"The ability for the human mind to gauge hierarchical structures in music over the span of lengthy works suggests that we exercise greater cognition in that skill than in language.
Music is an evolutionary enigma that defies explanation by natural selection, despite years of attempts to explain it since Darwin attempted a story 154 years ago. Now, we find that the human capacity to analyze and enjoy music is even more complex than realized.
Scientists from Germany, America and Brazil analyzed the mind’s ability to gauge hierarchical
structures in music.....they describe - Our results reveal that a brain mechanism fundamental for syntactic processing is engaged during the perception of music, indicating that processing of hierarchical structure with nested nonlocal dependencies is not just a key component of human language, but a multidomain capacity of human cognition.
Because hierarchical structures of many musical pieces (up to entire movements of a symphony) exceed by far the structural complexity even of the most elaborate sentences, it is tempting to speculate that the human ability to process hierarchical structure in music might be more powerful than linguistic syntax, often considered to be the paragon of human cognitive complexity.
All they could point to, though, was that the “octave effect” is heard in both Asian and Western musical traditions. It’s not clear why evolution should have anything to do with it. The Pythagoreans, for instance, viewed geometry, music and harmony as fundamental aspects of the universe. The Judeo-Christian tradition views music as a reflection of creativity in the image of God. Why should mutation and selection be given pride of place?
Mosh pit: Evolutionists keep asking the question but never answering it with a definitive, non-question-begging solution. National Geographic, for instance, put forward the old Darwinian answers and some other speculations. “Darwin and others have said it was a way to woo. Others believe music is social glue—a theory bolstered by a new study,” Marc Silver wrote.
Wouldn’t other animals profit from having their group living served? Birds may sing, and wolves may howl, but only humans create musical forms with hierarchical structure and symmetry, put words to music, create musical instruments, write it down in notational form, and perform it both alone and in groups. In the Biblical narrative, Adam’s offspring were already making musical instruments while he was still living." CEH
Music is an evolutionary enigma that defies explanation by natural selection, despite years of attempts to explain it since Darwin attempted a story 154 years ago. Now, we find that the human capacity to analyze and enjoy music is even more complex than realized.
Scientists from Germany, America and Brazil analyzed the mind’s ability to gauge hierarchical
Because hierarchical structures of many musical pieces (up to entire movements of a symphony) exceed by far the structural complexity even of the most elaborate sentences, it is tempting to speculate that the human ability to process hierarchical structure in music might be more powerful than linguistic syntax, often considered to be the paragon of human cognitive complexity.
All they could point to, though, was that the “octave effect” is heard in both Asian and Western musical traditions. It’s not clear why evolution should have anything to do with it. The Pythagoreans, for instance, viewed geometry, music and harmony as fundamental aspects of the universe. The Judeo-Christian tradition views music as a reflection of creativity in the image of God. Why should mutation and selection be given pride of place?
Mosh pit: Evolutionists keep asking the question but never answering it with a definitive, non-question-begging solution. National Geographic, for instance, put forward the old Darwinian answers and some other speculations. “Darwin and others have said it was a way to woo. Others believe music is social glue—a theory bolstered by a new study,” Marc Silver wrote.
Wouldn’t other animals profit from having their group living served? Birds may sing, and wolves may howl, but only humans create musical forms with hierarchical structure and symmetry, put words to music, create musical instruments, write it down in notational form, and perform it both alone and in groups. In the Biblical narrative, Adam’s offspring were already making musical instruments while he was still living." CEH
And his brother's name was Jubal:
he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.
Genesis 4:21
