Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Re: [tuning] Digest Number 759

Joe Monzo wrote:

> it's becoming clear (once again)
> that the order we perceive is generally a function of the order
> inherent in our perceptual apparatus. IOW, there's a lot of stuff
> happening that's *not* rational and we just can't figure out what
> it is, or we can't even see it.

I think we can see it all around us if we choose to. Ever see two trees exactly alike? The veins in two
leaves? Two branches of the veins of a leaf? Sub-branches? That's the fractal order of chaos. Ever
hear any two singers tune a melody precisely the same way? Or the same person tune it twice the
precisely the same way? Chaos is good. Neither what we call order nor what we call chaos is sufficient
in itself to create meaningful, vital art. I believe it takes both in a synergistic relationship. A
piece of sheet music is not a piece of music except while it is being performed, with all the chaotic
nuances inevitably introduced through the influence of human emotion. That's one reason why machines
make lousy music (not music at all, IMHO).

> Secondly, modern studies of chaos show that it is inherent in
> the natural universe (at least the one we can experience).
> Einstein made a famous statement about 'refusing to believe
> that God plays dice', but apparently, he was wrong and that
> *is* what's going on.

God uses "dice" to control the universe. We have free will within our little domains, yet He is still
sovereign, largely through what we perceive as the chaotic activity of the cosmos.

> Many researchers are coming around to the idea that science
> can never really describe objects, but only processes. In a sense,
> on the cosmological or atomic timescales, the objects never 'really'
> exist, only the laws that describe their movements.

No offense, but they're a little behind. Heraclitus of Ephesus espoused that philosophy in the 6th
century B. C. We're talkin' pre-Platonic, here, pre-Socratic, even pre-Pythagorean. The ancient Greeks
were fairly intelligent dudes.

> There are intriguing synchronicities (meaning: ratios that are
> very close to small-integer proportions) between adjacent planets:
>
> [snip] of course, they are a result of
> various rounding procedures; one could find higher primes by
> using more accurate ratios.
>
> But I find it interesting that even with the rounding I've
> done, the table includes 2, 3, 5, 7, 13, 17, 23, and possibly
> 19, but not 11; except for the omission of 11, all primes
> within the 23-limit are represented. I've stated before that
> I find 23 to be a kind of limit to harmonic perception in music;
> is there a connection?... and why is 11 conspicuously missing?

Perhaps only because the rounding is arbitrary?

> this comparision of orbital
> periods *only of adjacent planets* is similar to Paul Erlich's
> comparison of *dyadic* harmonic entropy among members of a larger
> set (such as a chord or scale).

Analogous, yes, but are they really similar in any musically relevant way?

> I sent a private message to Paul suggesting we collaborate on
> creating a piece which is an audible mapping of these planetary
> relationships, to which he never responded (Paul?). And I see
> in a List posting that David J. Finnamore has already done
> something like this.

I should have. What I mapped was distances. I soon recognized that mapping orbital periods would have
been more analogous to audio frequency but had already tentatively concluded that there was little chance
that planetary motion is directly, physically, relevant to music. It would be fun to find that I'm
wrong. Unfortunately, I'm insanely busy through the middle of October, at the least, or I'd love to
help.

--
David J. Finnamore
Nashville, TN, USA
http://members.xoom.com/dfinn.1
--

> [David J. Finnamore]
> http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/11894
>
> Joe Monzo wrote:
>
>
> > it's becoming clear (once again) that the order we perceive is
> > generally a function of the order inherent in our perceptual
> > apparatus. IOW, there's a lot of stuff happening that's *not*
> > rational and we just can't figure out what it is, or we can't
> > even see it.
>
> I think we can see it all around us if we choose to. ...<snip>

Your examples are well taken, and certainly apply when considering
data that we observe occuring 'nearby', meaning within our galaxy.
But my point was that there is most definitely a lot of stuff out
there, beyond the Milky Way, that we cannot experience.

Are you familiar with the concept of a 'light cone'? Einstein's
Theory of Relativity (which so far has been validated time
after time) states that no single point of reference is any more
objective than any other, and that the 'speed of light' is the
ultimate speed-limit of our universe.

(I use quotes because all electromagnetic waves travel at this
speed, and visible light occupies only a small bandwidth of the
total spectrum; it would be more accurate to call it the
'speed of electromagnetic radiation'. 'Light' is just a
simplified abbrieviation here and in what follows below.)

When we observe vast distances from Earth, peering deep into the
universe, by any type of electromagnetic means (i.e., not just
visible light, but other radio waves too), we are looking back
not only in distance but also in time. Here's a diagram:

> [Ferris 1982, p 171]
>
>
>
> | - _ .
> /|\ - _ .
> | - _ . realm of the future
> | - _ .
> | realm of the - _ .
> S | knowable past - _ .
> P | - _ .
> A | TIME----> _ X = our galaxy at our
> C | _ - . present
> E | _ - .
> | _ - .
> | _ - realm of .
> | _ - the as yet .
> \|/ _ - unknowable future .
> | _ - .
>
>
> At any given point in cosmic history, the events that may be
> known to a given observer are limited to those inside his light
> cone.
>
> Events occuring elsewhere in the cosmos make themselves known
> to us only when their light (or other radiation) reaches us.
> Therefore, events may be divided into those that lie within our
> 'light cone', that is, events whose light has had time to reach
> us, and those lying outside the light cone, about which we can
> as yet have no knowledge. Our galaxy may be envisioned as
> moving from left to right in this diagram as time passes, so
> that events are constantly being swept into our light cone.

And as Ferris's diagram on the previous page demonstrates,
observers in other galaxies would have different light cones,
which give them a totally different view of the universe,
in terms of both space and time.

The part that is labelled 'realm of the as yet unknowable future'
is only unknowable to *us*. An observer in a galaxy somewhere else
can see some of this now, while we can see stuff that they can't.

The point I was making was that no matter where we are in
the universe, we can only observe a limited segment of it.
The only way to get a broader perspective is to gather data
from a point sufficiently distant from our galaxy that it
would have a very different light cone. But because of the
incredibly vast distances involved, this is something that
probably won't be achieved for a very long time to come.

As you get deeper into a study of light cones, it becomes
apparent that even the distinction between past and future
is not at all clear-cut, because of the intimate relationship
between space and time.

Because of the 'speed of light' speed-limit on our perception,
time seems to be 1-dimensional, whereas space has 3 dimensions.
I suggest that time too may be multi-dimensional, but we're
still a long way from being able to observe it that way.

In a nutshell, until we are able to travel to distant galaxies,
(or receive comprehensible information from them) to gain a better
perspective, our 'universe' = our light cone.

Einstein's equations do a good job of describing what goes
on 'in here', but there is clearly a lot more 'out there' that
we can't see.

> > Many researchers are coming around to the idea that science
> > can never really describe objects, but only processes. In a
> > sense, on the cosmological or atomic timescales, the objects
> > never 'really' exist, only the laws that describe their
> > movements.
>
> No offense, but they're a little behind.

No offense taken - while I do believe in the validity of the
scientific method, I ain't hardly no scientist myself, and am more
than willing to consider the possibility that knowledge can be
gained thru an examination of the occult, mysticism, religion,
etc.

Something that I think many people fail to take into account is
the incredibly long time-span that humans have been around and
have been intelligent enough to observe their environment and
reason about it.

The latest reckoning states that language became fully developed
as we know it about 45,000 years ago. The earliest written
records, by the Sumerians, are from about 5,000 years ago.
Thus our entire written history records only about 1/9 of the
total time that we've been able to speak.

That leaves 40,000 years (or 8/9 of our speaking period...
hmmm... an amusingly musical interval!) during which humans
were certainly (biologically speaking) as intelligent as we are
today, but did not have a way to record their ideas so that we
can read them today. That's a *lot* of time, during which people
could observe the stars and planets as well as events closer to
the Earth.

There's no reason to assume that more-or-less complex 'scientific'
theories could not have been developed during all this time;
we just have no written record of it. I suspect that a lot of
what one finds in mystic/occult and religious literature stems
from this ancient knowledge. My study of Sumerian records has
only strengthened this suspicion.

I wouldn't be surprised if the harmonic relationships inherent
in music really do have some connection with other natural
occurences. Music is apparently very closely allied with
our ability to speak in thought-conveying sentences, and
both are strictly human activities, at least in the form in
which we practice them (bird and whale songs notwithstanding).

An interesting side note: don't be fooled by current beliefs
that literacy was always considered a 'good thing' - the earliest
records show that the invention of writing was mainly a tool
for the collection of taxes and the enslavement of masses of
workers. For several centuries - I'm even tempted to say
millenia - the scribes were the only people who were literate,
and their specific job was to help the king retain his power
by maintaining his records of taxation and labor.

> Heraclitus of Ephesus espoused that philosophy in the 6th century
> B. C. We're talkin' pre-Platonic, here, pre-Socratic, even
> pre-Pythagorean. The ancient Greeks were fairly intelligent dudes.

Yes they were. And if you study Babylonian and Sumerian writings,
you'll find that the Greeks got a great deal of their knowledge
from the Babylonians, who in turn took it over wholesale from the
Sumerians. Now *there* were some intelligent dudes! The more
scholars are able to decipher of the Sumerian records, the more
amazing it is to see the vast breadth of their knowledge.

I'm very busy myself right now studying the Sumerian stuff,
but if you keep the possibility open, maybe we can collaborate
on a piece in the future, or even piecemeal via email. Perhaps
others here on the List who are interested can participate too.

REFERENCE
---------

Ferris, Timothy. 1982. _Galaxies_.
Stewart, Tabori & Chang. New York.
(reprint of a Sierra Club Book, c. 1980)
ISBN 0-941434-01-X
ISBN 0-941434-02-8 (paperback)
LOC#: QB857.F47

-monz
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html

Re: [tuning] Digest Number 759

🔗David J. Finnamore <daeron@bellsouth.net>

🔗Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@anaphoria.com>

🔗Monz <MONZ@JUNO.COM>

🔗Paul Erlich <PERLICH@ACADIAN-ASSET.COM>

🔗Paul Erlich <PERLICH@ACADIAN-ASSET.COM>