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ar
New Member
30 Posts |
 Posted - 11/11/2005 : 12:04:38
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Music seems to present an interesting challenge to evolution.
There isn't one central "music processing" area in the brain, but music appreciation seems to involve a little from a lot of different areas - speech, rhythm, sound processing (obviously) - but there are some brain functions that are unique to music, which do not "borrow" from other functions.
For example, the recognition of disonance and consonance (whether two sound's frequencies are irrational ratios or simple ratios, such as 1/3rd, 4/5ths, etc), an ability which we are born with (http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2001/03.22/04-music.html). Or the fact that when we listen to music of a given scale, the brain automatically seeks out the root note, and can recognize notes that do not belong (and that is universal, while the actual note-ratios in culterally different scale are not).
And of course, there is the emotional response to music, which involves brain functions of (relatively) massive complexity.
So the question is - how did those functions singular to music arrise?
It's a tough question because, there is no obvious survival benefit to music.
There have been some weak offerings in the past - "it was part of a mating ritual - initial attraction, or wooing...." But as far as I can tell, those positions have been abandoned as grossly inadequate, and pure speculation. The jump from "attractive noises" to "emmision and emotive-recognition of simultaneous frequencies" is huge.
Of course there are always the comparisons to "bird songs," but that is mixing apples & oranges - "bird singing" is more equivelent to human language. It's more of a linquistic thing - "I'm available," a signal. It doesn't seem to tap into any of those aspects specific to music, or even be a precursor to music. Again, the jump from "attractive noises of varying pitch" to "music" is huge.
Just curious as to what you all think of this.
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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2005 : 13:02:36 [Permalink]
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I don't understand why this is a challenge?
"It's a tough question because, there is no obvious survival benefit to music." - maybe not anymore.
I think that most people, including myself sometimes, have an extremely hard time comprehending the vastness of time in terms of thousands or millions of years, and how much can change and evolve in such a time frame.
I'm saying that music in its current form evolved from something over a large amount of time, so the "huge leaps" are not all that hard to imagine.
This isn't some argument from incredulity, is it? That music (or insert any other abstract idea) exists and it seems so complex and is not necessary for survival, it could not have been the result of natural process, and therefore came from ???
Also, is evolution theory supposed to predict the "invention" of music? |
by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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| Edited by - pleco on 11/11/2005 13:06:28 |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2005 : 13:43:15 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by ar
... the recognition of disonance and consonance (whether two sound's frequencies are irrational ratios or simple ratios, such as 1/3rd, 4/5ths, etc), an ability which we are born with...
I can offer this: dissonance and consonance are completely subjective, and in music are integral to cadences, rhythm and harmonic resolutions. What would be unresolved dissonance in a Bach chorale is completely consonant in Debussy.
Also, if we're "born with" the ability to sense dissonant resolutions, that seems to me to be a strong case for evolution. |
Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2005 : 14:08:52 [Permalink]
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If you look at music as a form of communication, it's not so much of an evolutionary challenge.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2005 : 15:11:28 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by filthy
If you look at music as a form of communication, it's not so much of an evolutionary challenge.
WORD!
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furshur
SFN Regular
USA
1536 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2005 : 19:10:51 [Permalink]
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Right AR the appendix is like music. What is the point of an appendix - hell my wife's appendix almost killed her, and it serves absolutely no purpose. It is assumed by 'evolutionists' (as you call them) to be a left over relic from our ancestors.
Of course, if we really were designed the appendix is a bigger problem, unless we were designed rather poorly.
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If I knew then what I know now then I would know more now than I know. |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2005 : 19:22:15 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by furshur
Right AR the appendix is like music.
This is what I was thinking. Why does sense of music have to serve any evolutionary purpose at all? Couldn't it be an "accidental" byproduct of other processes, such as sound recognition and language? Just because we find listening to music pleasurable doesn't mean that a love of music was itself specifically selected for.
In fact, given a few hundred thousand more years of evolution, it may be we'll end up losing the desire to listen to music all together.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2005 : 19:57:07 [Permalink]
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Bit of Googling brought this up....
http://www-ext.mus.cam.ac.uk/~ic108/MMS/
http://www.orionbooks.co.uk/HB-8231/The-Singing-Neanderthals.htm
"Is music no more than auditory cheesecake, as [Steven] Pinker would have us believe? Is it simply an evolutionary spin-off from language - a lucky break for humankind, providing song and dance as a relief from the tedium of survival and reproduction? Or is this view itself simply a knee-jerk reaction to contrary claims that music is adaptive and as deeply rooted in our biology as language?" (Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals, 2005:11) |
"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2005 : 20:26:42 [Permalink]
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Music usually communicates an emotion, and is all in the ear of the beholder. The natural world is filled with it, from the trilling of toads to the mornful, basso profundo of a bellowing alligator. Crickets chirp and birds sing, and the laughter of a loon adds beauty to northern, summer evening. Coyotes yap and wolves howl. All of this sends a message of love or territory to others of the species.
It would be preposterous if a vocal, dexterous species such as ours did not have music (I do not include modern pop, which ain't music and sucks bilge, in the definition).
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular
USA
1191 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2005 : 20:28:16 [Permalink]
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| Why just pick on music? What about sports, drama, ballet, ice dancing, or drag racing? What evolutionary purpose do any of these serve? They're all just products of a brain capable of higher level abstract thought and too much time on its hands. |
The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley
The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2005 : 20:33:29 [Permalink]
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Sex, sEx, seX, sex, SEX!
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"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2005 : 21:05:10 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by filthy
Music usually communicates an emotion, and is all in the ear of the beholder. The natural world is filled with it, from the trilling of toads to the mornful, basso profundo of a bellowing alligator. Crickets chirp and birds sing, and the laughter of a loon adds beauty to northern, summer evening. Coyotes yap and wolves howl. All of this sends a message of love or territory to others of the species...
Your description made me think of this "nature music" by Schoenberg. (RealPlayer 1 minute excerpt)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/clipserve/B0000633FR001001/1/103-6419615-4139800
Try the first soundclip from "Gurrelieder" the orchestral prelude. Its a musical description of nature's creatures in harmony with the world. |
Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
| Edited by - Chippewa on 11/11/2005 21:08:52 |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 11/12/2005 : 07:08:24 [Permalink]
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Plus, some girls (such as myself) are oddly attracted to musicians... even the non-horribly-rich-and-famous ones.
No reproductive value?  |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 11/13/2005 : 18:54:35 [Permalink]
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quote:
In fact, given a few hundred thousand more years of evolution, it may be we'll end up losing the desire to listen to music all together.
Given the current state of music (at least in the US), this loss of desire will be coming a lot sooner than that! |
by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 11/14/2005 : 02:45:39 [Permalink]
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Survival benefit is the wrong criteria for evolution. There are selection pressures. While it may seem like a minor distinction since the selection pressures must be selected by being passed on but there is a difference. All selected traits may not directly increase survivability to be selected. They could be piggyback traits to something survivable. They could be mate choices that don't directly increase survivability. They could be adaptations to some trait that did offer a survivability advantage in the past and so on.
One thing about evolutionary changes is the way the DNA system is divided up into segments. An antenna, a wing, and a leg are all controlled by the same gene in the fetus with variants that allow a different limb to grow.
Singing is common in birds and whales have unique song like vocalizations. I'd think there was some benefit in stimulating brain function or that perhaps just goes with brain function as an extra that doesn't need to be there but is because it is part of the brain that does provide a greater survivability advantage.. |
| Edited by - beskeptigal on 11/14/2005 02:46:36 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 11/14/2005 : 03:18:33 [Permalink]
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Any survival value is at the species level, rather than the individual's. Beyond the odd mutation here & there, evolution is not concerned with the individual. That, for some reason, is a difficult point to get across to those who have not studied it.
Did you know that grasshopper mice are largely carnivorus, hunt in family packs, and howl like wolves? 'Tis true... 
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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