drarthurwells
Headphoneus Supremus
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- Jul 1, 2005
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We enjoy music by first describing it, non-verbally and outside of awareness. This is a perceptual analysis and synthesis (intellectual) process by which we integrate a model of the music. This perceptual phase code could potentially be expressed mathematically. It takes more perceptual intelligence to model more complicated music. A mentally dumb person could not do it with Beethoven’s ninth – the exception to this is a person who is an idiot savant whose special ability was music (there are some of these people and then can play anything on the piano that they hear once).
This perceptual modeling is the source of cognitive exercise pleasure release, just as is solving a crossword puzzle.
The next source of music enjoyment is emotional fulfillment. This requires creative intelligence whereby the objective code of modeled (perceptually integrated) is now integrated with emotional activations and reductions. Here the music is an emotional language (communicates emotion) and must be interpreted. Music of the romantic period is generally more emotional than that of the classical period, with some exceptions. Anyone who fails to recognize this will not follow any of the material herein – they should stop reading now so as not to waste their time.
Now, although music is objectively interpreted in the first phase of perceptual integration, music is interpreted subjectively in emotional interpretation. Most of us can learn to fairly accurately hum the “Ode to joy” of the ninth, thereby demonstrating some perceptual modeling, but that doesn’t mean that hearing this will give us pleasure – some will like to hear it while others don’t (even if they can hum it). Whether they like or not is a result of an evaluation.
An evaluation is a perceptual integration of an objective descriptive (or predictive) model with emotion.
Moral evaluations are usually considered as a special case of evaluation, but all evaluations are the same in terms of the psychological processes that produce them,
So what does morality have to do with music appreciation? It has much to do with it. The moral evaluations that underlie music enjoyment or lack of it are based on the same processes that underlie the morality of how we interact with each other.
Morality is an evaluation of actual and/or predicted reward and/or punishment implications in relation to self and/or others. When I say “Bob is a good person” I use the same evaluative processes as when I say “Beethoven’s ninth is a good symphony”.
Either of two people in a conflict say they are moral and that the conflicting party is immoral.
There is no absolute morality. It is always relative to self or others and always in conflict (somehow and somewhere). For instance, if I am opening a door to walk into a store, and see a woman approaching who is carrying packages, I am in moral conflict as to whether I should prioritize my needs to put myself first and walk into the store in front of the approaching woman (loving myself while hating her, albeit to a very mild degree) or to put here needs before mine and hold the door open to allow her to go in first (loving her while hating myself, again to a very mild degree). .
Resolution of such self-other moral conflicts always requires compromise, forced by political pressures (where guilt and/or anxiety over not compromising is a first-line pressure and war is the ultimate such pressure). Because of the politics, either of personality or of external pressures, might makes right in every moral conflict resolution. Affirmative action is an example - it would be imposed by the might of government (legislation or judicial) based on a principle of redress.
Moral principles are conceptual abstractions inductively formed to love or hate. We can kill in the name of morality. But even in moral principles, might makes right as determined by the outcome of the internal battle of personality dynamics that formed the moral principle.
Universal love is an over-generalized abstraction. In loving the world we hate ourselves, our families, and our countries. The Kyoto treaty is an example - it would cost the U.S. (ourselves, families, and nation) while benefiting the rest of the world.
Morality only exists as a personality evaluation the of reward/punishment aspects of an event (either an internal personality production or an external event) as predicted or actualized, where this personality evaluation is made from the perspective of the needs of self or others or both.
I know that the way we think makes us form generalizations as inductive abstractions from our past experience. We have a strong need to love, and to be loved, and we often seek being loved by loving. We abstract from experiences both of being loved and of loving, and from this assert the moral principle that loving others is good, and being loved is good. From this we construct a moral absolute: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you - and loving and helping everyone is good while hurting others and killing others is immoral or bad. We say this is true, and to give the idea force, we say it comes from God.
First of all, this idea does not emanate from the sub-quantum and quantum world of basic existence and is not in the classical world of particles and forces - the universe outside of humans is amoral - God outside of a construction of human personality is amoral (neither moral or immoral, but just is).
Second of all the idea is not true. Loving and helping others is sometimes evil as it promotes evil when the recipient is evil and exploits your love or uses it to destroy you. Killing is sometimes good as when it is done to save innocent lives.
Those who say killing is always evil, or that loving and helping others is always good, have no basis to assert this other than a faulty intellectual construction based on thought disorder.
Historical facts: Japan saw in 1944 that the USA and allies were preparing for an eventual invasion of their homeland. They starting then in preparing for a homeland defense that would slow the invasion as the Japanese slowly withdrew to defense bunkers and structures they were building. They even started training women and children to fight with wooden spears (not enough guns to go around)! Their strategy was to slow the encroachment on their soil for years, knowing it would be very difficult for the USA to supply troops and supplies across the ocean. Thus, after several years the USA would give up, negotiate a peace favorable to Japan, and then go home. This fight would have cost well over a million lives relative to the lives lost by our use of atomic bombs. To say we should have needlessly sacrificed over a million of U.S. and Japanese lives in letting WW II go on for years longer, and not use the atomic bombs is an evil view. The use of atomic bombs was a moral act, like amputating a leg to save a life. Japan effectively sanctioned our second atomic bomb attack on the Japanese, by their failure to surrender after the first attack, thereby killing their own people.
Welfare is an example of love that is evil. To provide for people unconditionally robs from hardworking people and gives to parasites who take from society without giving back in return. This is bad enough, but what happens is that the parasites multiply and non-parasites tend to become parasitic. The society then deteriorates (communist Russia) and everyone is hurt – evil rather than good for people.
This perceptual modeling is the source of cognitive exercise pleasure release, just as is solving a crossword puzzle.
The next source of music enjoyment is emotional fulfillment. This requires creative intelligence whereby the objective code of modeled (perceptually integrated) is now integrated with emotional activations and reductions. Here the music is an emotional language (communicates emotion) and must be interpreted. Music of the romantic period is generally more emotional than that of the classical period, with some exceptions. Anyone who fails to recognize this will not follow any of the material herein – they should stop reading now so as not to waste their time.
Now, although music is objectively interpreted in the first phase of perceptual integration, music is interpreted subjectively in emotional interpretation. Most of us can learn to fairly accurately hum the “Ode to joy” of the ninth, thereby demonstrating some perceptual modeling, but that doesn’t mean that hearing this will give us pleasure – some will like to hear it while others don’t (even if they can hum it). Whether they like or not is a result of an evaluation.
An evaluation is a perceptual integration of an objective descriptive (or predictive) model with emotion.
Moral evaluations are usually considered as a special case of evaluation, but all evaluations are the same in terms of the psychological processes that produce them,
So what does morality have to do with music appreciation? It has much to do with it. The moral evaluations that underlie music enjoyment or lack of it are based on the same processes that underlie the morality of how we interact with each other.
Morality is an evaluation of actual and/or predicted reward and/or punishment implications in relation to self and/or others. When I say “Bob is a good person” I use the same evaluative processes as when I say “Beethoven’s ninth is a good symphony”.
Either of two people in a conflict say they are moral and that the conflicting party is immoral.
There is no absolute morality. It is always relative to self or others and always in conflict (somehow and somewhere). For instance, if I am opening a door to walk into a store, and see a woman approaching who is carrying packages, I am in moral conflict as to whether I should prioritize my needs to put myself first and walk into the store in front of the approaching woman (loving myself while hating her, albeit to a very mild degree) or to put here needs before mine and hold the door open to allow her to go in first (loving her while hating myself, again to a very mild degree). .
Resolution of such self-other moral conflicts always requires compromise, forced by political pressures (where guilt and/or anxiety over not compromising is a first-line pressure and war is the ultimate such pressure). Because of the politics, either of personality or of external pressures, might makes right in every moral conflict resolution. Affirmative action is an example - it would be imposed by the might of government (legislation or judicial) based on a principle of redress.
Moral principles are conceptual abstractions inductively formed to love or hate. We can kill in the name of morality. But even in moral principles, might makes right as determined by the outcome of the internal battle of personality dynamics that formed the moral principle.
Universal love is an over-generalized abstraction. In loving the world we hate ourselves, our families, and our countries. The Kyoto treaty is an example - it would cost the U.S. (ourselves, families, and nation) while benefiting the rest of the world.
Morality only exists as a personality evaluation the of reward/punishment aspects of an event (either an internal personality production or an external event) as predicted or actualized, where this personality evaluation is made from the perspective of the needs of self or others or both.
I know that the way we think makes us form generalizations as inductive abstractions from our past experience. We have a strong need to love, and to be loved, and we often seek being loved by loving. We abstract from experiences both of being loved and of loving, and from this assert the moral principle that loving others is good, and being loved is good. From this we construct a moral absolute: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you - and loving and helping everyone is good while hurting others and killing others is immoral or bad. We say this is true, and to give the idea force, we say it comes from God.
First of all, this idea does not emanate from the sub-quantum and quantum world of basic existence and is not in the classical world of particles and forces - the universe outside of humans is amoral - God outside of a construction of human personality is amoral (neither moral or immoral, but just is).
Second of all the idea is not true. Loving and helping others is sometimes evil as it promotes evil when the recipient is evil and exploits your love or uses it to destroy you. Killing is sometimes good as when it is done to save innocent lives.
Those who say killing is always evil, or that loving and helping others is always good, have no basis to assert this other than a faulty intellectual construction based on thought disorder.
Historical facts: Japan saw in 1944 that the USA and allies were preparing for an eventual invasion of their homeland. They starting then in preparing for a homeland defense that would slow the invasion as the Japanese slowly withdrew to defense bunkers and structures they were building. They even started training women and children to fight with wooden spears (not enough guns to go around)! Their strategy was to slow the encroachment on their soil for years, knowing it would be very difficult for the USA to supply troops and supplies across the ocean. Thus, after several years the USA would give up, negotiate a peace favorable to Japan, and then go home. This fight would have cost well over a million lives relative to the lives lost by our use of atomic bombs. To say we should have needlessly sacrificed over a million of U.S. and Japanese lives in letting WW II go on for years longer, and not use the atomic bombs is an evil view. The use of atomic bombs was a moral act, like amputating a leg to save a life. Japan effectively sanctioned our second atomic bomb attack on the Japanese, by their failure to surrender after the first attack, thereby killing their own people.
Welfare is an example of love that is evil. To provide for people unconditionally robs from hardworking people and gives to parasites who take from society without giving back in return. This is bad enough, but what happens is that the parasites multiply and non-parasites tend to become parasitic. The society then deteriorates (communist Russia) and everyone is hurt – evil rather than good for people.
