cardboard adolescent

I actually want to retract that post completely. I think there is a direct correlation between sound and sensation, which is partly mental and partly physical. In part you're responding to the social (ego) constructs which categorize certain melodies as sentimental and others as profound, etc. but you're also responding to the sensation that specific sound vibrations cause in your body. Some music will generate very pleasant feelings and other music will generate unpleasant feelings. Sometimes people enjoy music that causes unpleasant sensations because most people don't like it and they feel special in liking it. Most of the time people like music that makes them feel good. I think that's really all there is to it.

starrynight

I think some may associate with some music as it may be thought cool and it puts them into a group, gives them a kind of social musical identity. But much of that is about image and hardly about the music anyway.

The main thing perhaps is to be engaged by the music on some level whether that be at a level of visceral physical enjoyment or one which is more for the contemplation of the mind. Either can give enjoyment, 'pleasant' sounds too subjective a term to use for music which can give these different kinds of pleasures.

VEGANGELICA

Are you sure this is true, Cardboard Adolescent?

For example, physicists have gained insight into how the universe works, learning that its nature is not what people had imagined (space as curved; light having particle and wave features simultaneously; an ever-expanding universe; the uncertainty in where particles go apparently being affected by whether there is an observer or not, which I don't get at all).

I think the wonder of the mind/brain is that it *can* conceive of 'things' it has never directly experienced...although I agree how our mind functions is limited by the 'meat' that is us. I will probably never perceive the universe as does a cat's or bird's mind, for example, and I can't make myself remember every moment (although some people can). So, I agree that the mind is definitely limited.

That is one of his lovelier songs, I agree. Here's my favorite Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) song, and I think you may like it since you are so often of a philosophical, spiritual mindset. How do you feel about this song?

Yusuf Islam - 'The Wind'



This reminds me of something I wrote recently on MB about music: whether or not we like a song may sometimes be as simple as whether or not we like the stinky smell of Liederkranz cheese, which I don't. Why don't I like Liederkranz cheese? Because I don't like how it smells. Why? Because I don't like how it smells!"

__________________

cardboard adolescent

These insights of the curvature of space-time and the wave/particle duality of all things are still only intellectual. They are words on a piece of paper. Have these scientists actually experienced wave/particle duality? Have they experienced the relativity of time and space? All they've experienced is what they've known before--an idea arises, excitement arises, one shares the idea with others, others either embrace the idea and pleasure arises or others reject the idea and disappointment arises. Why are these ideas important? What new experience do they give us?

The mind can't really conceive of things it hasn't experienced, which is precisely why these ideas are so mysterious. They stand for things we haven't experienced. They show us the unexplored realms of the universe into which our mind has not yet delved.

The insight is merely intellectual, it is not yet experiential. Until it is experiential, the mind hasn't made any real progress.