Human biochronology: on the source and functions of ‘musicality’

Abstract

There appear to be two ways to understand or explain our minds scientifically, an introspective/analytical task not normally demanded of us in the activities of daily life. Theorising, estimating or ‘talking about’ the process of our experience leads to the two ways psychologists distinguish what is ‘real’ and what we ‘imagine’ to be so — how what happens in our heads when we perceive is connected to the actual objects we choose to know, and, especially, to what we are doing with them.

‘Rhythm With Sympathy: Why All God’s Children Have Music In Their Brains’ (with thanks to Louis Armstrong)

“The doctrine which I am maintaining is that the whole concept of materialism only applies to very abstract entities, the products of logical discernment. The concrete enduring entities are organisms, so that the plan of the whole influences the very characters of the various subordinate organisms which enter into it. In the case of an animal, the mental states enter into the plan of the total organism and thus modify the plans of successive subordinate organisms until the ultimate smallest organism, such as electrons, are reached. There are thus two sides to the machinery involved in the development of nature. On the one side there is a given environment with organisms adapting themselves to it… The other side of the evolutionary machinery, the neglected side, is expressed by the word creativeness. The organisms can create their own environment. For this purpose the single organism is almost helpless. The adequate forces require societies of cooperating organisms. But with such cooperation and in proportion to the effort put forward, the environment has a plasticity which alters the whole ethical aspect of evolution.“ (A. N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 1926 Emphasis added)