music , mind , thought and emotion

Winters come early this year. What started out as snow has turned into slush. Better clear the roads, lest an accident occur.

Accident? Why so afraid? Its Christmas, snow on the trees, collective memories of why we are here arising, if you let them, into our minds, why such fear? From words? Isn't music we listen to related to Music we are talking about?

6ch/6chac/six channel comes out to say "I!", in a lull, when it robs no one of their voice, and you still have your finger on the channel changer; the accident is only his, to choose. Citing it and you crawl into the car with him. Altruism?

Let them. Let what? 6ch? No, the memories...

Unsound, if you want to return to the music, a question for you.

We have said that the brain changes with the perceptions it experiences. Since not all experience is derived by thinking - notwithstanding what those Cartesian minds attached to the power of cognition would like to tell themselves - and since I listen to music, or watch the waves, I am experiencing reality also, then what brain/mind is formed by the experience of music?

If we can say what next "you" is being formed by the music - or rather, not BY it, but through your participatory, integral relationship to that external experience - then aren't we closer to saying what the purpose of it is in our lives? When we look at beauty, what next "me" am I chossing to form?

Last, how is that "me", or rather, my orientation to reality that allows the event of my beauty apprhension to occur (ie some deny it exists...) related to the beauty of the collective memory I talked about above? Simply put, are the abilities to percieve music-beauty and compassion-beauty related?

Aren't they both percieved through open-ness; through receptivity to what is; through a forgetting of the "I" in the moment of rceognition?

Perhaps, Unsound, what you have been hearing are not as unrelated as you think. But, were you listening, open, receptive?

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.