Evolution, music and math
I tried to google the connection, but was unsuccessful in finding any theories. Why do you think we have musical and mathematical abilities ?
If neither confer any survival value (eg: we don't have to compute the laws of gravity in order to dodge falling objects) are there any plausible explanations out there as to why we have these abilities?
If neither confer any survival value (eg: we don't have to compute the laws of gravity in order to dodge falling objects) are there any plausible explanations out there as to why we have these abilities?
Comments (72)
Both Music and Math are probably heavily derived and more or less accidental results of human intelligence, and ability of abstract thought.
Animals which have evolved along side us also employ some of these innate capacities because they did have survival value.
Our evolutionary line has been developing these innate qualities for a few million years, and it is likely that the innate qualities mentioned DID play a role in evolutionary success. The first evidence of a musical instrument that was made to purpose is an ivory instrument with holes drilled at regular intervals. This instrument belong to 'modern man' and was made 45,000 years ago. There may be other, and earlier musical devices, which have either rotted away or we have not found.
Did musical instruments play a role in survival? Yes, because 'culture' is how we live, and everything that helps bind a group together and stimulate interaction has survival value.
At an early stage, I suppose, what mathematics did was make explicit skills that are implicit. You can throw a rock and hit the target because you are capable of calculating (not consciously) the required force, the necessary trajectory, and timing of the the throw. Other species have to do similar background calculations to be able to catch prey, or avoid becoming dead prey. But the first applications of math were (as far as I know) applied to trade, which is very recent, 5,000 years ago, after the invention of writing.
We have been evolving for a long time, and we won't be finding any evidence in the fossil record of how innate abilities that would one day produce music and math developed.
I think this is relevant. I hope so. Stephen Jay Gould, my favorite non-fiction writer, wrote an essay called "Mozart and Modularity," which was published in his book "Eight Little Piggies." I found it on the web here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=_kOoVw0SIhUC&pg=PA260&lpg=PA260&dq=stephen+jay+gould+mozart&source=bl&ots=IUglTGuPSD&sig=ACfU3U2jeFUo86EFulOEkzahjmzw6mjq9Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwik3YLy4qjkAhXhm-AKHX6hBScQ6AEwBXoECAkQAg#v=onepage&q=stephen%20jay%20gould%20mozart&f=false
The modularity Gould is talking about is the manner in which our minds seem to be made up of a bundle of abilities and faculties all of which seem to be relatively independent of each other. It's possible for a person to be exceptional in one area but mediocre in most others. I think of myself - I am strongly verbal and I have good math skills, but I have little in the way of a musical or visual imagination. Gould's article is about a journal article written when Mozart was a boy. The writer observed Mozart and saw a normal, unexceptional boy with one bold streak of genius.
It's worth a read.
I'm not a biologist, so this may not be precisely right.
That said, it seems like one of the principles of evolution is that new traits, capacities, abilities, don't just appear out of thin air in organisms. Rather, traits, capacities, features, etc. that are already present in some form are gradually modified until they are something different. For instance, early in life history, some multi-celled organisms possessed light-sensitive cells on the surface of their body which aided the organism in avoiding harm, finding food, or moving purposively. Eventually. these light-sensitive cells became more numerous, more structured, more complicated. Eventually they became eyes. Nervous systems likewise started out as very simple arrangements, and over time became more structured, more complicated, and eventually developed little brains, to which the little eyes supplied sensory input.
Music, or counting or calculation, didn't suddenly appear either. Organisms need to signal information to each other (warnings, mating availability, calling to young, etc.) and this is often done by sound. Making sound, and hearing sound, starts out simply and over time gets more complicated. Some animals make sounds with different pitch, tone, rhythm, and so forth. Similarly, counting and calculating come into play in very simple ways, like figuring exactly how an insect is located in 3 dimensions from moment to moment, and snatching the meal with a long, sticky tongue. Or an animal may need to know how much of something is available. There is a big difference between 1 wolf and 10 wolves, if one becomes the focus of wolfish attention.
Humans probably did not evolve from a line of animals that were capable of seeing ultra-violet or ultra-red radiation. As handy as it might be now, that feature was never in the cards--or the genes. We're not going to develop that kind of vision.
They could sing and count, which was impressive, so they scored big time with the chicks.
Some refs:
https://metanexus.net/fabulous-evolutionary-defense-dualism/
https://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S724CH15.htm
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/09/17/it-aint-necessarily-so
Abilities do not need positive survival value to be selected for.
It's just that abilities that have negative survival value are selected against.
Indeed I am having difficulties squaring the idea that abstract human attributes were needed to survive.
Accordingly, what has much intrigue in history are those born with mathematical and musical genius.
Are you sure that the construction of that ancient musical instrument was not an application of mathematics, as is the case with the construction of all musical instruments today?
They are both languages. So, they have a function similar to natural language, i.e. they communicate something. Still, I did not say that you can always translate into natural language what music seeks to express.
Another great point! Being in the engineering field and a musician (not to mention a part time athlete) 'language' kind of captures a large part of it.
I am going to be thinking about the so-called essence and existence of language, logic and phenomena there of....
My initial thought is that there is a metaphysical component to each language.
Mathematics and music are both about recognising patterns and predicting what comes next.
My musical theory and performance experience without sounding big headed is pretty extensive (I was a music Major and I also play by ear, which is basically easier than reading music LOL).
Anyway I get the idea of what comprises the language of music is partly mathematical. However thrown in the mix is also a subconscious phenomenon.
However, their brains were pretty much like ours by the time the flute was made, so maybe... but we just don't know what kind of quantitative thinking they did.
- the capacity to recognise and relate patterns in experiencing 4D events (intuition, playing by ear)
- the capacity to arrange or reformulate the patterns that determine and initiate 4D events (creativity)
- the capacity to translate the patterns into 2D structures, and 2D structures into 4D events (reading and writing of music/formulae/language)
Music or mathematical genius appears to stem from a strong relationship between all three. Language ability relates to these capacities, too.
But the ‘metaphysical’ component to language, as I see it, is in one’s interaction with the patterns and structures that determine and initiate how a 4D event is experienced by someone else. This goes a step further than generating a particular sound. The genius in music and language comes from an ability to predict and structure 5D patterns in qualia that elicit a particular subjective experience in an observer - and translate those patterns into a 2D structure that enables others to replicate it.
‘Survival value’ highlights the problem with the structure of ‘cause’ and effect: that we assume an intended outcome. But when the answers are not as tidy as we thought they would be, it makes one wonder: perhaps we’re asking the question wrong? It seems obvious that we’ve evolved not just to survive. Traits with a negative survival value are selected against, sure - but there is more than ‘randomness’ driving human evolution beyond survival.
In my opinion, it has to do with the evolution of integrated information systems.
A theory I’ve been working on is that there is an underlying motivation that drives the universe to increase awareness, connection and collaboration as an open-ended outcome. Survival value is then merely a limiting factor in the process, and derives from what is lacking in awareness, connection and collaboration. We’ve had the capacity to ignore survival value for some time now. We just don’t really want to, partly because it requires conscious effort, and partly because it undermines this sense of our own value or significance in the universe.
The ability to translate between 5D structures, 4D events, 3D objects and 2D diagrams or formulas (even one dimensional digital information) - with minimal information loss - increases opportunities for awareness, connection and collaboration at various levels of interaction. The versatility in music and mathematical language in particular provides the ability to transcend the difficulties of physical, temporal or cultural/ideological barriers in information sharing, increasing interaction with information about a universe far more complex than our own limited experience of events in spacetime.
The way I see it, language in general enables us to share integrated information at a level beyond spacetime. It allows us to signify how new information would relate to shared elements of our experience, regardless of where or when they may occur.
So if I put two eggs in front of you, you may remember that the last time I put two eggs in front of you like this was when you gave me a piece of meat. If you produce a piece of meat, and I then put another egg down, you may take this to signify a request for more meat. If a few days later, my brother comes to you with two eggs and an expectant look on his face, you may take this to signify another request for meat. And if I then came to you at another time and drew two egg shapes where I had previously placed eggs, you may be kind enough to give me some meat on a promise of eggs - or you may just draw a piece of meat.
These events all occurred at different times - perhaps even a different place - so they would have no relevance to each other, except that they relate in how we experience them, and how you and I interact with each other through that significance.
I want to thank everyone for their amazing contributions. Thus far I want to focus just a bit on the phenomenon of qualia. Before moving on to other metaphysical concepts and concerns viz. Darwinism:
Just to summarize, we know that qualia has existential impacts to most humans. We know architects and interior designers use colors to help convey emotion. And we know that when we experience the color red or yellow not only is it an ineffable form of qualia, it also invokes emotions. (Red conveys a heightened sense of it excitement and yellow conveys contentment and happiness.)
So we know the common person has these experiencees ( including math and music of course ) that are basically an ineffable form of language that we percieve.
Before moving on to other things. Can we think about what I just said for a moment ? An ineffable form of language that we perceive. Can we agree that that does not even make sense?
Could we agree that it seems to go beyond objective and subjective truths? And if so couldn't it follow that it is a real metaphysical language?
You really ought to drop that word 'qualia'. The only place it occurs in literature, is in the writings of an influential but seriously misguided group of mainly American academic philosophers. And using it frames the whole debate in a way that favours their analysis.
Try another word - like 'qualities', which is a common word, and conveys almost the same.
Quoting 3017amen
Of course! Not news to me. I have been arguing Platonism since I joined this forum. One day it will become clear that 'evolutionary materialism' was a parasitic growth on the grand tradition.
Point out a language that is not ‘metaphysical’.
....sure, just a postscript to your concerns about the word qualia, I used the word for a couple of reasons:
1. I wanted to learn and understand the philosophical concept associated with consciousness and conscious states of being.
2. I realize atheist Daniel Dennett was one of the driving forces behind that terminology in his book Consciousness Explained ( which of course he was unable to use logic to explain many existential attributes or qualities... using your word...).
So to that particular end, I love quoting excerpts from physicist Paul Davies/The Mind of God book:
"Should we adopt the approach of the pragmatic atheist who is content to take the universe as a given, and get on with cataloging its properties? If we wish to progress beyond, we have to embrace a different concept of ' understanding ' from that of rational explanation."
In this query, I am approaching this subject matter
such that I wish to slow things down and define 'simple concepts' in a sequential way. There is a ton of information to unpack...and want to stay on point with some detours along the way. Accordingly, your url links are relevent and absolutely fabulous, thank you!
Musical instrument makers think in terms of ratios, so there is necessarily measurement involved, to get the right notes.
Davies is one of my favourites. Thoroughly scientifically literate but without the atheist ax to grind that Dennett has. By the way. it might amuse you to know that that Dennett book was called 'Consciousness Ignored' by some of Dennett's critics, including John Searle. :-)
OMG I'm laughing out loud! Good stuff Wayfarer.
Yeah, I guess we can't escape people politics wherever it rears its ugly head... .
I believe Pythagoras developed the twelve tone scale, based on the 3:2 ratio which gives the prefect fifth. Though the designated intervals could be recognized by the human ear, he taught that they ought to be determined my mathematical ratios to maintain the pure tones. The Pythagoreans extended the mathematical principles of harmony to the entire cosmos such that each of the orbits of the planets were described as emitting different tones according to their orbits. He called it the harmony of the spheres, which is a similar concept to cosmic vibration.
Ancient people has plenty of knowledge of material -- for instance, they knew what kind of rock worked best for certain kinds of tools or points. They knew how to knapp the rocks with a minimum of pressure. I would be surprised if they did their work using formal theory about pressure, crystal structure, strength of material, and so forth. I doubt if they applied Pythagoras to the problem of making a bone flute. (Remote as it is, I could be wrong.)
If the positioning of the holes was not random, it was measured. And it couldn't have been random or the sound wouldn't be musical. Don't you agree? The fundamental ratios, which Pythagoras laid our were very basic division, 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4. The 3:2 ratio is one and a half. I would expect that the people of 40,000 years ago knew how to divide lengths into halves, and into quarters, that was how harmonies were produced.
Estimations of what Roman music sounded like are not very pleasant--to my ears. I would guess the Romans liked their music, and would have found Ottorino Respighi's Pines of Rome cacophonous.
In a similar or somewhat related vein, what do you think about the 'escoteric nature' apart from lower species about why we wonder, including laughter? Is this also a form of metaphysical or abstract cognition of some sort?
I'm having a hard time connecting the dots to that having survival value from the laws of natural selection/survival of the fittest... .
I suspect you as well, may have struggled with that connection.
'Consciousness Explained Away" is better.
Modern tuning of the twelve tone scale is usually "equal temperament", in which the octave is divided into twelve equal parts.The Pythagorean tuning of the 12 tone scale is called pure temperament, or just temperament, because the designated notes are derived from the 3:2 ratio which gives the perfect fifth, pure consonance. With the numerous octaves required to produce the twelve notes of the scale in the Pythagorean method, a slight gap opens up, called the Pythagorean comma. This creates a slight difference between the same note, played in a different key. So modern musicians have turned to equal temperament to avoid this problem, making modulations smooth.
Incidentally, the problem of the Pythagorean comma is a function of the relation between frequency and time. There is no starting point, no base unit or fundamental frequency. So divisions or multiplications may proceed infinitely. Therefore your harmonies are always determined by your starting point, which due to the nature of time cannot be well-defined. I believe it is this same inability to define perfect harmony, because there is no base unit, which produces the infamous uncertainty principle from the Fourier transform. You might say that the Pythagorean comma and the uncertainty principle are symptoms of the very same problem.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Well, you cannot keep drilling holes in the same piece of wood, in the process of trial and error, because your instrument would be ruined. So measurement would be necessary, to ensure that the errors were not repeated, and the successes were maintained. I think therefore, that the holes in your 40,000 year old instrument were measured. Otherwise it wouldn't be an instrument at all, it would be a stick with random holes.
You are obsessed with these old holes.
How very interesting. I had read about this before but not had it explained so clearly. :
‘Survival of the fittest’ is an extrapolation (or a broad generalisation) of the theory of natural selection. It explains a prevalence of certain forms of diversity in certain environments, but it doesn’t satisfactorily explain the emergence of all traits. Especially not human cognitive or social evolution. I find attempts to make it explain these developments to be unsatisfactory at best. At worst, their apologist-style conclusions have actually been holding people back from developing the capacity that we have. This suggests there is more to evolution than natural selection - just as Copernicus recognised his calculation errors as suggesting there was more to the structure of our solar system than everything revolving around the Earth.
I will admit in this discussion that I’m reluctant to use the term ‘metaphysical’ myself, because of the perception of a dichotomy it creates between physical/metaphysical that I don’t believe is either accurate or helpful. In my view there is a dimensional difference between our capacity to experience ‘actual’ events in time and our capacity to experience (predict, plan for, recall, respond to, etc) events that occur in a different spacetime to ‘this/here/now’. It’s more complex, granted, but still a dimensional increase in information processing, not much different from that between an animal’s capacity to locate an objective in space and its capacity to recognise an object’s change or movement in time.
Actually, I don't know if I quite got it right. I learned a lot (from jamalrob I think) on the old forum, and followed up study of some of the principles on my own, being a musician and composer who was always lost in the theory. I believe the basic issue is that division starts from an assumed unit, which is divided, while multiplication starts from an assumed multiplicity. So, despite the fact that we look at division as a simple inversion of multiplication, it is not, there is a fundamental inconsistency between the two. One presupposes a unit, while the other presupposes a multiplicity. Since a conclusion always follows the principles of the premises, an act of division will always produce a specified unit, while an act of multiplication will always produce a specified multiplicity.
I think that resolving the problem of the Pythagorean comma will produce the universal key (the key to the universe), because it requires a determination of the fundamental unit of time, and producing a scale based in something real rather than an arbitrary frequency. This is where the wave theory of modern physics is currently lost. I am obsessed
Thank you for that...I didn't want to get into any Dualism debate either.
Anyway, just another little detour of sorts. I'm liking the all the discussion thus far... !!!!
There are 8 'C' keys on an 88 key keyboard. The frequency of the lowest is 32 hertz. Since the ratio of frequencies between successive octaves is 2:1, then the frequencies of the 7 successive C keys is 64, 128, 256, 528, 1056, 2112, 4224. So the frequency of the top C key is 4224 hertz.
If you go through the cycle of fifths from the lowest to the highest C key, applying the ration 3:2, you get: C:32, G:48, D:72, A:108, E:162, B:243, F SHARP; 364.5, C SHARP; 546.75, A FLAT: 820.125, E FLAT: 1230.1875, B FLAT: 184.28125, F: 2767.921875, C: 4151.8828125
The discrepancy in frequency between 4224 hertz and 4151.8828126 hertz is the so-called "Pythagorean Comma".
Quoting 3017amen
Actually I have begun to make sense out of dualism, but it takes a ton of reading to understand it. I might create an OP on 'matter-form' dualism, which is a predecessor to, but very distinct from, Cartesian dualism.
Sure! I hope it's lucid enough for me to contribute.
Very good description. I see why you say that my description is confused. I see the importance of the problem in a slightly different way.
We produce perfect harmony with the octave, doubling the frequency. But every time the frequency is doubled, there are many frequencies, notes, in between. These in between notes must be determined, in order to scale the octave. This requires division of frequency. The Pythagorean method proceeds by using only divisions of half. Half way between one and two is one and a half. Half way between two and four is three, half way between four and eight is six. Notice, that the only division employed is the half, though the half is always taken three times, each time it produces another in between note to scale the octave. The half is always in harmony with the unit that it is half of (as an octave) and that is why the Pythagorean method of scaling the octave is considered to be more truly harmonic. That the Pythagorean method produces the Pythagorean comma is a problem which has not been resolved. Going to a less harmonic system of division, equal temperament, is not a real solution. It's a simple fix which lowers the quality.
Yes, it is always going to be a compromise. I love the harmonic versaltility of keyboards, though!
Here's the sort short irony:
"The number three is used in the Torah to mediate between two opposing or contradictory values. The third value mediates, reconciles, and connects the two. Three is the number of truth."
All that makes me think of the survival value of music. It's proof again that Darwinism has holes. But it begs a salient point/question: why were we born with knowledge of dissonance and/or tension and relief (like root and fifth)?
Sounds have certain 'procreation' benefit to animals of course, yet I believe even animals don't even like dissonance... .
Interesting I thought….
You could (and probably still do) have limitless fun with identifiable melodies on scales of randomly spaced pitches that were nonetheless identifiable: as e.g. low-high (a 2-note scale) or low-medium-high (3 notes). (You could use randomly spaced holes in a flute, or randomly sized bongos etc.)
Don't be in too much of a hurry for society to learn to identify performances of melodies on one of the particular spacings... requiring them to access a particular flute / bongo-set, or to produce new instruments the same size and with the same particular spacing... or... where the new identification of melody according to spacing were indifferent to choice of starting pitch: access new instruments with the same spacing relative (scaled in proportion) to the size of the whole instrument.
Even then, when spacing is scaled in proportion for each instrument, don't expect many of the proportions to have gravitated to producing arithmetically nice frequency ratios. More likely they combine one or two arbitrary (and arithmetically non-nice) pitch intervals (frequency ratios).
Yes, the sequence of proportions (step-intervals) might eventually repeat at the octave on the same instrument, but even then there is no reason for the musician or instrument maker or musicologist to assume that any arithmetically nice ratios are crucial to their art, in any obvious way.
A lot of them have done so, of course, ever since Pythagoras. With the result that we are taught to assume the octave to be aesthetically more fundamental than other strikingly consonant intervals. Or that perception of consonance depends on approximation to nice ratios - a notion somewhat challenged by equal temperament, to say nothing of folk traditions.
So I would guess the 40,000 year-old flute was crafted in careful imitation of previous models, with a keen sense of proportion but also in enviable ignorance of theories of arithmetically nice ratios.
I don't want to be pedantic, but I think you are confusing the fact that the so-called "devil's interval" is also called a tritone, with the interval known as a third (which can be major or minor). A tritone can be understood as either a sharp fourth or a flatted fifth.
Tritones are (literally) pivotal in musical harmony. For example the most common harmonic movement, in music: from dominant (fifth) to tonic (first) is often transformed by means of tritone substitution. Tritone substitution is where a dominant seventh chord is substituted by the other dominant seventh chrod that shares the two notes (in reverse order, of course) of the tritone.
For example the movement from G dominant 7 to C major 7 is transformed to be a movement form D flat dominant 7 to C major 7. The commonality that forms a tritone in both chords are the notes B and F. G dominant 7 is G B D F and D flat dominant 7 is D flat F A flat B (note that tritones are such bi-directionally).
Having to deal with the number three is what messes up the Pythagorean scale, causing the occurrence of the comma. For example, If we start with "one" unit of frequency, a designated length of string or whatever, as the base unit, then we double to two units, this gives us the harmony of the octave. If we double again, we have four, as the next octave. Now three is excluded, but we want to fit it in, as the half way point of the octave, halfway between two and three, thinking that the halfway point ought to be harmonic. The halfway point of the first octave is one and a half (3:2), and of second octave it is 3.
The problem is that the first set of octaves produced, 1, 2, 4, 8, etc., is fundamentally incompatible with the second set which is produced at the halfway point, 11/2, 3, 6, etc. However, if we take the base unit, 1, and cut that in half to get 1/2, this is compatible. So we can always take a designated frequency, cut it in half and produce a perfect harmony of an octave. But we cannot take a designated octave and cut it in half, to find the midpoint, without producing dissonance.
Very awesome fellow Philosophers!!!
At least one point to made viz. Evolution; it's hard to see how diatonic music theory confers survival advantages in the Jungle!!!
Should it?
That's a great question! I'm thinking that if it was part of Darwinism, perhaps it would evolve into something different... like a whole different set of frequencies. But that would assume we could aquire the ability to hear those frequencies.
If the ability to hear an expanded range of frequencies conferred a survival advantage, I imagine we could evolve to hear more than we do now. But that would be an expansion of our existing sense. To add the ability to 'hear' radio frequencies, for example, might be more of a challenge. :wink:
Not to detour the subject matter too much, but that reminds me of electromagnetic waves transporting sounds and images in the atmosphere, then appearing in our smartphones, TV's , etc..
Could similar electromagnetic waves produced from our consciousness, be a spiritual medium that travels too...
Many things are possible.... :smile:
I've experienced a similar phenomenon at times performing music. I'm not conscious of it all the time when it happens, but when 'I snap out of it' I come to realize it.
To describe it would be more or less an out-of-body experience. I'm not even aware that I'm playing guitar. It's almost as if I feel the audience's electromagnetic waves from their consciousness...
We don't have the data nor the tools to give you a good answer.
The dynamics of evolution work at multiple levels. Which biological entity evolves? Is it the individual, the group? Do other species and groups exert an influence? What about the totally random element of geography and climate? I don't think we can, given the complex nature of evolution, get a fix on the single cause or effector of a particular trait evolving in a given species. Random chance can't be eliminated as a possibility.
That said evolution is usually understood in terms of survival advantages: Does a species have a trait x? If yes then it gives an edge to the species. If no then it was harmful to the species.
Why should music and math be different then? It must surely help a small group of 5 primitive humans to realize that it stands zero chance of survival against a group of 20.
I don't have a theory on musical ability but we can safely bet, ceteris paribus, that it too must have a hitherto undiscovered reproductive advantage.
One more thing about mathematical ability. Comparing objects is an essential feature of understanding our world - the tiger is bigger than me, the pig is smaller than me, she loves me more, etc. All these comparisons we make involve quantification which even though at first were non-numerical soon evolved into the exactitude and precision of numbers. Mathematics did confer an evolutionary advantage.
...because, as we know, everything about h. sapiens can be explained with reference to evolutionary biology, so musical ability *must* have biological implications.
I'm toeing the official line. I keep an open mind but accepted wisdom is a safe bet. Don't you think?
I really don't have an evolutionary explanation for music. How does it help survival? I have one theory though and it has to do with battle music. If I'm not mistaken fiddlers, bagpipes and drums played a role in battle and war. Music fosters bonding between tribe/clan members making for a more cohesive group which is an edge over other groups that were more loosely bonded.
:rofl:
"We don't have the data nor the tools to give you a good answer."
As far as making perfect sense of it, that's basically it. However, the tenants of Darwinism and theories thereof do not account for music and math.
Accordingly, two additional questions could be added to the mix:
1. Why do we have this dual capacity to know the world; one mathematical, the other spacial. (It doesn't require computation of gravity to dodge falling objects in the jungle.)
2. What biological value does music theory hold (discussing the diatonic scale, modes, tension and release, dominant chord structure, major and minor scales, etc. etc.).
The abstract reasoning or capability in our cognition is largely part of the issue. Some say these are just 'extra' unexplained features that we have. I believe they are metaphysical languages.
Now there's a leap of faith!! LOL
Not only that, but the slogan is not a good representation of the theory of natural selection.
Quoting 3017amen
You are still stuck on the idea of hyper-adaptationism - the idea that all and only those traits that confer survival advantage will emerge as a result of evolution by natural selection. This was never part of the theory of evolution, not even in Darwin's original works (and we have come a long way from there in the last century and a half).
Hey SC!
I know, it appears that I have fallen and I can't get up!
If someone tells me these are just extra-chance-random features of consciousness, then I ask them for what reason? In the absence of an answer, the clues point to a metaphysical language of sorts... .
Herbert Spencer adopted ‘survival of the fittest’ not longer after OoS was published, and Darwin later used the term.
[quote=Wikipedia]Darwin responded positively to Alfred Russel Wallace's suggestion of using Spencer's new phrase "survival of the fittest" as an alternative to "natural selection", and adopted the phrase in The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication published in 1868.[1][2] In On the Origin of Species, he introduced the phrase in the fifth edition published in 1869,[3][4] intending it to mean "better designed for an immediate, local environment".[5][6][/quote]
The fact that our blood is red does not confer fitness advantage to us, so why is it red? The color of blood appears to be "just extra-chance-random" feature. Of course, in this case we know the answer: blood is red because of hemoglobin, and hemoglobin does confer fitness advantage. But there is no reason for the color as such: it could just as soon be blue or green. So do we have a problem here that cries out for an explanation? Maybe it's a metaphysical language of sorts?
(... and poetry, science etc.)
I always assumed @Pattern-chaser was named in answer to this question.
:chin:
What question, pray tell? :chin
Hello sophisticat! ( by the way what kind of cats do you own? I used to have a few himalayan's and I actually had a dream about baby Lions last night haha.)
Anyway I'm not sure that analogy would give us the clues that we need to parse this accurately.
If you use your reasoning there, then you would ask why is mathematics and written music notation always in Black ink? There are very few exceptions if any... .
Wouldn't you say the same for human skin color? Or what about any biological color? Are some colors random and/or indeterminate?
I think it's kind of a regressive argument yes?
It is an interesting question though because it does make me think of causation across the board... .
But here's the central concern. We have two ways to avoid falling objects. And we have two ways to enjoy music.
Thus, there is no disputing the following facts:
1. Music came first, then somebody figured it out.
2. We avoid falling objects first, then somebody figured it out.
There is no need for us to have that theoretical and abstract knowledge, no?
The OP. Google gives a more mundane explanation of the name. :sad: nvm
Still, it is a common (and to me reasonable) conjecture that evolution has endowed us with a general thirst for pattern.
And after all what right have you, the mere author of your name, to dispute that interpretation?
:joke:
Yes, I consider my name equivalent to Adam (Christian mythology), "everyman", or even just "human", as the chasing of patterns is so intrinsic to humans. By choosing the name, I declare myself to be (typically?) human. :smile:
:ok: :cool:
But what I think is not terribly controversial is that the question of humans' musical ability does not pose any particular challenge to the evolutionary theory. (I am emphasizing this because of the way you originally framed the topic.) It is not out of the question that music-making could have some adaptive value at some point in our development as a species, but even if it didn't, its emergence shouldn't be particularly surprising. Some traits are what evolutionary biologists Gould and Lewontin nicknamed as "spandrels": side-effects of other adaptive developments that don't have any particular adaptive value in themselves. Given the enormously complex furniture of our cognitive apparatus, some unintended "quirk" like musicality wouldn't be all too surprising, I think.
Quoting 3017amen
I was a cat in my past life, a Russian Blue I think ;)
Hello SC!
Thank you for the reply (sorry so late, been extremely busy). In summary, from your reply I think your short answer is: You/we don't really know. Which is fine I guess.
In a general sense, when we don't really know the nature of things (in themselves), in philosophy we can easily default to theories of its existence (IE: Metaphysics is: theories about theories).
So in that sense, could we say it's a metaphysical language that exists a priori, or developed from that existence or cognition that we uncovered? And is it somehow an innate property we have?