Evolutionary purpose of music explained
S Flinn
highlights my new theory of why advanced musicality capabilities evolved in
humans:
ManyWorlds Announces Proposed Solution to the Origins of Music
HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 14, 2001--ManyWorlds Inc., announces that its
founder, Steve Flinn, has developed a generalized theory that solves the
mystery of the evolution of musicality in humans. An abstract of the theory is
available on http://www.manyworlds.com, and details will be presented at a
major scientific conference later this year.
Mr. Flinn has combined insights from human evolution, cognitive science and
information theory to develop a theory that accounts for the universality of
music, as well as its particular features and uses. In summary, Mr. Flinn
argues that human musical capabilities co-evolved with overall intelligence and
language capabilities, and that the specific purpose of these capabilities is
to enable the sender of message to modulate how the message will be stored in
the minds of message receivers. Specifically, musicality enables the sender(s)
of a message to increase the probability that the message will be stored in
long-term memory of the receiver(s). As human intelligence, brain plasticity
and the associated sophistication of messages increased, the adaptive
advantages of such a memory modulation technique would have become very
significant.
``The fact that the human brain has multiple types of memory storage almost
guarantees that a communication mode would evolve that enables communicator(s)
to have a strong influence on memory storage of the receiver(s)'', said Mr.
Flinn. ``The set of capabilities we label 'music' are just those
acoustical-based functions that facilitate such memory modulation. Today we
think of music as primarily entertainment. However, music actually evolved as a
general mode of communication that directly impacted survivability. The ability
in pre-literate societies to ensure the coding of key information in long-term
memory was critical. Even today, we see glimpses of music's original purpose.
For example, in the way children learn their ABC's through song, and by the way
advertisers exploit music to ensure their message will be retained
(annoyingly!) in our brains. And we are able to marvel at the Iliad and the
Odyssey to this day only because they were sung with high fidelity through the
mists of Greek pre-literacy.''
About ManyWorlds
ManyWorlds is an intellectual capital design firm, combining deep competencies
in computer science, cognitive science, mathematical modeling and business
strategy. ManyWorlds synthesizes these competencies to deliver strategy
insights and advanced knowledge management applications to organizations around
the world. See http://www.manyworlds.com for details.
Press release above is also at:
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/010214/tx_manywor.html
Steve Flinn
ManyWorlds, Inc.
s.f...@manyworlds.com
www.manyworlds.com
cg...@onwe.co.za
with no written 'memory', rely heavily on song (and dance).
Chris Glur.
Dr. Frank J. Stech
ethno-linguistic analysis of languages shows parallel migration and evolution of
speech (e.g., Cavelli-Sforza). Are there ethnomusicological methods that would
allow a similar tracing of the migration and evolutions of types of music?
What I have in mind here is, for example, mapping the evolution and migration of
the links among "celtic" musics in GB, Ireland, Britteny, Spain, N Africa, etc.
Similar links of course from W Africa to Brazil, the Carib, etc.
S Flinn wrote:
--
_____
Dr. Frank J. Stech
The MITRE Corporation
1820 Dolley Madison Blvd
M/S W928
McLean VA 22102-3481
(cellphone) 202.256.2847
(home phone) 301.805.5957
st...@mitre.org
ste...@nima.mil
(MITRE & voicemail) 703.883.5920
(fax-MITRE) 603.676.2592
(NIMA) 301.227.7158
(fax-NIMA) 603.676.2545
S Flinn
recent study I skimmed, there seemed to be some
indication that two root musicalities exist -- one of
African origin and one of Siberian origin.
Philip Harding
> The idea that music evolved as a means to more effectively (and efficiently -
> thermodynamics is important in evolution) implant ideas/memories has a lot of
> merit.
>
> For music (not lyrics, but music itself) is very nearly pure syntax.
>
I enjoyed this post very much. I'd like to suggest however, that the
semantics are very much present in music as in language, but in a completely
abstract form. Music is close to mythology in this sense, where various
meanings and relationships are concealed behind outward symbols. It is also
rather like the objects in a Tanguy painting. We feel a familiarity with the
objects, but haven't the foggiest notion of what to call them. I think the
distinction is important because music is indeed saying "something" rather
than just executing various relationships in a mathematical fashion. I
suppose that if there are problems with applying the term semantics to music
then a different term would have to be used to account for these dynamics.
"Don't bother looking at those mountains; I composed them" -Gustav Mahler
Philip H.
Glen Foy
zh...@aol.com wrote on 2/27/01 12:16 PM:
> Music as nearly pure syntax. It reflects the complex relationships of the
> perceived world, abstracted from their semantic localization and
> particularity.
>
> This abstract quality of music lets us do a thing that we (and to a greater or
> lesser extent, probably all sentient, and especially, intelligent) creatures
> like to do: experience a feeling of understanding, without it being linked to
> the urgent imperatives of survival.
Interesting post. I think you've nailed it when you say music is a way to
"experience a feeling of understanding." If you distilled the essence of
art, all art, not just music, it could probably be reduced to the idea of
unity and variety. An art object without variety is boring. An art object
without unity is chaotic. Good art alway involves great complexity and
variety, but within a containing, unifying and *understandable* structure.
Art exercises our basic perceptual clockwork in a context that is noise
free. We can never "make sense" of the world at large to the extent that we
can "make sense" of a Bach fugue. Art has a feeling of completion and
understandablity that is unatainable elsewhere. It is a
perceptual/conceptual fix...
I think that S. Flinn's theory is correct. Music definitly plays an
evolutionary role. But it plays that role at the level of culture. If
music had no utility as a mnemonic technique, it would still be fascinating;
the visual arts are equally fascinating, and they have no mnemonic
significance.
Music operates at a much lower level, and it offers real clues to the
essential nature of our basic perceptual/conceptual clockwork.
Cheers,
Glen
Glen Foy
pla...@fka.att.ne.jp wrote on 3/9/01 2:13 AM:
>
> I'd like to suggest however, that the semantics are very much present in
> music as in language, but in a completely abstract form. Music is close
> to mythology in this sense, where various meanings and relationships are
> concealed behind outward symbols. It is also rather like the objects in a
> Tanguy painting. We feel a familiarity with the objects, but haven't the
> foggiest notion of what to call them. I think the distinction is important
> because music is indeed saying "something" rather than just executing various
> relationships in a mathematical fashion. I suppose that if there are problems
> with applying the term semantics to music then a different term would have to
> be used to account for these dynamics.
>
> "Don't bother looking at those mountains; I composed them" -Gustav Mahler
You are certainly right about the mountains, and saying that music is
"mythological" is a wonderful description.
An interesting question, here, is why music pushes our buttons in a way that
the visual arts do not. A Cezanne still life is just as fascinating as a
Debussy arabesque, but the still life does not have the same kind of
emotional content.
Understanding the reason for this would shed considerable light on basic
perceptual/conceptual mechanisms.
Cheers,
Glen
Zhuad
> I'd like to suggest however, that the
>semantics are very much present in music as in language, but in a completely
>abstract form.
Very interesting post. Thanks for replying.
I agree that, as you suggest later in your post, the term "semantics" might be
inappropriate to use here. It is the very essence of the semantic to be
"non-abstract", to refer to the specific and concrete content of a word or
symbol. To the degree that the content becomes abstract or ambiguous, the
semantic utility of the symbol is degenerated. That is not to say that the
feeling of "meaning" is lost, however, which goes to the heart of my original
posting. Syntax itself produces a sense of meaningfulness.
Syntax without semantics feels incomplete, like a mathematical formula in which
all of the operations are indicated, but non of the variables are specified. We
feel a strong urge to "fill in the blanks", to specify what all this is...
about.
In a similar way, music's syntactic structure generates a sort of vacuum
needing to be filled with content, with semantic reference.
It is reminiscent of the manner in which we produce meaningful dreams from what
may begin merely as a random neural firing in our brain as we lie sleeping. We
have a strong tendency to produce semantic content adapted to the syntactic
structure provided by the music.
This tendency to create an explanatory story is very much the way our minds
work with sensory input. We (for example) receive a visual stimulus. We take it
to be, say, a German Shepherd dog. We look again and realize that no, it is
not a dog, it is a log whose form is somewhat dog-like.
We have proposed a story to explain the stimulus, then re-checked to see if
this hypothesis is correct. If it isn't, we revise the hyposthesis.
In other words, there is a continuing dialoguebetween the outer world and our
inner world of stored knowledge and experience. This mechanism has obviously
strong survival value, and is most developed in the human species, what with
our (relatively) enormous capacity for "back-office" consideration, reflection,
etc. preceding behavior decisions.
By the way, it may be this ongoing dialogue between our sensory experience and
all of our internal learning and memory that gives us the sense of duality that
is consciousness. (See Derek Bickerton's "Language and Species" for an
excellent fuller treatment of this extremely interesting idea. [Jack Sarfatti
and fans, please note.])
>"Don't bother looking at those mountains; I composed them" -Gustav Mahler
Did Mahler (or his translator) mean to say "...looking FOR those mountains"?
- Zhuad