music , mind , thought and emotion

Asa, good questions.
1) What brain/mind is formed by the experience of music? I'm not sure "formed" is quite as appropriate as "excercised". For me, the left and right brain come together and dance. Sometimes one is leading, sometimes the other. The analytic and the artistic/intuitive -- we need both and music helps bring them both out.
2) What next me am I choosing to form? For me, I choose to strengthen the artistic/intuitive. As many threads have pointed out, sometimes the analytic overwhelms, especially among audiophiles.
3) The "I" always gets in the way -- of listening, of art, of beauty, of appropriate action. Why should music be any different?

Asa, I must admit that I sure wasn't following everything that was being said (and not just by you) but we are ending up in a good place and your comments always make me think just a little harder and differently.

Thank you ozfly, your thoughts too.

On "formed", I was actually talking about the actual matter of our brains conforming to the stimulus of our thoughts, not psychological forming (which are, of course, related, see below).

We had talked about the newer discoveries in neuro-physiology and how we are now finding that neuronal cells move in response to signal. The trend seems clearly to be towards a model that posits consciousness as primary to matter. I took this, and asked, if so, and matter "forming" follows creative thought, then what is being created - what brain matter is forming - when I listen to music.

Granted, its easy to get confused, especially when I say "brain/mind" at the same time. When one discusses the brain/mind interface, which I have only alluded to so far, things become much more complex. Because, while we might say that listening to music moves networks of cells in response (I argued for the proposition above that at deep listening levels apprehension occurs in a non-linear mode; or, a perception that can interpret non-linear perceptive data), that doesn't necessarily mean that the brain's control is wholly divorced from the function and forming.

This is a very difficult issue. I know the answer, I'm writing about it right now, and it has to do with levels of consciousness. In higher aware individuals (transpersonal stages of development) the matter of the brain has less influence on thought construction (ie. instincts engrained and originating from more ancient parts of the brain have less power over thought). But in lower levels of awareness -where, not coincidentally, the mind is attached to matter/form to a determitive degree - the matter of the brain, its habitually furrowed pathways, are more influential on the formation of the next mind. Its a sliding, progressive dynamic relationship between attachment to matter that enslaves you to the matter dominance of brain matter and the transcending of the mind's attachmnet to form and a consequent reflection of that movement in worldview in the shift in formation emphasis from matter to consciousness as primary. In Neanderthal, the inner brain matter predominates in formation of thought and, hence, in continued formation of nueronal movement (signal tends to stay in the same ruts, so to speak); in Jesus, who has transcended attachment to matter (and, consequently, to objectify other minds/souls into the "other"), the brain matter has no control on thought formation.

Each time you open yourself to beauty you form the next "brain" that then can move closer to the point where mind forms matter and matter is less dominant. There are better ways to do it faster (music listening opens the "I" self to beauty through a forgetting of it in the receptive experience, but, unlike so-called mindfulness meditation, it does not observe the forming of the "I" as one thinks and, therefore, does not as actively dissolve it), and in the way you live with the world (the world is the teacher), but any form of opening to beauty moves you closer. Those who deny the possibility that "beauty" exists as a mind state, are, again not coincidentally, the same minds that say only brain matter determines thought.

Anyway...

Asa, I think you confused fear with caution. Thinking is effected by more than the brain as refelected in research that indicates that serotonin is effected quite literally by gut reactions. As to what brain/mind is formed by the experience of music, there are too many personal variables to answer (do we need an answer?). As such I think your next question is dependent on an unknow premise. Listening to music might be more about surreality than reality. I believe the act of recieving music (art) is also one of letting ones self control disolve (at various degrees) into an individual journey navigated by all those involved in the artistic expression in concert with the recieving individuals artistic impression. As such there may not be much control in the "choosing". The inverse may also be true, for example some music is political in nature (though still true art) and may stir completley different reactions to different individuals. The artist may not have any more more control than the audience in the journey. How do we know what to expect from a new performance? Our perspective / interpertation may change upon new insight of a previously experienced one. I think the improvisations inherent in Jazz capitalize on this premise. Regarding the premise of ability to percieve music-beauty and compassion-beauty are related has to hold true if one doesn't want to limit the artistic spectrum. Of course the inverse is true. Art can offer music-ugly and compassion-ugly. George Crumb's work "Dark Angels" comes to mind. And then there are those who for what ever reason (disease,denial?) will be out side the realm. Of course beauty/ugly are the same thing on some level, but I use the words in there more common usage. Answering your last question after your last question, Yes! It's the journey that makes the music compelling.

Unsound: Are you sure that the premise is unknowable? I guess I don't know what you mean by "too many personal variables" Please help me.

Personality, the source of "personal variables," is constructed by the thinking part of the mind from an idea of the self. What I am asking is, if science shows that thoughts create neural pathway engrainment within the brain, then what engrainment occurs when we are in a not-thinking mode of perception, as characterized, but not limited to, music listening at deep levels?

On "serotonin": the substance is still matter. Matter effects matter, that's what we've been staring at for three hundred years. My point, that mind is a causal agent TOWARDS matter, is a much more radical departure, that I don't believe your serotonin anology is relevant to.

On "surreality":All perception of the surreal is already in reality; no experience escapes reality, so you will have to help me understand how you mean this, analogously, metaphorically, illustratively, etc.

On "choosing": as ommission is action, so you choose to let go of your attachment to thought, which is, below that, an attachment to the thinking mind's power over form/matter.

The compassion-beauty I was talking about is never ugly.

If you proceed from the premise that all mind's ability to interpret "beauty" is equal, or truth, and so resort to a radically relativist stance to say that there are too many variables, or that each interpretation is equally valid, then we will have to agree to disagree. (Although I would point out the relativist position is self-contradictory because it is itself an opinion that claims the truth, even while it denies it for others through its argument of relativism).

The more I look at what you've written, and with no disrespect meant, I think I might not know exactly what you are saying...

Maybe help me a little.

I get the sense we are all saying about the same thing but coming at it from different directions. What neurological pathways are created? It probably does depend on what paths were created before and, I suspect this is true, what paths are being altered or destroyed. Hence, it is personal. That is not to say it does not happen; simply that it happens differently for everyone.

I beleive all will agree that energy and mass are the same thing and that we don't understand more than we do understand. Everything stated above, by 6chac, Detlof, Onhwy61, Unsound, Asa ... all reflect those propositions. In my mind, art, including music, is both special and universal. It is a way to communicate across boundaries because it breaks them down. That is, it breaks down the conventions and language we have learned to accept as reality. Music does change how we think and who we are. The more we accept that, the more we can change (at least I think so).

Some time ago, as I was walking to a friend's house, I heard a new symphony. It was beautiful. No electronics were present. It disappeared only when I stopped to think about it. I was not on drugs and I am not a musician. What happened? How did it happen? Honestly, I don't know. But it did happen. And it happens occasionally again in the dusk before deep sleep and the dawn before full awakening (pretty poetic, huh?). It just happens -- but never when my normal thinking can get in the way. Therefore, for me, our day to day perception of music is only the tip of the iceberg.

I believe that music is fundamental to humanity. Is it hardwired for Darwinian purposes, a melding of thought & soul or is it something that is simply present and is the dance of the universe? Maybe all of the above. Look at a video of Stevie Ray Vaughn playing music. It's magical. Someday, like most magic, we may be able to explain it. I've tried very hard to do so above and I've tried very hard to follow everyone's views. I feel like I'm closer (that journey thing, Unsound); it's near the tip of the tongue but not quite there. Maybe it never will be since the tongue, representing language and structured thought, is not where it belongs.

P.S. Unsound, I think we're all starting to scare each other.