Monkeys don't experience concordance?

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18324662.500

Thoughts?

-Carl

Carl Lumma wrote:
> http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18324662.500
> > Thoughts?
> There we have it: the emancipation of the dissonance follows a real evolutionary path. Not in the species some were expecting to find it in, but you can't have everything...

DJW

Is it known to what extent our species' development of speech is
responsible for our being "hardwired" to appreciate 'consonance'?

--- In harmonic_entropy@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@l...> wrote:
>
> http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18324662.500
>
> Thoughts?
>
> -Carl
>

No, but that's considered likely to be part of it; meanwhile, some
researchers claim that pre-natal experience of mother's vocalizations,
rather than hard-wiring, is the cause of the appreciation.

--- In harmonic_entropy@yahoogroups.com, "traktus5" <kj4321@h...> wrote:
>
> Is it known to what extent our species' development of speech is
> responsible for our being "hardwired" to appreciate 'consonance'?
>
> --- In harmonic_entropy@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@l...> wrote:
> >
> > http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18324662.500
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >
> > -Carl
> >
>

At 03:38 AM 1/6/2006, you wrote:
>Carl Lumma wrote:
>> http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18324662.500
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>
>There we have it: the emancipation of the dissonance follows a real
>evolutionary path. Not in the species some were expecting to find it in,
>but you can't have everything...
>
>DJW

:)

It's doubtful such a thing will ever be known for certain, as it's
difficult to prove causation in evolutionary history, especially
when it's more than a million years past.

However, many researchers seem to feel that the appreciation of
music (rhythm, consonance, etc.) is a side-effect of the ability
to comprehend speech.

I do distinctly remember some discussion on these lists about a recent
experiment done with fragments of speech sounds, involving, I thought,
Martin Braun. But I can't find the reference at the moment.

-Carl

At 07:33 AM 1/6/2006, you wrote:
>Is it known to what extent our species' development of speech is
>responsible for our being "hardwired" to appreciate 'consonance'?
>
>--- In harmonic_entropy@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@l...> wrote:
>>
>> http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18324662.500
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> -Carl

Found it:

http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/23/18/7160/

-C.

At 12:52 PM 1/6/2006, you wrote:
>It's doubtful such a thing will ever be known for certain, as it's
>difficult to prove causation in evolutionary history, especially
>when it's more than a million years past.
>
>However, many researchers seem to feel that the appreciation of
>music (rhythm, consonance, etc.) is a side-effect of the ability
>to comprehend speech.
>
>I do distinctly remember some discussion on these lists about a recent
>experiment done with fragments of speech sounds, involving, I thought,
>Martin Braun. But I can't find the reference at the moment.
>
>-Carl
>
>At 07:33 AM 1/6/2006, you wrote:
>>Is it known to what extent our species' development of speech is
>>responsible for our being "hardwired" to appreciate 'consonance'?
>>
>>--- In harmonic_entropy@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@l...> wrote:
>>>
>>> http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18324662.500
>>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>>
>>> -Carl
>
>
>
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

At 12:44 PM 1/6/2006, you wrote:
>No, but that's considered likely to be part of it; meanwhile, some
>researchers claim that pre-natal experience of mother's vocalizations,
>rather than hard-wiring, is the cause of the appreciation.

It may be worth pointing out that the term "hard wired" can be
misleading. There's nothing in one's genes that describes the design
of the brain physiology responsible for appreciating anything -- in
the sense that a blueprint describes the design of a building.
Instead, genes are part of a complex system, which includes the
environment, that yields quasi-repeatable features. So the question
becomes, "At what point in the process of epigenesis do these
features form -- in the womb, after birth -- and on what environmental
factors do they depend?" Answering such a question can be hard,
however, because each stage of growth depends on the previous one.
Wolfram has successfully compared this to the evolution of cellular
automata (in which the domain of the generating rule is larger than
its codomain) in my opinion.

-Carl

I wrote...
>However, many researchers seem to feel that the appreciation of
>music (rhythm, consonance, etc.) is a side-effect of the ability
>to comprehend speech.

My own opinion is that music and speech probably evolved
simultaneously.

Why do I think this? I have a pet theory which states that the
appearance of completely new features in an evolving system is
rare -- in other words, most features of an evolved system can be
traced very far backward to something recognizable. I came up
with this when I noticed how much revisionism anthropologists
have had to cope with in recent years. For a long time, they cast
human accomplishments in a linear or hierarchical mold, pinpointing
the invention of, say, sailing only several thousand years ago,
based partly on the notion that some other invention had to precede
it. But now we know that humans were navigating the globe in
boats 40,000 years ago...

-Carl

Note however that I disagree with the conclusions of this paper.
-Carl

At 12:54 PM 1/6/2006, you wrote:
>Found it:
>
>http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/23/18/7160/
>
>-C.
>
>At 12:52 PM 1/6/2006, you wrote:
>>It's doubtful such a thing will ever be known for certain, as it's
>>difficult to prove causation in evolutionary history, especially
>>when it's more than a million years past.
>>
>>However, many researchers seem to feel that the appreciation of
>>music (rhythm, consonance, etc.) is a side-effect of the ability
>>to comprehend speech.
>>
>>I do distinctly remember some discussion on these lists about a recent
>>experiment done with fragments of speech sounds, involving, I thought,
>>Martin Braun. But I can't find the reference at the moment.
>>
>>-Carl
>>
>>At 07:33 AM 1/6/2006, you wrote:
>>>Is it known to what extent our species' development of speech is
>>>responsible for our being "hardwired" to appreciate 'consonance'?
>>>
>>>--- In harmonic_entropy@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@l...> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18324662.500
>>>>
>>>> Thoughts?
>>>>
>>>> -Carl
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

That's interesting. I believe it's also been postulated that early
speech, when it first appeared, had more -- I forget the linguistic
term (dipsong?) -- ...of a tonal quality, as exists, I believe, in
Cantonese today, where the pitch of the vocalization imparts
information, just as do vowels and consonants, etc. --Kelly
> I wrote...
> >However, many researchers seem to feel that the appreciation of
> >music (rhythm, consonance, etc.) is a side-effect of the ability
> >to comprehend speech.
>
> My own opinion is that music and speech probably evolved
> simultaneously.
>
> Why do I think this? I have a pet theory which states that the
> appearance of completely new features in an evolving system is
> rare -- in other words, most features of an evolved system can be
> traced very far backward to something recognizable. I came up
> with this when I noticed how much revisionism anthropologists
> have had to cope with in recent years. For a long time, they cast
> human accomplishments in a linear or hierarchical mold, pinpointing
> the invention of, say, sailing only several thousand years ago,
> based partly on the notion that some other invention had to precede
> it. But now we know that humans were navigating the globe in
> boats 40,000 years ago...
>
> -Carl
>

There's something called a diphthong, which is a phoneme
made from two or more atomic phonemes. Example, long "i"
is actually ah-ee. I don't think that's what you're
describing re. Cantonese, though -- that's interesting,
I hadn't heard that.

Another example of wrongly excluding the possibility of
simultaneous evolution is in the debate between the 'out
of Africa' and 'out of Asia' models of human evolution.
It now seems likely that our species evolved on both
continents at the same time, and it was the *genes* that
moved around.

http://tinyurl.com/9swex?__ScienceNewsTheHumanWave

-Carl

At 05:06 PM 1/6/2006, you wrote:
>That's interesting. I believe it's also been postulated that early
>speech, when it first appeared, had more -- I forget the linguistic
>term (dipsong?) -- ...of a tonal quality, as exists, I believe, in
>Cantonese today, where the pitch of the vocalization imparts
>information, just as do vowels and consonants, etc. --Kelly
>
>> I wrote...
>> >However, many researchers seem to feel that the appreciation of
>> >music (rhythm, consonance, etc.) is a side-effect of the ability
>> >to comprehend speech.
>>
>> My own opinion is that music and speech probably evolved
>> simultaneously.
>>
>> Why do I think this? I have a pet theory which states that the
>> appearance of completely new features in an evolving system is
>> rare -- in other words, most features of an evolved system can be
>> traced very far backward to something recognizable. I came up
>> with this when I noticed how much revisionism anthropologists
>> have had to cope with in recent years. For a long time, they cast
>> human accomplishments in a linear or hierarchical mold, pinpointing
>> the invention of, say, sailing only several thousand years ago,
>> based partly on the notion that some other invention had to precede
>> it. But now we know that humans were navigating the globe in
>> boats 40,000 years ago...
>>
>> -Carl