decision making part of the brain directing behavior toward satisfying instinctual needs.

I extended this toward the knowledge instinct (which measures correspondence between mental representations and the world). Musical and other aesthetic emotions are related to satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the knowledge instinct.

Does it makes sense to you?

Hi Leonid. I don't disagree that music may serve as an aesthetic emotion but, as a classical singer, that is an adaptation of a biological imperative: the regulation of airflow. This is why Damasio's theory resonates (if you'll pardon the pun) with me, and I believe it is the crucial, missing concept which he redressed in 'Self comes to mind'. The key difference between an instrumentalist and a singer is that the instrument itself is altered by the playing only for the latter. In terms of your first paragraph, the 'decision making part of the brain' no longer makes the decisions. To quote TS Eliot, "Or music heard so deeply that it is not heard at all but you are the music while the music lasts." I hope this makes sense to you. Best wishes

Leonid,

My website is full of examples--so you should go there if you are not aware of them. Look up Dualities in the Hub initially to get oriented. Trees are about applying a duality to 'levels'.

But I'm not sure if you grasp what is important for you here. Instead of silly examples like the fox and grapes--what if it had been winter and there was no fruit? what about other mental tricks to deal with distress/conflict?--you can get to something fundamental, psychologically and therefore biologically.

Your hypothesis/finding is surely far more powerful if it is about dealing with ongoing unstoppable irremovable unavoidable universal states of duality that are intrinsic to human psycho-social life (I.e. life as it is lived, not as it is structured in labs).

What do you think?

Dr. Henk-Jan Honing wrote a small book on discoveries in neuroscience of musicality, I really enjoyed reading it. What I found especially interesting is the way in which we use melody and rhythm to communicate state of minds, as an aid to empathy perhaps. Maybe exchange of affect is superior over exchange of concepts through language as a means of understanding one another. I have noted people's inability to express the purpose and emotion of their words on the internet, especially fb, leading to nasty discussions as they couldn't fathom the other's perception.

Perhaps this function of melodic and rhythmic sounds makes us use instruments and voices to express our state of mind in a ways that is vague in terms of conceptual meaning but very clear and effective in 'affectual' meaning.

Annelies van Goethem wrote her doctoral thesis about how people use music listening for affect regulation, extremely interesting material.

Sorry for not completely fitting into the conversation, I have yet to discover the theories that you are discussing before I can contribute. But as van Goethem's empirical research shows, music does not only affect emotion and stress levels, but a much broader range of (psychological) states: i.e. it is a way to control impulses and rational thinking as well. I hope to contribute to our understanding of these matters from an Anthropological perspective during my MA program and after.

Sally,

How many different musical emotions exist in your opinion? Does it fit with Damasio theory?

Warren,

A fable about the fox and the grapes is still discussed 2500 years after it has been created. I would like to be sure that our ideas would live than long.

I would like if you indicate succinctly what I should be looking for at your website?

Sylvia,

Dr. Honing has many interesting ideas, I agree.

I would be glad to know your opinion about my ideas about cognitive functions of music - you can easily find my papers on this topic - many are openly available, here on RG and elsewhere. Some people found it interesting enough to modify their experimental program and verify my predictions. I think it is a wide area, where a lot of ideas can connect.

Hi Leonid,

I'm not sure what you should look at. However, I am trying to give your hypothesis more depth. I think it is stronger to move beyond dissonance as an event like the fox and the grapes, to the presence of intrinsic dualities (dialetics, dipoles &c) in human existence/functioning. If you are happy with event-driven dissonance, then don't waste your time on my site. If not, you should be aware that these intrinsic dualities exist and create stress. From the way most people (including academics) talk and write, they also cause great confusion and near-pointless conflict and debates. If you grasp these dualities that shape how you function when you are purposeful, then you have no need to look at my website. If you do not and would like to know more, then I will give you a specific link from which you can explore. (I will also re-read the page(s) myself to check if it needs updating.)

Cheers

Warren

Certainly people tend to remember music that they like, but they also tend to remember music that is meaningful to them, music that helps them to define an identity for themselves – usually this means that the music will help them to feel a sense of belonging in a community that is part of their sense of who they are. This tends to be true whether it is music that stirs in them a sense of patriotism and cultural nationalism, identification with their local community and the things that it values, or even membership in a community devoted to a culture they love, which may or may not be defined as their “own” based on where they live, or even on their ethnicity or ancestry.

Music among primitive peoples had (and has) a power of incantation. Its repetition and rhythm hark back to magic (or a human strength to influence deity). Jules Combarieu wrote on this relationship between music and magic and affected the thinking of Spanish composer Manuel de Falla and Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca on Southern Spanish deep song or "cante jondo," which, played by the gypsies, acquired the character of a magical rite. Evidently deep song had an evolution, hypothesized by Falla: he thinks that in Spain it began as plainchant, was modified by the Moors after the invasion in 711, and was subsequently perfected by the gypsies fleeing Tamberlain from the Orient. Why the evolution? Presumably to preserve the magic of the origins of that melody, changing circumstances notwithstanding. Evidently, Falla and Lorca, influenced by the esthetic enjoyment which according to Debussy mysterious music offers, drew upon the mystery of deep song for their own arts. As to cognitive functions of deep song, its singers and dancers are revered as sacral for their knowledge of cosmic rites. (Incidentally, the theories of Falla and Lorca do not necessarily convince nowadays. Still, they provide a logical explanation for the mystery, the evolution, and the cognitive potential of music.)

Hi Leonid

Music is a pleasure technology, like pornography. It picks our physical and psychological locks.

See, say, Pinker, Dutton and Miller on the Arts. e.g.:

http://storyality.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/storyality-82-pinker-on-evolution-and-explanation/

More on `the evolution of Culture' (films, music, novels etc) at: http://storyality.wordpress.com/

Best

JT

Contradictions are essential to life and being able to accept them is indicative of intelligence. Overall, life is built on contradictions and paradoxes, I think that most intelligent people have understood it perfectly well, there is no irony or if there is any, it is of a higher kind. 

I think what is common between this argument and music is that not all contradictions can coexist peacefully, some of them are tolerated in a harmony while others are not.

Warren, I think that music fits into your mind over brain model precisely because music is spirituality, whether or not there is a scientific proof, we know intuitively that all people who are highly sensitive to music are highly intelligent and visibly spiritual -- the beauty of this knowledge is that we feel it without the need for a study or any formula.