Ray Bradbury

Boy, Bradbury is something else...able to say volumes in a few
sentences. Here's something I ran across while reading (for the
zillionth time) "The Martian Chronicles..." Two men are talking, about
the ancient Martians..."They quit trying too hard to destroy everything,
to humble everything. They blended religion and art and science because,
at base, science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can
never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle. They never
let science crush the aesthetic and the beautiful." Yow...somehow, that
relates strongly as to how I feel about music, and the exploration of
tunings as applied to music. To each his/her own, but I don't think the
miracle of art can/will ever be explained...just experienced, at
whatever level we are capable of opening ourselves up to...Hstick

I just read something on a physics forum that I belong to that seemed
particularly apt for replying to both Justin White and Neil
Haverstick.

It's from an article by B. J. Hiley called _Non-Commutative Geometry,
the Bohm Interpretation, and the Mind-Matter Relationship_.

B. J. Hiley was an associate of the late David Bohm, one of the
deepest-thinking physicists and philosophers of the 20th century.

He came up with a concept called the "implicate order", which,
speaking very roughly, suggests an underlying structure to reality
which is deeper than that we perceive through our typical categories
of space, time, etc. -- and through which the many paradoxes of
quantum mechanics may ultimately be understood. One common analogy
used to convey the relationship between the implicate order and
the "explicate order" (objects in space and time as ordinarily
perceived/understood) is that of a hologram.

Anyhow, here's an excerpt from the article -- see in particular the
last paragraph:

[snip]

"What I have tried to argue above is that for quantum processes space-
time is not
the basic manifold in which quantum processes evolve. The basic
process unfolds in this pre-space, which is not subject to the
Cartesian division, res extensa-res cogitans. What I want to suggest
that it is in this pre-space that mind and matter appear as different
aspects of the same underlying process.

"Thus mind and matter are united through mutual participation in
which separation
is not possible. They are two aspects of an indivisible totality, the
implicate order.
Aspects of this whole activity involve the process of thinking,
feeling, desire etc. The dance of the neurons is only the outward
material manifestation of these processes. These physical processes
are merely an explicate order in which one aspect of the overall
process is projected. By restricting our discussions to the
electrochemical process of the brain, we miss the deeper implicate
order which contains our experience of the physical and mental
worlds. But even in using those words, it must not thought that there
are two sides, mind and matter. Mind and matter are but different
projections from this deeper implicate order where such a division
does not exist.

"We experience this implicate order directly when we try to explain
to others how
we feel or think. The words we use are only signifiers that seem to
float on a sea of inner energy. We struggle for words to try to
capture what is implicit in our thinking. But the meaning is not
merely in the words, it is in the context in which those words are
used. The context is often implicit and as we try to clarify this
context, another, yet deeper context is assumed. But we can never
make any complex set of ideas totally explicit. What we do is to try
to create in the reader the implicate structure that we feel within
ourselves.

"Perhaps the clearest example of the role of this implicate order
comes from
listening to music. Listening is an active experience where we
participate in the
movement itself. We do not perceive a series of isolated notes. We
hear new notes reverberating within the memory of the previous notes.
This together with the
anticipation of future notes constitutes an unbroken movement. What
is apprehended, then, is an undivided state of flowing movement. We
can argue that we directly perceive the implicate order because we
become part of the total movement. We comprehend movement in terms of
a series of inter-penetrating, intermingling elements of different
degrees of enfoldment all present together."

Paul,

--- In tuning@y..., "Paul Erlich" <paul@s...> wrote:
> "Perhaps the clearest example of the role of this implicate order
> comes from
> listening to music. Listening is an active experience where we
> participate in the
> movement itself. We do not perceive a series of isolated notes. We
> hear new notes reverberating within the memory of the previous
> notes. This together with the
> anticipation of future notes constitutes an unbroken movement. What
> is apprehended, then, is an undivided state of flowing movement. We
> can argue that we directly perceive the implicate order because we
> become part of the total movement. We comprehend movement in terms
> of a series of inter-penetrating, intermingling elements of
> different degrees of enfoldment all present together."

There is much that is thought-provoking just in the sections you have
excerpted. But I don't believe that one can propose that there is a
single way that music is 'listened to', not to mention that the
experience of music - that it is not simply 'listened to' but is
absorbed in many ways - must certainly vary in differing cultures.

Cheers,
Jon

--- In tuning@y..., "Paul Erlich" <paul@s...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_26443.html#26451

> I just read something on a physics forum that I belong to that
seemed particularly apt for replying to both Justin White and Neil
> Haverstick.
>
> It's from an article by B. J. Hiley called _Non-Commutative
Geometry, the Bohm Interpretation, and the Mind-Matter Relationship_.
>
> B. J. Hiley was an associate of the late David Bohm, one of the
> deepest-thinking physicists and philosophers of the 20th century.
>

This is a little like Carl Jung, is it not??

________ _______ _____
Joseph Pehrson

> From: Jon Szanto <JSZANTO@ADNC.COM>
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 4:44 PM
> Subject: [tuning] Re: Time, the miracle of art, and the mind-matter
relationship
>
>
> Paul,
>
> --- In tuning@y..., "Paul Erlich" <paul@s...> wrote:
>
> > "Perhaps the clearest example of the role of this implicate order
> > comes from listening to music. Listening is an active experience
> > where we participate in the movement itself. We do not perceive
> > a series of isolated notes. We hear new notes reverberating
> > within the memory of the previous notes. This together with the
> > anticipation of future notes constitutes an unbroken movement. What
> > is apprehended, then, is an undivided state of flowing movement. We
> > can argue that we directly perceive the implicate order because we
> > become part of the total movement. We comprehend movement in terms
> > of a series of inter-penetrating, intermingling elements of
> > different degrees of enfoldment all present together."
>
> There is much that is thought-provoking just in the sections you have
> excerpted. But I don't believe that one can propose that there is a
> single way that music is 'listened to', not to mention that the
> experience of music - that it is not simply 'listened to' but is
> absorbed in many ways - must certainly vary in differing cultures.

Hi Jon and Paul,

Jon, your point about multiple ways of listening is a good one.
But I would bet that Paul and B. J. Hiley both have a wider focus
than the one you may have assumed they have.

Eugene Narmour has been the chief proponent of the
"implication-realization" model of musical perception and
analysis. This model has a lot to do with what Hiley says in
the part Paul quoted. It does not necessarily argue for any
"single" way of listening, but does present a convincing
argument about the way a listener's mind posits expectations
for continuance based on what it has already heard. (Note
that Narmour is one of the theorists Brian McLaren respects
in his considered trashing of so many other music-theories.)

Schoenberg too realized that the subject must be taken into account
for a proper understanding of musical perception, but he chose
to ignore that aspect, explicitly *because* it is so highly variable.

As I've said here *many* times before, the best book I've seen
which seeks to reposition the subject to its proper place in the
consideration of harmonic theory is Richard Norton's terrific
_Tonality in Western Culture_. Both of you would probably want
to read that, and it's widely available in libraries.

-monz
http://www.monz.org
"All roads lead to n^0"

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