Why does swing sound so "good" ?

[G&L_player]

The entire universe moves in rhythms (e.g. night/day; the seasons, etc...)

I do wish that the year would swing in tripleted seasons...

DSP

Perhaps, you should move to an area where they are playing your tune?

(I enjoyed your sense of humour on this. )

[duncanparsons]

I think that's where the term 'swinging 60s' comes from - all that LSD affected the natural rhythms of the world, and so everything just jigged along nicely.

Of course, disco and prog in the 70's put paid to all that - straight 4 to the floor blaring out against hybrid 13/8 textures smoothed out those trippy beats and everything settled back down to the old way..

DSP

[aciddose]

"I am offering that spiritual processes animate the physical body. In the way that light acts on the eye(s), sound acts on the ear(s). Can we not agree that we live in a world of vibrations, some which are understood; others which are not? After all, materialistic science has already breached this discovery."

ok, but the problem with this is that no "spiritual" influence has ever been demonstrated even once. however, the materialistic influences which create "spirituality" have been demonstrated multiple times. this seems to point in the direction of "spirituality is a component of material science" and not the other way around.

"After all, materialistic science has already breached this discovery.", i'm unaware of anything which you could be referring to here. can you be more specific?

[JumpingJackFlash]

Personally, I don't think it's a coincidence that many musical forms and structures mimic rhythmical phenomena found in nature. In Indian classical music the use the frequency of the Earth year, 136.10 Hz, as the keynote of sitar and tambura music. It corresponds to the tuning of the sacred syllable OM. Read more here.

Ok, seeing as we're already so far off topic, I don't get this cosmic stuff on so many levels. Take the frequency of the year thing. As I understand it the actual length of time it takes for the Earth to orbit the sun is not a fixed constant, it varies slightly. So, the time it took for the ancient Indians is probably not the same as the time it takes now. Also, why the 32nd multiple? - Does this not significantly negate the effect? - I assume they chose this to place it comfortably in the human hearing range, but why not the 33rd multiple, or the 31st?

This sort of stuff to me sounds no different that people who swear by their Horoscopes. Placebo or alchemy at best. But then I don't generally have much time for psychology at the best of time.

[Ubiety]

Personally, I don't think it's a coincidence that many musical forms and structures mimic rhythmical phenomena found in nature. In Indian classical music the use the frequency of the Earth year, 136.10 Hz, as the keynote of sitar and tambura music. It corresponds to the tuning of the sacred syllable OM. Read more here.

Ok, seeing as we're already so far off topic, I don't get this cosmic stuff on so many levels. Take the frequency of the year thing. As I understand it the actual length of time it takes for the Earth to orbit the sun is not a fixed constant, it varies slightly. So, the time it took for the ancient Indians is probably not the same as the time it takes now. Also, why the 32nd multiple? - Does this not significantly negate the effect? - I assume they chose this to place it comfortably in the human hearing range, but why not the 33rd multiple, or the 31st?

This sort of stuff to me sounds no different that people who swear by their Horoscopes. Placebo or alchemy at best. But then I don't generally have much time for psychology at the best of time.

I don't know why Indian classical culture prefers its tunings. Ask an Indian classical musician, somebody who knows. LOL! For me, it's just seems to be purposeful that they do choose to link the physical, i.e., the frequency of the Earth Year, with the spiritual, i.e., the sacred syllable OM and their observance of it. Indian classical music, Hindustani form, took shape in 13-14 century A.D. which is several hundred years after western Medieval (Gregorian chant, etc.) classical music (476-1400 A.D.), but the earliest pure modal forms of Indian music started to appear around 200 B.C. So you make your own account, or ask someone more knowledgeable than myself. What's obvious to me is that the spiritual and religious aspects of both western and Indian classical music formed the basis for all the secular forms of music which followed. Bring out your microscopes if you like, but even your basic Sex Pistols track has its roots in spiritual music.

*My references were gathered from Wikipedia and the Web, don't lock me down to them. I just basically supported a general statement; it's not meant to be a fully supported argument.

@ aciddose

You might be interested in the speaking in tongues phenomenon, specifically known as glossolalia. Here, your science, is proving something that is starting to give scientists pause about their blanket dismissal of spirituality. Here science is on the cusp of proving real spiritual phenomena. Or continuing on the path of disproving ("demystifying") it, which is probably how they view it. I can't imagine any scientist of good repute ever coming forward proclaiming that he or she has actually discovered that God does indeed talk through people, even if undeniable proof (whatever that might be) were observed and validated through extensive peer review. Either way, at the moment they've their hands full. U. Penn Glossolalia Study Press Release

[JumpingJackFlash]

Indian classical music, Hindustani form, took shape in 13-14 century A.D. which is several hundred years after western Medieval (Gregorian chant, etc.) classical music (476-1400 A.D.), but the earliest pure modal forms of Indian music started to appear around 200 B.C. So you make your own account, or ask someone more knowledgeable than myself. What's obvious to me is that the spiritual and religious aspects of both western and Indian classical music formed the basis for all the secular forms of music which followed. Bring out your microscopes if you like, but even your basic Sex Pistols track has its roots in spiritual music.

Well yes, people have been making music since the dawn of time. - It's just that they didn't start to write it down until several years had gone by. The ancient Greeks especially influenced Western music, with people like Boethus in the 2nd century B.C., through to Pythagoras in the 6th century, though to people like Troubadour and Guido D'Arezzo around the 11th centuries.

That's one of the fascinating things about music IMO; it is an art form that has existed (in different forms) forever, and as time went on, subsequent styles were influenced by, and built on, what had gone before. It's such a rich tapestry! (Some styles remain better than others of course )

[aciddose]

"glossolalia" is something i've experienced, and in my opinion it is a malfunction of systems.

i've experienced many mental states most individuals could never dream of. during these periods it becomes very clear how different systems are connected and the ways in which they interact. generally it seems my "consciousness" is able to remain in a functional state in conditions most individuals would either lose consciousness or lose some elements of what would be considered "intelligence".

my understanding of the systems of the human mind is based both upon personal experience, and in areas i've become interested through research into documents produced by experts regarding the function of these systems. a majority of the time i'm surprised to find my personal experiences and my impressions of the functionality of the systems involved match up very closely with the theorized functional models laid out by researchers.

i find it extremely hard to agree that there is "something else" providing for the end results observed from these systems beside the systems themselves. i'm forced to invoke occam's razor here and remind you that "something else" in fact would require far more complexity than the idea that the systems themselves produce the results observed from them.

in the human mind were a "black box", you could theorize that either A) all output from this black box is produced inside the black box, or B) output from the black box received from some external source before being reproduced by the black box.

you also have to take into account all outputs seem to be responses to inputs, that is the output of the system is some sum of inputs and that no "original" output is ever produced. so, this would require that the black box take input signals, transform them, transmit them to an external point, the external point processes the signals and generates outputs, the outputs are transmitted back to the black box, the black box applies a reverse transformation, and then produces it's output. this really seems to violate occam's razor from my point of view.

the only way the "spiritual process" theory would make sense would be if the transformations and processing done were far more complex than the system which we theorize performs them. that at this point seems not to be the case. in fact, it seems so far that the systems (human brain / nervous systems) are more complex than we'd expect they need to be for the processing they perform.

that conclusion seems to point more in the direction of "our minds do things we're still not aware of" rather than "there is something else doing things we're already aware of".

[Ubiety]

You make some good points, aciddose. Points that give rise to the following question: Can the problem of consciousness be solved down to the scientific level by the human mind in its current evolutionary state?

Hard Problem of Consciousness

[aciddose]

i'd say yes, and it doesnt seem a "hard" problem to me at all. if you've ever had experience coding AI for example it helps a lot to show you how a combination of very simple systems can produce very complex results. think of it (in certain configurations) like output=input^systems. it's obvious then that the output will be very complex even with a simple input and only a few simple systems.

it makes sense that we have trouble viewing the component of our own minds that we call "consciousness" as a sum of some parts for two reasons. the first is that at this point in time we're only aware of very few of the total number of systems present in the brain and associated systems. the second is that, even if we were aware of how all these systems function, it would still be very difficult for us to comprehend in some conscious form that function i mentioned (output=input^systems) since the systems which make up what we call our "consciousness" seem to be very limited.

this isnt limited only to our consciousness or the study of our brains. the integrated circuits we're producing these days are completely unfathomable. i bet no single person out there understands absolutely every one of the systems in the average power x86 related cpu right now, at least not at any level other than the same sort of meta-understanding that i'm proposing here for consciousness.

it seems like it is all a very difficult problem until you've experienced something like sleepwalking, for example, where at times family members are unable to identify a sleepwalking version of a person from a conscious version. in the general case it seems to me that people experiencing these things (like sleepwalking) tend not to have memory, or at least the same form of memory as you would associate with consciousness regarding these time periods.

so, although i'd say this will really take more time to understand in a decent way, who knows how long, consciousness seems to be a meta-construct made up of a particular configuration of systems, and my theory is, the memory associated with consciousness is especially important to what we define as consciousness itself.

hopefully we'll begin to be able to identify and study individual components more accurately in the future and these things will all begin to make more sense. most people currently think of "memory" as a single meta-object. memory (based upon my understanding, what i've read and my experiences) seems to be made up of many different memory-related systems in many different levels, located in many different places. visual memory for example is not exchangeable with 3d-spacial memory as far as i understand. these systems are not really separate components. they i think are more analogous to L1 cache than ram, and we have a whole range of memory systems interacting indirectly from L1 cache right up through 10th level long-term storage/backup.

[aciddose]

this is really off topic at this point but i doubt the thread will be going anywhere productive in a discussion of "swing" anyway. i'll try to answer these questions from my point of view so it becomes clear exactly what my point of view is when i'm talking about these things.

"Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all?"

why should you think you actually have a "rich inner life" and how do you define this? as far as you know every action you've ever taken has been destiny as determined by some "god" or such at "the beginning of time". the whole idea of a "rich inner life" is just based upon your experiences and the systems you're made from anyway. in my opinion it is all just the result of these systems; even the fact this question is being asked is due to the systems which we're all constructed from. personally i do not think there is any such thing as a "rich inner life", and this really seems a strange kind of question to ask. it is sort of like "why isnt the universe actually inside-out? why is it right-side-out?". you have to first define exactly what the difference is between inside and out-side.

"How is it that some organisms are subjects of experience?"

all organisms are subjects of experience. some rocks sitting on a hillside are subjects of experience. the ways in which they'll behave are dependent upon their experiences, and they all have a story to tell, if you're willing to 'listen' to it.

"Why does awareness of sensory information exist at all?"

this is in a way a circular question since "awareness" is undefined. perhaps it is because "awareness" or "consciousness" is the product of all the systems which process that sensory information.

"Why do qualia exist?"

you'd really need to find some way to prove that statement "qualia exist" is true before asking why.

"Why is there a subjective component to experience?"

the answer here seems very simple to me; i'd say it is because we're all the subjects of different experiences.

"Why aren't we philosophical zombies?"

some of us are not, while as far as i've seen most of us are. a very silly question though. once again i'd say this is the product of the systems we're made up of.

[rp314]

through to Pythagoras in the 6th century, though to people like Troubadour and Guido D'Arezzo around the 11th centuries.

FWIW, Pythagoras lived around 580 to 500 B.C..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras

[JumpingJackFlash]

through to Pythagoras in the 6th century, though to people like Troubadour and Guido D'Arezzo around the 11th centuries.

FWIW, Pythagoras lived around 580 to 500 B.C..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras

Yep; the 6th century B.C. But it is very confusing, especially when you consider the fact that in B.C., the year gets larger the further back you go, so my initial order was slightly wrong:

Pythagoras came first in the 6th century B.C.
Then Boethus in the 2nd century B.C.
Then Troubadour and D'Arezzo around the 11 century A.D.

There are of course dozens more known composers around this time, and still dozens more who have been forgotten by time.

[rounser]

Give up nuffink; the accepted wisdom is that swing is magic, and so belongeth in the mystical fairie realm alongside hardware is always better, synthesizers aren't real instruments, wooden volume knobs make music sound better, and vsts can't make bass.

That was page 4. Little did I know that by page 12, the real space cadets would have arrived.

[rp314]

Real space cadet swing:

[Ubiety]

Can the problem of consciousness be solved down to the scientific level by the human mind in its current evolutionary state?

i'd say yes, and it doesnt seem a "hard" problem to me at all.

it seems like it is all a very difficult problem until you've experienced something like sleepwalking, for example, where at times family members are unable to identify a sleepwalking version of a person from a conscious version. in the general case it seems to me that people experiencing these things (like sleepwalking) tend not to have memory, or at least the same form of memory as you would associate with consciousness regarding these time periods.

...my theory is, the memory associated with consciousness is especially important to what we define as consciousness itself.

My answer to the very same question is, maybe. Maybe scientific research will be funded to the extent that the hard problem of consciousness is solved. Maybe interested parties will invest the amount of necessary capital for the research to be carried out until it reaches its logical conclusion. Maybe a reliable working model of consciousness, human or otherwise, can be constructed. One that can withstand the rigor of tests imposed upon it by experiment and observation. Maybe data in full detail for such research would be made available for public scrutiny. Maybe such research would be supported by the scientific establishment and granted the extensive peer review it would deserve.

"Scientists never claim absolute knowledge of nature or the behavior of the subject of the field of study. Certain scientific "facts" are linguistic (such as the fact that humans are mammals), but these are true only by definition, and they reflect only truths relative to agreed convention. These deductive facts may be absolute, but they only say something about human language and expression, but not about the external world. This part of science is like mathematics." (link) Maybe scientists will be forthright about results.

"Another part of science is inductive, and attempts to say something about the external world which is not true by definition, but can be shown to be true in specific instances by experiment or observation. Unlike a mathematical proof, a scientific theory which makes statements about nature in an inductive way, is always open to falsification, if new evidence is presented. Even the most basic and fundamental theories may turn out to be imperfect if new observations are inconsistent with them. Critical to this process is making every relevant aspect of research publicly available, which permits peer review of published results, and also allows ongoing review and repeating of experiments and observations by multiple researchers operating independently of one another. Only by fulfilling these expectations can it be determined how reliable the experimental results are for potential use by others." (link) Again, maybe scientists will be forthright about results and make their findings available with complete transparency. Maybe those parties financially supporting the research would understand the necessity for forthrightness and transparency.

"Science is reasoned-based analysis of sensation upon our awareness. As such, the scientific method cannot deduce anything about the realm of reality that is beyond what is observable by existing or theoretical means. When a manifestation of our reality previously considered supernatural is understood in the terms of causes and consequences, it acquires a scientific explanation." (link) Maybe it is not possible for science to understand all observable phenomena in the realm of reality to the point where it acquires a scientific explanation.

Maybe. That's my answer. Your speculations are interesting, aciddose. I wonder, though, why research into consciousness is necessary? There are clear reasons related to medical applications such as helping people who lapse into prolonged comas, some of them persisting in a vegetative state. Then there are national security and military applications that have to do with social control and war. Personally, I think that understanding consciousness down to the scientific level is a step in the right direction and a step in the wrong direction. Perhaps it would aid the evolution of consciousness or would hinder it. Perhaps there would no longer be a need for creativity if consciousness is understood completely; no situation would be unsolvable if one's consciousness or a group's consciousness is completely understood. While that sounds appealing on the surface, on a deeper level it means there would not be a need to feel good or feel bad or excited or bored or interested in just about anything. No more books, no more music, no more art, no more hate, no move love, no more sex. You say that memory associated with consciousness is important, well, to me life associated with consciousness is important. To me life and consciousness are the same thing. Why do living things live? What is the mechanism for life? We certainly do not know how bring people back to life who have been killed in an auto wreck? Doctors cannot take fresh organs and place them into a dead body with the expectation that the body will spring to life, never mind springing to life as it once was. To me it seems that gaining a complete understanding of consciousness will take billions of years yet to come, if it is ever competely understood at all. Those progressive steps forward may not be in the best interests of any and all parties involved. The final conclusions and understanding may represent finality because, what if the adopted models of consciousness holds true for every conceivable possibility and not for possibilities impossible to conceive of until encountered? Maybe, maybe, maybe. One thing is certain to me. To understand consciousness completely would mean that we, in mind, would necessarily and unavoidably be different than we are now.