# Do you think music is invented or discovered by composers?



## Gondur (May 17, 2014)

Imagine any composer with a piece of blank manuscript paper at hand on which he composes music, does he 'invent' the music before his eyes, or does he discover it? Are stave lines a medium through which a permutation of befitting musical nuances are able to manifest themselves, collectively, as coherent music? And so blank manuscript paper is in fact, not blank, but rather abound with an infinite amount of musical permutations any skilled composer is able to find? Or are stave lines simply a medium by which composers are able to convey their musical 'inventions' to us, and so blank manuscript paper is in fact, blank.


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## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

I'm not so sure. I think it is both. You obviously have to put in the hard work and study for years and years to be able to construct the music, but at the same time some of this music is so inspired I feel they had to have had a little "help" as Hpowders put it. You hear many stories about composers saying the melodies and ideas just come to them without them putting in the least effort to "invent" them.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I'm not a musician, but as an illustrator / artist, I found a lot of times it seemed that I was watching someone else create the pieces. I think this is just that we have compartmentalized minds and the art compartments are sub-lingual, or if I can coin a word, extralingual. We use parts of the brain that don't seem involved in the internal discussion we think of as us, ourselves. 

Of course composing may be a completely different process.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Weston said:


> I'm not a musician, but as an illustrator / artist...


Do you have a portfolio website?


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

The question is perhaps somewhat analogous to the question of whether mathematicians invent or discover new mathematics. 

But then, mathematical space consists of all the logical implications of the basic mathematical concepts, not just any ideas whatsoever. Therefore, in a sense, mathematics is discovered. With music it may be different: in the post-modern world, anything at all can be music, and in such a world, perhaps there is nothing to discover, and everything is invented?

Indeed a question that makes for a pleasant evening in the speculative armchair.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Concerning the creation of a statue, Renaissance sculptor Michelangelo purportedly said something akin to that within a block of marble he would see a figure as plain as though it stood before him, shaped and perfect in attitude and action, and that he had only to hew away the marble walls surrounding the apparition to reveal it to others' eyes. And many artists feel similarly about how their own art is "created" or "formed". 

I suppose a composer merely jots down a note on the score paper where ever he hears a sound breaking through the silence. When all the sounds are jotted down, a musical work has been born.

Of course, inspiration (whatever that is) will carry an artist only so far. Some knowledge of technical aspects related to the creator's particular art form is also necessary. If inspiration can "reveal" the art work to the artist, his or her skill set must be at a level where the thing revealed in the mind can be transferred outside of that mind and into a medium where others can have access to it. And we mustn't discount the hard work that goes into the process. Great art is seldom accomplished easily. It's a process that proves demanding, exhausting both physically and mentally. Art isn't "dreamed" into real existence; it is sweated into being.

That sweating part includes revising, and revising some more. Re-reading, re-checking, erasing, scratching out, tossing out, adding in, and then doing it all over again fifteen hundred or more times.

Mozart reportedly said this: “It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I. There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied.” 

In other words, if any one of us studied as hard as Mozart did, we could write music as well as he did. Sure we could. (As I suggested at the beginning of this post, inspiration will only get you so far. But for some folks, and I suspect Mozart is at the top of the list, the inspiration played a much larger role than for most. And what is inspiration? Of course, if I knew, I'd bottle it and make a mint.)


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

“Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, I hear them all at once. What a delight this is! All this inventing, this producing, takes place in a pleasing, lively dream.”

- Mozart


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

brianvds said:


> The question is perhaps somewhat analogous to the question of whether mathematicians invent or discover new mathematics.
> 
> But then, mathematical space consists of all the logical implications of the basic mathematical concepts, not just any ideas whatsoever. Therefore, in a sense, mathematics is discovered. With music it may be different: in the post-modern world, anything at all can be music, and in such a world, perhaps there is nothing to discover, and everything is invented?
> 
> Indeed a question that makes for a pleasant evening in the speculative armchair.


With scotch and a cigar.

Music is invented.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I'm not sure I see this as substantially different from MacLeod's thread:

http://www.talkclassical.com/32176-artist-sort-medium.html

Perhaps the two should be merged...


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

science said:


> With scotch and a cigar.
> 
> Music is invented.


There are two pathways used for the creation of music, both the writing down of it and the performing of it. Along one path the technician is ascendant. Along the other there is a scribe-analog for the writing down, and a laborer for the soundmaking... and an Other.


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## muzik (May 16, 2013)

This is a very good question. 

Music is invented not discovered. It emerges from someone's mind, it is not a reality of the world. 

If we compare music to science it becomes clear why.

Any scientific theory or mathematics will be discovered one day or the other, it's a matter or time. If general relativity was not discovered by Einstein, someone else would have eventually discovered it. 

For music, it's completely different, if Sibelius didn't create his 2nd symphony, no one would have done it.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Ukko said:


> There are two pathways used for the creation of music, both the writing down of it and the performing of it. Along one path the technician is ascendant. Along the other there is a scribe-analog for the writing down, and a laborer for the soundmaking... and an Other.


I'm not much of a mystic myself, so we'll have to let this particular disagreement stand.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Just like it was impossible for human engineering and labor to construct the perfectly designed pyramids back in ancient times, I am a firm believer that the musical masterpieces created by the great composers were also beyond human capacity.
In each circumstance there was intervention. Call it divine or what you will. "Something" or "someone" placed the music within those composers' subconscious minds. Believe it or not.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

hpowders said:


> Just like it was impossible for human engineering and labor to construct the perfectly designed pyramids back in ancient times, I am a firm believer that the musical masterpieces created by the great composers were also beyond human capacity.
> In each circumstance there was intervention. Call it divine or what you will. "Something" or "someone" placed the music within those composers' subconscious minds. Believe it or not.


Fundamentally, the pyramids are piles of bricks. People were never too stupid to figure out how to do that. Give us a few hundred years to practice and a huge number of slaves to sacrifice doing the labor, and that's what we can get done.

Humans are pretty amazing beings. For all our irrationality and selfishness, we do pretty good math, science, engineering, art, philosophy, etc....

On the other hand, if there are superhuman supernatural beings out there, I'd guess their art or music or whatever is as completely incomprehensible to us as ours is to bacteria.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

hpowders said:


> Just like it was impossible for human engineering and labor to construct the perfectly designed pyramids back in ancient times, I am a firm believer that the musical masterpieces created by the great composers were also beyond human capacity.
> In each circumstance there was intervention. *Call it divine or what you will. "Something" or "someone" placed the music within those composers' subconscious minds. *Believe it or not.


Aliens? The music fairy? Santa Tunes (aka Kris Jingles)?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

science said:


> I'm not much of a mystic myself, so we'll have to let this particular disagreement stand.


Not really a disagreement; I was stating a proposition. How closely it resembles reality, if at all, I have insufficient data on to have an opinion.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Gondur said:


> Imagine any composer with a piece of blank manuscript paper at hand on which he composes music, does he 'invent' the music before his eyes, or does he discover it? Are stave lines a medium through which a permutation of befitting musical nuances are able to manifest themselves, collectively, as coherent music? And so blank manuscript paper is in fact, not blank, but rather abound with an infinite amount of musical permutations any skilled composer is able to find? Or are stave lines simply a medium by which composers are able to convey their musical 'inventions' to us, and so blank manuscript paper is in fact, blank.


This rather pedant philosophy is of no real use, i.e. we could rhapsodize and discuss, for pages in a thread, about the possibilities of the blank canvas confronting the painter. Regardless, it is just a blank canvas 

People who (trained or auto-didact) have become full-time artists work in a number of ways, those approaches which are best aligned to both the individual artist's abilities as much as best suited to their personal temperament.

Some composers have the skill, built up through practice, of imagining an entire large-scale work, that idea coming to them nearly 'all at once' (one capacity which technically defines "genius"); this ability is also fully dependent upon an extremely developed musical memory. Others get only the kernel of an idea, a motif, but a general idea of both content and form, and then laboriously construct the rest (or 'reconstruct' the parts they could not recall if those came to them  This relies on just as much a well-developed skill, i.e. 'building' the piece so the listener has no idea where flash inspiration ends and all the construction began. Either mode, a good part of what any artist does when making anything is develop a keen sense of what does, _and does not,_ belong in a piece.

Whoever you are, the more informed you are, the more technically adept, then those skills plus the cumulative experience of constant work for years makes for 'expertise.' A very big part of what is expected from expertise is not excellent work alone, but that the work is done with an extreme efficiency; in creative work, this means in the process there is far less pause or stumbling about to find 'what is part of this piece' or 'where does this piece go next.' _[In recalling your other posts, I hasten to add that the more developed of composers usually do not / were not thinking "of theory" first as a means to compose, but what they learned of theory works for them is, in effect, "forgotten," and works within them at an intuitive level, i.e. they are intuitively using their ears more than relying upon "theory."_

Staff lines are the medium for notating music in our western scale and nothing more glamorous. As a topic they are certainly of very little interest, as a means of expression or much else. If the music is in the western scale of twelve tones, the staff system is wholly efficient to anything a composer would want to set down. [HOWEVER, the notation of rhythm, meter and bar-lines, _can be_ a huge limitation on what is possible to write down and have replicated in performance, especially for many a beginner.]


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Gondur said:


> Imagine any composer with a piece of blank manuscript paper at hand on which he composes music, does he 'invent' the music before his eyes, or does he discover it? Are stave lines a medium through which a permutation of befitting musical nuances are able to manifest themselves, collectively, as coherent music? And so blank manuscript paper is in fact, not blank, but rather abound with an infinite amount of musical permutations any skilled composer is able to find? Or are stave lines simply a medium by which composers are able to convey their musical 'inventions' to us, and so blank manuscript paper is in fact, blank.


You're thinking visually. Paper and writing are visual. Music comes to the mind as if heard, aurally.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

*When, one way or t'other, the idea or discovery comes from your imagination, it is all "invention."* Stravinsky wrote in the line on his passport designating _profession_, "Inventor," because he was an inventor of music


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

tdc said:


> I'm not sure I see this as substantially different from MacLeod's thread:
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/32176-artist-sort-medium.html
> 
> Perhaps the two should be merged...


Oh, please, _no!_ That thread, imo, is so swamped with literalism and pseudo-philosophical backwash that any notion of what is creative or where does it come was washed away from the very start.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

science said:


> Fundamentally, the pyramids are piles of bricks. People were never too stupid to figure out how to do that. Give us a few hundred years to practice and a huge number of slaves to sacrifice doing the labor, and that's what we can get done.
> 
> Humans are pretty amazing beings. For all our irrationality and selfishness, we do pretty good math, science, engineering, art, philosophy, etc....
> 
> On the other hand, if there are superhuman supernatural beings out there, I'd guess their art or music or whatever is as completely incomprehensible to us as ours is to bacteria.


Off topic here but since it was brought up - fundamentally the pyramids are _not_ just a pile of bricks, we don't have adequate explanations for these structures. There is not any evidence of hundreds of years of practicing before they were constructed, they simply appear at what (according to conventional timelines taught in history class) was the dawn of civilization. So we have the golden age of the Egyptians and the pyramids starting at the very beginning of their civilization and then the civilization enters its decline along with their ability to construct pyramids which also declined over time. In other words what is taught about these structures in schools does not add up.

I would recommend reading Graham Hancock's book _The Fingerprints of the Gods _, and I'll bet your view that the pyramids were "just a pile of bricks" will be forever changed.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

tdc said:


> I would recommend reading Graham Hancock's book _The Fingerprints of the Gods _, and I'll bet your view that the pyramids were "just a pile of bricks" will be forever changed.


Not sure where you are going with this, but I believe modern engineers have solved all of the major "mysteries" about construction methods in that era. Nothing supernatural or alien or even particularly surprising about it from what I have seen.


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## Muse Wanderer (Feb 16, 2014)

My opinion on this topic is formed by my pride of being part of the human species.

Humanity's achievements need to be given credit without the need to add paranormal, pseudoscientific, supernatural and out of this world expletives. 

We are here and now, highly evolved animals with well-formed cognitive functions building on our ancestral lineage in areas as diverse as science, arts, technology, philosophy, engineering and language. 

We are the fortunate ones who are living in an age of enlightenment, when we are aware of our place in this universe and can stop and look at all its glory. I am a man of science, but I have found solace in music. 

As Isaac Newton once wrote: 
'If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.'

That's how we can describe the complexity around us. 

Nature is this complex because evolution started from the smallest of molecules in the primordial earth and since then it has taken a small step by step approach favouring better codified information (genes) over millennia, not randomly, but by survival of the fittest approach. 

Science has evolved in a similar fashion, brought forward by the work of countless individuals working and building on the knowledge gained from previous generations.

Arts, and in particular music, has developed from our prehistoric eras probably in tandem with the appearance of language. 
Music was pushed beyond its boundaries by the work of known and unknown composers, morphing itself with the ideas of its time and building on the knowledge gained in the past. 

As Beethoven once wrote: 
'Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the divine.'


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Muse Wanderer said:


> Humanity's achievements need to be given credit without the need to add paranormal, pseudoscientific, supernatural and out of this world expletives.


Amen. All that sort of attribution is, weirdly, cultural bias -- recall Erich von Daniken's _Chariots of the Gods,_ i.e. a book wherein a Caucasion from northern Europe just could not face believing "lesser" cultures -- and their peoples of darker skin color could have come up with the things they had invented and built? (Add racist bias to that cultural bias

Where I "can go" -- call it mystic, call it hippie-dippy, is with that tenet of Taoism wherein _the entire universe is regarded as one organism, and people but a small part of its working mechanism_: from there, just as some animals are born knowing their extensive migratory paths _without benefit of any externally transmitted teaching or lore,_ I think it entirely possible that some people can be similarly canny in varied areas of thought, especially anything which might include "invention."

Regardless if an artist has grown up in the ideal environment to learn all and everything about their craft, it could be possible that some of them are 'tapped in to some other source' _which few, if any, would credit or acknowledge,_ and they bring us those works which we think of as the most extraordinary of a body of work which is already altogether exceptional.

Without dismissing or discounting all of the learning and practice of their craft, that might better 'explain' at least a handful of those most remarkable of artists.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

tdc said:


> Off topic here but since it was brought up - fundamentally the pyramids are _not_ just a pile of bricks, we don't have adequate explanations for these structures.


Okeedoh -- know why they are _pyramids_ rather than some enormous vertical structures? _Because engineers found that building that high with materials so heavy causes the cumulative weight to crush the lower levels... because those engineers had no idea of the physics of engineering a high vertical wall which would stand up without external support, or which would not collapse under the weight of its own building materials or be set to topple by a breeze of just the right velocity._

Ergo, sloping all sides of the structure was the physical dictate of the materials which they chose to use. It would be more than two millennia before someone figured out flying buttresses and / or lighter rubble filled walls.

Ancient peoples certainly learned enormous amounts about the movements of the stars, direction, and that without longitude being figured out, again, until several millennia later.

The Pyramids, and very likely their placement, are no accident. There is no mystery they were made as the burial place of Pharaoh, a living God in a society which strongly believed in an eternal afterlife, as well as Pharoah's tomb was intended to be the most ambitious of impressive monuments amid a culture which already had seriously impressive monuments.

Why they are pyramids is completely circumstantial, due to what they did _not_ know.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

science said:


> *Fundamentally, the pyramids are piles of bricks. *People were never too stupid to figure out how to do that. Give us a few hundred years to practice and a huge number of slaves to sacrifice doing the labor, and that's what we can get done.
> 
> Humans are pretty amazing beings. For all our irrationality and selfishness, we do pretty good math, science, engineering, art, philosophy, etc....
> 
> On the other hand, if there are superhuman supernatural beings out there, I'd guess their art or music or whatever is as completely incomprehensible to us as ours is to bacteria.


Piles of bricks? A rather flippant comment for some of the most miraculous engineering feats in the history of the planet. Nobody today could do it to geometric perfection. How did they do it back then? They had help, just like Mozart, Beethoven and Bach did. God spoke through these composers. Their music is otherworldly, no?

It's what I believe. Nobody else does, I couldn't care less.


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## Muse Wanderer (Feb 16, 2014)

PetrB said:


> it could be possible that some of them are 'tapped in to some other source' _which few, if any, would credit or acknowledge,_ and they bring us those works which we think of as the most extraordinary of a body of work which is already altogether exceptional.
> 
> Without dismissing or discounting all of the learning and practice of their craft, that might better 'explain' at least a handful of those most remarkable of artists.


I understand that some individuals were so creative and exceptional that there might be another plausable explanation for their genius. I am not a physicist but one could extrapolate quantum theory to the workings of the mind.

Quantum theory is a highly complex theory based on the principle of uncertainty whereby energy and matter have dual states - particle and wave. In addition a subatomic particle can be at different areas of space at any particular time. Furthermore it provides the basis for an infinite number of parallel universes to ours.

Whether exceptionally few individuals could have the extremely unlikely spark and 'tap some other source' in a parallel universe, or another time and space of our own universe is only hypothetical.

My gut instinct and scientific rationale, in view of the extremely complex brain we are endowed with, favours the more likely 'work your guts out, be lucky enough to live in a period and environment that leads to unlocking of a genial, precious and gifted mind that can deliver in spades'.

I am certainly glad I live in this universe where we are blessed with the creative genius of so many composers without which our life would be duller and silent.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Where I "can go" -- call it mystic, call it hippie-dippy, is with that tenet of Taoism wherein _the entire universe is regarded as one organism, and people but a small part of its working mechanism_: from there, just as some animals are born knowing their extensive migratory paths _without benefit of any externally transmitted teaching or lore,_ I think it entirely possible that some people can be similarly canny in varied areas of thought, especially anything which might include "invention."


I like it.
......


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

SONNET CLV said:


> Aliens? The music fairy? Santa Tunes (aka Kris Jingles)?


I'll call the force "God".


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

hpowders said:


> I'll call the force "God".


Well, I suppose that accounts for the Y-DNA put in to that _big bang,_ but from way back at the time of that big bang, from whence came the mitochondrial DNA? Eh?


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

hpowders said:


> I'll call the force "God".


Bach believed in God enough for the both of us. So, I'll just believe in Bach.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

SONNET CLV said:


> Bach believed in God enough for the both of us. So, I'll just believe in Bach.


Am I damned for eternity if I have no real belief in either of them?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

The thing is none of us really knows. Maybe. Maybe not. If I were you, I would employ Pascal's Wager and hope for the best.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Am I damned for eternity if I have no real belief in either of them?


Sure... make a screw up or two in this blip of a human life, and burn in hell forever. Talk about compassion, aye?


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Great composers invent and discover.

Sub-quality ones don't do either.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

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hpowders said:


> The thing is none of us really knows. Maybe. Maybe not. If I were you, I would employ Pascal's Wager and hope for the best.


But what if God doesn't want to be played in that way?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

hpowders said:


> The thing is none of us really knows. Maybe. Maybe not. If I were you, I would employ Pascal's Wager and hope for the best.


Why I do not take Pascal's Wager.


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## Pysmythe (May 11, 2014)

Definitely invented. But the more "divinely inspired" (whatever that really means) the composer, the more likely it may seem he only discovered it. I have heard plenty of examples that might make me doubt such a simple explanation, but I suppose that only supports it, really. Some brains just have better quality-control than others, and may also have a larger selection of stock to choose from...


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

science said:


> Why I do not take Pascal's Wager.


But Pascal's Wager is so pinched and provincial to begin with: If you want to_ hedge _your bet, then pray to _all_ the gods. Pascalians are more atheist than not; since they only pray to one god and not thousands.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Marschallin Blair said:


> But Pascal's Wager is so pinched and provincial to begin with: If you want to_ hedge _your bet, then pray to _all_ the gods. Pascalians are more atheist than not; since they only pray to one god and not thousands.


We'd better discuss it in the religion forum!


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

science said:


> We'd better discuss it in the religion forum!


Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. . . Just a passing comment. I'm already in enough trouble with people I like.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Pascalians are more atheist than not; since they only pray to one god and not thousands.


Couldn't that be said of Christians, or other monotheists?


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Couldn't that be said of Christians, or other monotheists?


-- Yes Ken: Precisely what the razor-sharp logic of monotheistic Pascal _didn't want you_ to consider.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Marschallin Blair said:


> -- Yes Ken: Precisely what the razor-sharp logic of monotheistic Pascal _didn't want you_ to consider.


Well then, Hinduism for me. Best bet-hedging religion around!

Unfortunately the Old Testament deity has that ruse covered: Thou shalt have no other god, etc.

Where's the moderator, to stop me posting this religion stuff???


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. . . We're baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad, Muriel.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

SONNET CLV said:


> Aliens? The music fairy? Santa Tunes (aka Kris Jingles)?


Amazing what people will come out with. Why not say a number of unguided scribbles by Bach caused the St Matthew Passion?


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

The thing I've noticed with divine inspiration is that it tends not to be, shall we say, _too_ inspired.

Thus the deity/alien helps the ancient Egyptians build majestic pyramids that are just a step up, architecturally speaking, from the burial structures they already had, or helps Bach compose masterpieces that still are most definitely recognisable as originating in the North German Baroque style of the early 18th century.
If composers were truly "discovering" music instead of creating it themselves, wouldn't musical history be littered with examples of music that doesn't match with the times?


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## Stavrogin (Apr 20, 2014)

I am afraid some people could feel disrespected, but frankly I think that the idea that music is "discovered" instead of invented, while poetic and inspiring maybe, is ridiculously naive.


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## Muse Wanderer (Feb 16, 2014)

Let us say a man of impressive calibre as Johann Sebastian Bach, using all his skills and mastery to write magnificent works during his lifetime. 

The idea of him being guided or instructed by someone or something that is paranormal or supernatural is demeaning to say the least. It is also based on no evidence at all. 

The argument that he could not have done it on his own given his upbringing, environment and talent brings out a collective inferiority complex of segments of humanity. 

It is as if we are saying: 
'We cannot be this good'.

Well all the evidence is pointing towards: 
'Yes we are this good and we have champions in science and the arts to behold and be proud of'.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Stavrogin said:


> I am afraid some people could feel disrespected, but frankly I think that the idea that music is "discovered" instead of invented, while poetic and inspiring maybe, is ridiculously naive.


You have caused one of my several 'annoyance cups' to run over, _Stav_. Why are there so many all-or-nothing views of every damn controversial thing? In this controversy is it impossible to consider the ancient nicety - that a 'muse' whispered in the composer's 'ear', and he took it from there?

Sorry that you are the guy who ran the cup over; I owe you a cruller.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

GreenMamba said:


> ```
> 
> ```
> But what if God doesn't want to be played in that way?


Another of life's mysteries.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Muse Wanderer said:


> Let us say a man of impressive calibre as Johann Sebastian Bach, using all his skills and mastery to write magnificent works during his lifetime.
> 
> The idea of him being guided or instructed by someone or something that is paranormal or supernatural is demeaning to say the least. It is also based on no evidence at all.
> 
> ...


Not "instructed". Magnificent music placed into his subconscious mind while asleep, as in a

dream, and he excitedly wakes up and writes it all down as "inspiration". He is God's medium.

Just a theory. We will never know, but there are those nagging pyramids and how perfect they

are, built in such primitive times.


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## Stavrogin (Apr 20, 2014)

Ukko said:


> You have caused one of my several 'annoyance cups' to run over, _Stav_. Why are there so many all-or-nothing views of every damn controversial thing? In this controversy is it impossible to consider the ancient nicety - that a 'muse' whispered in the composer's 'ear', and he took it from there?
> 
> Sorry that you are the guy who ran the cup over; I owe you a cruller.


 Yeah I guess a compromise can be found halfway... like... the composer is a medium...?


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

However pleasing it might be for some to think we're being mentally inseminated by extra-terrestrials, the bottom line is this: we invented the concept of music itself. Much like any of the other arts or sciences, its roots as a discipline were planted and nurtured by us, and we keep nurturing it and it continues to grow. We create it, we play it, we listen to it, we love it, it's all down to us. To quote Muse Wanderer: we are this good.


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## Muse Wanderer (Feb 16, 2014)

hpowders said:


> Not "instructed". Magnificent music placed into his subconscious mind while asleep, as in a
> 
> dream, and he excitedly wakes up and writes it all down as "inspiration". He is God's medium.
> 
> ...


Whilst I value your contributions to these threads I have to answer your argument based on logic.

A theory has to be based on evidence.

Gravitational theory, evolutionary theory, theory of relativity, heliocentric theory etc. are based on evidence.

Your statement is a plain hypothesis.

A hypothesis is just an assumption.

As an example I could hypothesise that a flying gorilla on the surface of Saturn is now having a nice jacuzzi bath and surfing Talkclassical on his iPad.

The old Latin proverb then comes to mind: "Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur"

Hitchins' razor is based on this: It states that the burden of proof (onus) in a debate lies with the claim-maker and if he or she does not meet it then the opponent does not need to argue against the unfounded claim.

"What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Crudblud said:


> However pleasing it might be for some to think we're being mentally inseminated by extra-terrestrials, the bottom line is this: we invented the concept of music itself. Much like any of the other arts or sciences, its roots as a discipline were planted and nurtured by us, and we keep nurturing it and it continues to grow. We create it, we play it, we listen to it, we love it, it's all down to us. To quote Muse Wanderer: we are this good.




Crudblud, in an 'open' forum that auto-back-patting would not skate. Nice job though.


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## MJongo (Aug 6, 2011)

Going by the following definitions: You "invent" something that did not previously exist. You "discover" something that already existed.

I would say that composing a new piece of music is invention, while something like finding out how a particular sound affects your emotions is discovery.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Anytime I'd come up with something on the guitar, I was always watching it spontaneously unfold. I don't know where the thoughts come from. There isn't some 'though-factory' where I'm actively manufacturing these melodies. They show up. I also don't manufacture the inspiration or ambition to play... it shows up, as well.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Vesuvius said:


> Anytime I'd come up with something on the guitar, I was always watching it spontaneously unfold. I don't know where the thoughts come from. There isn't some 'though-factory' where I'm actively manufacturing these melodies. They show up. I also don't manufacture the inspiration or ambition to play... it shows up, as well.


I know I'll be accused of being hopelessly literal here but... doesn't your _brain_ count as a "thought-factory"?


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Amazing what people will come out with. Why not say a number of unguided scribbles by Bach caused the St Matthew Passion?


There is this theory that in an infinite universe (and such is just the case posited by all who believe in God and Eternity) a group of monkeys randomly scribbling on score paper will eventually produce the _Matthew Passion_. According to the logic of infinities (which is "Eternity") this will happen not once, but an infinite number of times. (I suspect that when the monkeys don't create the _Matthew Passion_ they will have scribbled the _B minor Mass_, Beethoven's Ninth, and Schoenberg's _Gurrelieder,_ as well.)


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Nereffid said:


> I know I'll be accused of being hopelessly literal here but... doesn't your _brain_ count as a "thought-factory"?


Sure, but I've never created a thought. They've always showed up... in my brain.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

MJongo said:


> Going by the following definitions: You "invent" something that did not previously exist. You "discover" something that already existed.
> 
> I would say that composing a new piece of music is invention, while something like finding out how a particular sound affects your emotions is discovery.


By those definitions, you could possibly say that music is discovered because most sounds that composers composer with already exist, it's just a matter of arranging them in a certain order or combination.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Vesuvius said:


> Sure, but I've never created a thought. They've always showed up... in my brain.


I would say that the thoughts always just showed up in your consciousness. The numerous parallel processing parts of your subconscious brain (i.e. your "thought factory") were painstakingly creating the thoughts, and you eventually became aware of some of them.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Vesuvius said:


> Sure, but I've never created a thought. They've always showed up... in my brain.


OK, fair enough, but then we might have to argue over what you mean by "I".


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> I would say that the thoughts always just showed up in your consciousness. The numerous parallel processing parts of your subconscious brain (i.e. your "thought factory") were painstakingly creating the thoughts, and you eventually became aware of some of them.


I'm down with that. But how can anyone really take full credit for something they haven't consciously created? I almost feel a bit disingenuous when I say that I've created something when it really just showed up in my consciousness. I don't know, just another thought that showed up...


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Vesuvius said:


> I'm down with that. But how can anyone really take full credit for something they haven't consciously created? I almost feel a bit disingenuous when I say that I've created something when it really just showed up in my consciousness. I don't know, just another thought that showed up...


Sure. Yes, there is a serious philosophical question about what the "I" actually is, but that's well beyond the s cope of this forum.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Introspection or subjective experience can't be a good guide to what is really going on in our brains - that kind of thing can't give us any more information about musical creativity than it does about facial recognition or motion perception. We're simply unaware of what is really going on in there. Our conscious awareness is a product of processes we can't "see" rather than our insight into the processes themselves. 

Still, it is interesting to think about what it feels like to be human, and it is enormously interesting (to me) if musical creativity feels anything like spirit possession or trance.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Stavrogin said:


> Yeah I guess a compromise can be found halfway... like... the composer is a medium...?


That's about halfway, but I don't want to go halfway. After the muse whispers, there is apt to be a lot of work left to do.


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## Stavrogin (Apr 20, 2014)

Ukko said:


> That's about halfway, but I don't want to go halfway. After the muse whispers, there is apt to be a lot of work left to do.


Can the composer take notes as the muse whispers or is he supposed to write it down by heart after all is said and done?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Stavrogin said:


> Can the composer take notes as the muse whispers or is he supposed to write it down by heart after all is said and done?


Going by them that's heard 'em (I haven't), what the muse whispers is outside of time. Think about it.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

science said:


> *Introspection or subjective experience can't be a good guide to what is really going on in our brains* - that kind of thing can't give us any more information about musical creativity than it does about facial recognition or motion perception. We're simply unaware of what is really going on in there. Our conscious awareness is a product of processes we can't "see" rather than our insight into the processes themselves.
> 
> Still, it is interesting to think about what it feels like to be human, and it is enormously interesting (to me) if musical creativity feels anything like spirit possession or trance.


Limited it may be, but it's the only really pragmatic way to go about it. Certainly listening to someone else's experience doesn't do much good if you haven't found it to be true yourself. It's not real for you if it's not in your experience.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Vesuvius said:


> Limited it may be, but it's the only really pragmatic way to go about it. Certainly listening to someone else's experience doesn't do much good if you haven't found it to be true yourself. It's not real for you if it's not in your experience.


Well, psychologists have a lot of great tools at their disposal today. One that has impressed me very much is the study of stroke victims.

"It's not real for you if it's not in your experience." That is a good point in some contexts, but in the case of scientific things it doesn't matter. I don't personally have to do every single experiment.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

science said:


> Well, psychologists have a lot of great tools at their disposal today. One that has impressed me very much is the study of stroke victims.
> 
> "It's not real for you if it's not in your experience." That is a good point in some contexts, but in the case of scientific things it doesn't matter. *I don't personally have to do every single experiment.*


Then it would just be another belief-system on your part. I also trust in others' intellect who I find to be very bright, but I know that I'm just having faith in something that I haven't found to be real myself.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Vesuvius said:


> Then it would just be another belief-system on your part. I also trust in others' intellect who I find to be very bright, but I know that I'm just having faith in something that I haven't found to be real myself.


I actually trust myself less than I trust science. Confirmation bias has an easier time misleading me.

So when I've found something to be real for myself but science doesn't find that to be real, I've accepted that my own experience must be in error. It's tough having a human brain, but sometimes they do go wrong.

Edit: Also, for the record and once again, I'm not trusting individual scientists, nor even scientists as a class; I'm trusting the incentive structures of science - and it's not so much trust as observation that it has been working.

So, take the question this way: Why do you trust your own mind so much?


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

science said:


> I actually trust myself less than I trust science. Confirmation bias has an easier time misleading me.
> 
> So when I've found something to be real for myself but science doesn't find that to be real, I've accepted that my own experience must be in error. It's tough having a human brain, but sometimes they do go wrong.
> 
> ...


I don't trust my own mind very much... hardly at all really. But I know I'm not my mind. The mind is just a bundle of thoughts that you've picked up through life, and they pop up according to your environment and conditionings. I watch my mind all the time, and more often than not it's full of garbage.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Vesuvius said:


> I don't trust my own mind very much... hardly at all really. But I know I'm not my mind. The mind is just a bundle of thoughts that you've picked up through life, and they pop up according to your environment and conditionings. I watch my mind all the time, and more often than not it's full of garbage.


Sounds like semantics. How do you _know_ you are not your mind? What are you?

Edit: I'm sorry, I should've asked: what is doing the introspecting there? What is watching?


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

science said:


> Sounds like semantics. How do you _know_ you are not your mind? What are you?
> 
> Edit: I'm sorry, I should've asked: what is doing the introspecting there? What is watching?


I have no idea. But there is no tangible 'mind'. That is also just a thought. What we call 'mind' is simply a bundle of collected thoughts that flow like a perpetual stream. And you either give it your attention or you don't. It's pretty straight forward. It's not semantics.

I really need to stop having these discussions on here. They never end well.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Vesuvius said:


> I have no idea. But there is no tangible 'mind'. That is also just a thought. What we call 'mind' is simply a bundle of collected thoughts that flow like a perpetual stream. And you either give it your attention or you don't. It's pretty straight forward. It's not semantics.


I'm not sure why "tangible" came into it so we'll leave that out. What matters now is that there are thoughts, and there is some kind of medium in which they exist. That is what people ordinarily mean by "mind" and it is good enough for me! I know that is not what "mind" is in the religious jargon you want us to use, and there's a lot of wisdom in your tradition, but for normal conversations you've got to choose between being mischievously obscurantist or translating that jargon into ordinary language.

So back to topic: there is a thing in there watching stuff and you trust it absolutely; I don't.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

science said:


> I'm not sure why "tangible" came into it so we'll leave that out. What matters now is that there are thoughts, and there is some kind of medium in which they exist. That is what people ordinarily mean by "mind" and it is good enough for me! I know that is not what "mind" is in the religious jargon you want us to use, and there's a lot of wisdom in your tradition, but for normal conversations you've got to choose between being mischievously obscurantist or translating that jargon into ordinary language.
> 
> So back to topic: there is a thing in there watching stuff and you trust it absolutely; I don't.


Instead of slapping the blame on my 'religious' jargon, which I find to be a highly ridiculous and lazy comment, by the way. How about you admit that it might be your own capacity of understanding that's in question here. Try that out.

We don't need to discuss further.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Vesuvius said:


> Instead of slapping the blame on my 'religious' jargon, which I find to be a highly ridiculous and lazy comment, by the way. How about you admit that it might be your own capacity of understanding that's in question here. Try that out.
> 
> We don't need to discuss further.


That is fine with me! We didn't need to discuss earlier, either. We both knew the whole dance from the very first steps.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Vesuvius said:


> I don't trust my own mind very much... hardly at all really.* But I know I'm not my mind. *The mind is just a bundle of thoughts that you've picked up through life, and they pop up according to your environment and conditionings. I watch my mind all the time, and more often than not it's full of garbage.


OK. So you are _mindless_? I can agree to that.


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2014)

On second thought, deleted by user.

Sorry, just can't keep up with yuuz gaiz.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

hpowders said:


> Just like it was impossible for human engineering and labor to construct the perfectly designed pyramids back in ancient times, I am a firm believer that the musical masterpieces created by the great composers were also beyond human capacity.
> In each circumstance there was intervention. Call it divine or what you will. "Something" or "someone" placed the music within those composers' subconscious minds. Believe it or not.


I hate this kind of absurd nonsense. How about instead of inventing magical answers for things, how about we accept that people are capable of really amazing things? Hmmmmmm?


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

science said:


> Sounds like semantics. How do you _know_ you are not your mind? What are you?
> 
> Edit: I'm sorry, I should've asked: what is doing the introspecting there? What is watching?


I think "I" am an output of the neurophysiological processes going on in the brain of the body in which "I" exist. "I" am not _the_ output of those processes, because there's a lot happening in there of which "I" am unaware. I suppose "I" might also be an _input_ into the processes, but not their controller.
Yeah, semantics. You could use "mind" instead of "I", or "the conscious brain" or whatever. Either way, I see "musical inspiration" (and other kinds of inspiration) as one of those interior processes that "I" don't know about until they're outputted to "I". They appear "from nowhere" in much the same way as a magician's dove appears "from nowhere".


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> I hate this kind of absurd nonsense. How about instead of inventing magical answers for things, how about we accept that people are capable of really amazing things? Hmmmmmm?


Frankly, isn't the 'absurd nonsense' coming from the other direction? Why is it that people can believe that non-living matter can somehow come together and eventually result in a creative power like a Bach or Beethoven. Always appears absurd to me! Like 'magical answers'!


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Frankly, isn't the 'absurd nonsense' coming from the other direction?


Absurd nonsense? That composers can create great music without some kind of external agent?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Frankly, isn't the 'absurd nonsense' coming from the other direction? Why is it that people can believe that non-living matter can somehow come together and eventually result in a creative power like a Bach or Beethoven. Always appears absurd to me! Like 'magical answers'!


Are we really going to have an evolution/abiogenesis vs. creationist debate on TC?


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

DavidA said:


> Frankly, isn't the 'absurd nonsense' coming from the other direction? Why is it that people can believe that non-living matter can somehow come together and eventually result in a creative power like a Bach or Beethoven. Always appears absurd to me! Like 'magical answers'!


Hey, I wasn't bringing this crap up, but if you wanna go there, non-living matter gradually becoming living matter through natural processes is considerably less of a stretch than everything being created by a fully-formed sentient magical being, considering there is a proof for one, and none for the other. But this thread isn't about this, its about that dumb line of thinking being applied to the creation of music.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Nereffid said:


> I think "I" am an output of the neurophysiological processes going on in the brain of the body in which "I" exist. "I" am not _the_ output of those processes, because there's a lot happening in there of which "I" am unaware. I suppose "I" might also be an _input_ into the processes, but not their controller.
> Yeah, semantics. You could use "mind" instead of "I", or "the conscious brain" or whatever. Either way, I see "musical inspiration" (and other kinds of inspiration) as one of those interior processes that "I" don't know about until they're outputted to "I". They appear "from nowhere" in much the same way as a magician's dove appears "from nowhere".


"I" think "I" agree with you!


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

violadude said:


> Are we really going to have an evolution/abiogenesis vs. creationist debate on TC?


Shhhh! The mods will hear us if we don't keep our voices down.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

BurningDesire said:


> Hey, I wasn't bringing this crap up, but if you wanna go there, non-living matter gradually becoming living matter through natural processes is considerably less of a stretch than everything being created by a fully-formed sentient magical being, considering there is a proof for one, and none for the other. But this thread isn't about this, its about that dumb line of thinking being applied to the creation of music.


I really don't think "dumb" is fair. It takes a whole lot of information to make the epic of evolution seem more plausible than a supernatural creation. At a psychological level, perhaps no amount of information can make "the ghost in the machine" seem implausible. Something like that is just how we experience ourselves.

Which gets back to the creation of music. Although I do not believe in any supernatural agents that could reveal music to us - and I suspect that superhuman deities would find our greatest music even less interesting than we find nursery rhymes - it is entirely possible that the experience of creation sometimes feels like a trance experience. And if so, that is a fascinating thing! If we can agree that it sometimes feels like that, I'd like to get into other questions: Why does it feel like that? What is going on neurologically to produce that feeling? And, is that feeling dependent on certain cultural influences, or is it a "human universal?"


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

violadude said:


> Are we really going to have an evolution/abiogenesis vs. creationist debate on TC?


I don't think the moderators will allow it, thank goodness. 

As for the topic of this thread. I have not read through the whole thing. But something just occurred to me. I remember reading that Stravinsky said that when he composes at the piano (and he always did) he sometimes discovered interesting ideas by accident, playing "wrong" notes. In this sense then, he discovered some of his music rather than inventing it. He did also say, mind you, that he considered himself to be an inventor, in the sense of someone who invents new sounds.

I have dabbled in composition myself, but seeing as I am largely innocent of music theory, and cannot write down anything directly from my mind onto paper, my compositions were sort of congealed rather than composed, by messing around on the keyboard and discovering what works and what doesn't. Whenever I play a few random notes, they kind of tell me where they want to go next, and I plod along intuitively and sometimes a composition emerges. So perhaps we can say that amateurs discover music whereas professionals invent it.


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2014)

science said:


> It takes a whole lot of information to make the epic of evolution seem more plausible than a supernatural creation.


I don't see how that works. Yes, it takes a lot of information to help people understand the jigsaw of discovery over the last x hundred years that leads people to conclude that evolution is the best theory we have to explain the origin of animal life, but that doesn't mean that it weighs heavier (and therefore more implausibly) than 'it was god'.

Neither explanation is simple, although the rejection of both is sometimes simply achieved!


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> I don't see how that works. Yes, it takes a lot of information to help people understand the jigsaw of discovery over the last x hundred years that leads people to conclude that evolution is the best theory we have to explain the origin of animal life, but that doesn't mean that it weighs heavier (and therefore more implausibly) than 'it was god'.
> 
> Neither explanation is simple, although the rejection of both is sometimes simply achieved!


I don't understand your first paragraph very well, but I was rethinking my statement anyway, along these lines:

Because I grew up creationist, I tend to assume that existence and order are unnatural conditions, requiring an explanation. But that is actually just an assumption. Ancient literate societies on the whole did not assume that either required an explanation. They invented myths to explain particular phenomena, but as far as I know it was not until Hellenistic/Roman times that people thought that existence itself required a supernatural explanation (being willing to beg the question of supernatural existence).

Anyway, it's way off topic so it's not worth going into, but suffice to say that without my monotheistic bias (which I share with all modern western culture) the idea that existence would have a natural explanation is apparently no less (and maybe more) plausible than the idea that existence would have a supernatural explanation.

This is completely tangential to the origins of musical ideas within the consciousness of a composer (or performer), so I'd like to leave this behind, but I do want to recant that part of that post!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Absurd nonsense? That composers can create great music without some kind of external agent?


I think you missed what I was saying!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> Hey, I wasn't bringing this crap up, but if you wanna go there, non-living matter gradually becoming living matter through natural processes is considerably less of a stretch than everything being created by a fully-formed sentient magical being, considering there is a proof for one, and none for the other. But this thread isn't about this, its about that dumb line of thinking being applied to the creation of music.


Well, if you believe that whole thing of non-living matter forming itself into living cells with all that information, you do believe in magic!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

To me it's very simple. Man is made in the image of God so shares his Creator's creative instincts in many fields - not just music. Man is a wonderfully creative being. He has an instinct to create which is more pronounced in some more than others. Where that creativity reaches the level of a Bach, a Brunel or an Einstein, we tend to call this genius.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Well, if you believe that whole thing of non-living matter forming itself into living cells with all that information, you do believe in magic!


The earth rotating around the sun is magic too, don't ya know? Why doesn't it fall down??? WOAH!


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

violadude said:


> The earth rotating around the sun is magic too, don't ya know? Why doesn't it fall down??? WOAH!


Yeah well, if you believe that story about a spherical earth orbiting the sun, you are very naive. Educated people know the earth is disk-shaped and rests on four elephants which are standing on a turtle.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

violadude said:


> The earth rotating around the sun is magic too, don't ya know? Why doesn't it fall down??? WOAH!


Because someone put something called the law of gravity in place! He designed it so the force of attraction between two masses is proportional to the inverse of the square of the distance between their centres of mass. Clever, eh? Would you have thought of it?


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## Muse Wanderer (Feb 16, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Because someone put something called the law of gravity in place! He designed it so the force of attraction between two masses is proportional to the inverse of the square of the distance between their centres of mass. Clever, eh? Would you have thought of it?


The problem with your hypothesis is that it creates a huge conundrum whereby one needs to explain who designed the designer.

The designer has to be way more complex than his design. Two highly complicated systems like a creator and the universe existing is much more unlikely than just having one complex system, i.e. the universe.

Moreover having to attribute other complex systems that create the creators is way too complicated.

Usually the simplest explanation is the right one.

If you want to throw universal constants including gravitational force as an argument, that can be way more easily explained by the multiverse theory.

This is based on the plausible hypothesis that we are living in a 'Goldilocks universe' out of an infinite number of universes. There would be other universes where life can succeed due the forces of nature being equally well balanced in harmony.

One could actually extrapolate this from music... there could be a tonal and atonal universe! :lol:

However I respect your opinion and we all know that at the end we have to agree to disagree with this one!

I am enjoying my Beethoven as I write knowing well that only his genius could have created such sublime music with no need for extramusical metaphysical conjecture to explain his monumental work.

Thank you, Beethoven!


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Because someone put something called the law of gravity in place! He designed it so the force of attraction between two masses is proportional to the inverse of the square of the distance between their centres of mass. Clever, eh? Would you have thought of it?


I don't mind if you want to posit some supernatural force as the originator of natural laws but those natural laws aren't usually what you would describe as "magic", that includes the natural laws that allow proteins and such to come together and form primitive cells.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

violadude said:


> I don't mind if you want to posit some supernatural force as the originator of natural laws but those natural laws aren't usually what you would describe as "magic", that includes the natural laws that allow proteins and such to come together and form primitive cells.


The real universe actually strikes me as more intricate, beautiful, awesome and, well, magical, than the one invented by creationists.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Muse Wanderer said:


> The problem with your hypothesis is that it creates a huge conundrum whereby one needs to explain who designed the designer.
> 
> The designer has to be way more complex than his design. Two highly complicated systems like a creator and the universe existing is much more unlikely than just having one complex system, i.e. the universe.
> 
> ...


Your problem - even with the totally unproven multiverse system thrown in - is that it just puts the question back one notch. It explains absolutely nothing as to why we are in a Goldilocks universe.
The simplest explanation is indeed the right one - someone created it that way. Just as the simplest explanation for Beethoven's ninth is not unguided forces but Herr Beethoven!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

violadude said:


> I don't mind if you want to posit some supernatural force as the originator of natural laws but those natural laws aren't usually what you would describe as "magic", that includes the natural laws that allow proteins and such to come together and form primitive cells.


But you are assuming there are natural laws that originally brought these proteins together and programmed them with information by an unguided process.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

brianvds said:


> The real universe actually strikes me as more intricate, beautiful, awesome and, well, magical, than the one invented by creationists.


As far as I can see, those who believe in a creator and those who do not are observing the same universe. It is our interpretation that differs!


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

DavidA said:


> As far as I can see, those who believe in a creator and those who do not are observing the same universe. It is our interpretation that differs!


it depends. When it comes to creationists, they seem to me to see a completely different universe. One that is smaller, younger and rather drab compared to the one I see. The funny thing is, I find the universe revealed by modern science to be more compatible with the idea of an omnipotent creator than the one that creationists believe in.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)




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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

science said:


>


Genius. ///////////////////////////////////////


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2014)

DavidA said:


> I think you missed what I was saying!


I did? Odd, I thought I actually quoted it. Weren't we talking about whether composers are internally or externally inspired?


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2014)

science said:


> I don't understand your first paragraph very well, but I was rethinking my statement anyway, along these lines:
> 
> Because I grew up creationist, I tend to assume that existence and order are unnatural conditions, requiring an explanation. But that is actually just an assumption. Ancient literate societies on the whole did not assume that either required an explanation. They invented myths to explain particular phenomena, but as far as I know it was not until Hellenistic/Roman times that people thought that existence itself required a supernatural explanation (being willing to beg the question of supernatural existence).
> 
> ...


I'm not surprised you didn't follow it ... it was poorly written! On reflection, none of the explanations about the creation are 'simple' unless all you wish to do is assert a simple position, rather than explain.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

science said:


>


_science_ has now won teh Internets. We can all go home.

:tiphat:


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

God had sex with himself and that's how the universe was created, I thought that was clear.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

We had sex with ourself to produce ourselves whom are looking for ourself.


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Your problem - even with the totally unproven multiverse system thrown in - is that it just puts the question back one notch. It explains absolutely nothing as to why we are in a Goldilocks universe.
> The simplest explanation is indeed the right one - someone created it that way. Just as the simplest explanation for Beethoven's ninth is not unguided forces but Herr Beethoven!


You are extrapolating from something you understand - person A created something - to something you don't understand - how the universe appeared. Essentially you are overextending a metaphor.

The worst part about these persistent myths is that they distract from the pursuit of truth. We're all left gathered around the fire listening to our shaman blathering nonsense, pretending he knows things he cannot know.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

brianvds said:


> it depends. When it comes to creationists, they seem to me to see a completely different universe. One that is smaller, younger and rather drab compared to the one I see. The funny thing is, I find the universe revealed by modern science to be more compatible with the idea of an omnipotent creator than the one that creationists believe in.


I think you'll find those of us who believe in an omnipotent creator find his universe perfectly compatible with the observations of modern science. Which is not surprising as he made it and the laws on which it depends in the first place!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

BPS said:


> You are extrapolating from something you understand - person A created something - to something you don't understand - how the universe appeared. Essentially you are overextending a metaphor.
> 
> The worst part about these persistent myths is that they distract from the pursuit of truth. We're all left gathered around the fire listening to our shaman blathering nonsense.


The most delusional myth is the disbelief in the obvious!


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2014)

I have a question. I read the answer in a book somewhere. I know from personal experience that that book is always correct, so I don't need to think about it any more. I can just re-read the book! 

Gee I'm smart!


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Let's all gang up on the guy who believes in god! Yea!


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Please don't let this turn into another religious 'debate'. One can't convince people of anything they don't want to believe.


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2014)

Vesuvius said:


> Let's all gang up on the guy who believes in god! Yea!


The guy who believes in god need not either promote his own beliefs nor diss others' beliefs in a forum meant to be talking about music. That way, the only ganging up is on the guy who believes in the primacy of Mozarkovichinskywistle's 324 Symphonies for kitchen quartets. ( which came to her through the medium of the optical illusion created by staring at staves for 3'44")


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> The guy who believes in god need not either promote his own beliefs nor diss others' beliefs in a forum meant to be talking about music. That way, the only ganging up is on the guy who believes in the primacy of Mozarkovichinskywhistle's 324 Symphonies for kitchen quartets. ( which came to her through the medium of the optical illusion created by staring at staves for 3'44")


I see one guy defending himself against a handful of others. Seems reasonable....


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2014)

Vesuvius said:


> I see one guy defending himself against a handful of others. Seems reasonable....


I see a guy taking pot shots at atheism.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> I see a guy taking pot shots at atheism.


Could be, but one at a time here.


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## Muse Wanderer (Feb 16, 2014)

Everyone is free to his or her own opinion. These discussions should always end in a handshake as one party would never convince the other. 

You find the way that makes sense to you and in which you can live content and at ease. You find the truth and try not to push that truth into someone else's throat. 

Life is too short. 

I was a theist once but thankfully science and reason enlightened my way. I feel that I am free from the chains of dogmatic thinking. 

But then some of my closest friends and family are happy living life enraptured by a belief in the supernatural. Good for them! 
I wouldn't try to change their way of thinking and let them freely live their life as they wish. 

Turning onto the topic of this thread....

Let us forget about any reference to aliens, paranormal or supernatural. 

If a piece of music is residing in the ether somewhere waiting to be discovered, how come there are no more Bach-like works written after his death? I am listening to Beethoven's violin concerto (I am hooked to him again!  ). How come there is only one and no more concertos written in exactly the same style as his?

One could quote Brahms who did his best to emulate the great master, but I think he was more a success when he went his own way. 

The answer may well be that there is and will always be one Bach and one Beethoven. The era, environment, genetic makeup, upbringing and genius can never be recreated. We should only be thankful that there was perfect alignment of all these possibilities for these great composers to create their works for us to enjoy for posterity. 

Just think about the silence we would have around us if these great examples of humanity had never had their opportunity to live and give us their precious gift. 

We are the lucky ones to be able to appreciate them and be their light bearers for future generations.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> I see a guy taking pot shots at atheism.


Like atheists taking pot shots at a God they don't believe in?


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Reason can only lead one to agnosticism or a kind of Deism, every other view is emotionally driven or derived from personal life experiences. Can we get along now?


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

aleazk said:


> God had sex with himself and that's how the universe was created, I thought that was clear.


and it was called the big bang ;D


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2014)

Since no religious belief is held by the majority of humanity, at least we can all agree that the majority of all religious views are wrong (while insisting that our own beliefs are true).


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

BPS said:


> Since no religious belief is held by the majority of humanity, at least we can all agree that the majority of religious views are wrong (while insisting that our own beliefs are true).


Judging by wikipedia's statistics, only around 12% of the worlds population are atheists or non religious. I think it's fair to say Theism is the majority view, though that doesn't prove anything about the nature of truth, so why bring it up?

Edit: I think I see what you mean, I jumped the gun slightly. Of course there cannot be two contradictory true religions.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

aleazk said:


> God had sex with himself and that's how the universe was created, I thought that was clear.


The Egyptians figured that one out millennia ago; where have you been?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Muse Wanderer said:


> Everyone is free to his or her own opinion. These discussions should always end in a handshake as one party would never convince the other.
> 
> You find the way that makes sense to you and in which you can live content and at ease. You find the truth and try not to push that truth into someone else's throat.
> 
> ...


Fine as long as you realise that atheism is an act of faith in itself. It does not derive from science or reason.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Fine as long as you realise that atheism is an act of faith in itself. It does not derive from science or reason.


That seems quite wrong. I don't believe in flying pigs, have never seen or heard evidences, or even reliable eyewitness accounts. Is my lack of belief, somehow, an act of faith? Don't think so...


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2014)

Faith is believing in a book of absolute truth. Atheism is believing that no such book exists. It is not another expression of faith, it is the opposite of faith. It is a whitewash to call atheism a variant of faith.

You are correct that atheism cannot be derived from science. But it can be justified via reason in the spirit of Occam's Law.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

KenOC said:


> That seems quite wrong. I don't believe in flying pigs, have never seen or heard evidences, or even reliable eyewitness accounts. Is my lack of belief, somehow, an act of faith? Don't think so...


I saw a flying pig just the other day. I reached for my revolver, shot it and ate it. Should've taken a photo.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Let's try to keep the discussion focused on the topic of whether music is invented or discovered. We have no problem in general with threads that veer off topic as long as they don't violate the Terms of Service. Unfortunately, our experience is that explicitly religious discussions all too often end up in a bad place, and we'd like to avoid that. So please try to get back to the topic. The groups are available for religious discussions.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

One time, I saw a flying pig as I was waiting in line at the local bank machine. I've got proof...


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

I haven't a clue.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Flying pigs? I have the suspicion that Lope didn't read the off topic warning above him, lol.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

aleazk said:


> Flying pigs? I have the suspicion that Lope didn't read the off topic warning above him, lol.


I did read it. My post was in direct _defiance_ of that warning!

_The people united will never be defeated!_

Tee-hee!


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I haven't followed this thread, because I avoid conflict. I certainly have views on religion, but I don't share nor criticize. 

I think music is invented because it comes from someone's mind. 

But of course it can be discovered sometimes. Debussy "discovered" Indonesian gamelan music, RVW "discovered" local folk music, so did Bartok. They shared their find with the rest of us.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

I think the problem here is that there isn't a very clear dividing line between discovery and invention. One would have to first very clearly define those terms.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

KenOC said:


> That seems quite wrong. I don't believe in flying pigs, have never seen or heard evidences, or even reliable eyewitness accounts. Is my lack of belief, somehow, an act of faith? Don't think so...


I did answer this point but then noticed the moderator's request.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Stavrogin said:


> Can the composer take notes as the muse whispers or is he supposed to write it down by heart after all is said and done?


Both. / Whatever works. / All is fair in love and war.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

brianvds said:


> I think the problem here is that there isn't a very clear dividing line between discovery and invention. One would have to first very clearly define those terms.


Discovery applies to things already there. I can discover a piece of music hidden for years in a drawer.
Composing the piece was an act of creation or invention.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Composing is like dreaming: the musicians realize those dreams for you. ~ Harrison Birtwhistle


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Composing is like dreaming: the musicians realize those dreams for you. ~ Harrison Birtwhistle


With Birtwhistle's music substitute 'nightmares' for 'dreams'!


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

DavidA said:


> With Birtwhistle's music substitute 'nightmares' for 'dreams'!


Yes!

Harrison Birtwistle - _Panic_

Enjoy.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

DavidA said:


> With Birtwiistle's music substitute 'nightmares' for 'dreams'!


Yes, I know, so much music many find beautiful is for others 'jangly nightmarish noise.'

I find it fascinating, and a bit obsessive, that it seems some jump in on any slight mention of contemporary / modern music anywhere it crops up in any thread to say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again say that again.

I think those who find it so have imaginations infected from first being first exposed to any classical music which was / is remotely modern as used in films to underscore horror / suspense.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

DavidA said:


> With Birtwhistle's music substitute 'nightmares' for 'dreams'!


This amounts to a strong endorsement of Birtwistle.

(No "h.")


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Discovery applies to things already there. I can discover a piece of music hidden for years in a drawer.
> Composing the piece was an act of creation or invention.


Indeed, but there is a whole imagined space of things that can in principle be there. Earlier, I used mathematics as an analogy: take the basic concepts of number, shape and space, and then there is a huge set of logical consequences, that in a sense can be discovered. but are of course also created by individual mathematicians.

And one can imagine musical space as the set of possible musical-sounding sets of sounds. In principle, it is possible that two completely independent composers can invent exactly the same melody, simply because that melody already exists in musical space. So one can argue that they both actually just discovered it.

Isn't semantics fun?


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## Guest (Jun 8, 2014)

mmsbls said:


> Let's try to keep the discussion focused on the topic of whether music is invented or discovered.


The challenge is that as soon as anyone expresses the view that the composer is inspired or moved by an external agent - and I don't mean Mrs Liszt, but someone or something with somewhat supernatural powers (see the first explicit posts on this #10 and #13) - it's difficult to avoid moving into an exploration of the question of whether such agents exist.

I don't think the OP made a very clear distinction between discovery and invention (and is now unable to clarify, I see). I read the illustration as thinking about the stave as a crystal ball: does the composer "see" things in the "ball" - and are those things being revealed to the composer, rather than created by her? Or is the composer using the ball to focus the mind, enabling the creative act?

Whatever, in my opinion, whatever the composer herself believes to be the case, the inspiration to create is an interplay between external stimuli - life's experiences of people, places, events - and the mind that stores them. Beethoven's 6th Symphony is an obvious example of the invention of music through the awakening of cheerful feelings on arrival in the countryside. 

Invention!


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## Guest (Jun 8, 2014)

PetrB said:


> Oh, please, _no!_ That thread, imo, is so swamped with *literalism and pseudo-philosophical backwash* that any notion of what is creative or where does it come was washed away from the very start.


Given that it was you who inspired me to invent the thread, that's somewhat ironic!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Given that it was you who inspired me to invent the thread, that's somewhat ironic!


Yeah, since it is so many parsecs away from anything I think worth even thinking about, where all I was thinking was a _soupçon_ of mere everyday, simple, plain as dirt, down-to-earth mysticism, that thread _is_ an ironic train-wreck.

I was thinking more of the classical Greek play (sorry, forgotten the specific one) wherein a messenger reports in a completely off-hand matter-of-fact manner having seen / met Hermes on the way, and Hermes had given the messenger a message.

I suppose that is just too antique or 'primitive,' for a modern mind to understand or accept, and to take the statement that way requires a simpler mind than any of the contributed left-brain linear thoughts and philosophies which were poured into that thread. (I avoided that thread as if it were the plague


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> I was thinking more of the classical Greek play (sorry, forgotten the specific one) wherein a messenger reports in a completely off-hand matter-of-fact manner having seen / met Hermes on the way, and Hermes had given the messenger a message.


This may, in fact, have been quite accurate. An investigation of ancient consciousness:

http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Consciousness-Breakdown-Bicameral-Mind/dp/0618057072


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## Guest (Jun 8, 2014)

PetrB said:


> Yeah, since it is so many parsecs away from anything I think worth even thinking about where all I was thinking was a _soupçon_ of mere everyday mysticism, that thread _is_ an ironic train-wreck.


The odd thing is that all I was looking for was to check out my understanding of Platonic thinking. I suppose anyone who could have put me right on it chose not to, and those who couldn't, joined in at whatever level and at what angle they felt comfortable with. Mostly, it didn't involve Plato.

A higher mind could have set us all straight in a whisker, I'm sure. S/he just wasn't around, I guess!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> This may, in fact, have been quite accurate. An investigation of ancient consciousness:
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Consciousness-Breakdown-Bicameral-Mind/dp/0618057072


Does this make me "a throwback?" 
If that is chic or glamorous, should I add that to my C.V?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Does this make me "a throwback?"
> If that is chic or glamorous, should I add that to my C.V?


Direct contact with the Gods is not very much valued by employers today. Your should think twice about listing it on on your C.V. IMO of course!

"Now Mr. PetrB, how do you think these...ah...supernatural communications will contribute to your value to this company? Will they make you a more valuable member of your team? Which particular Gods will add the most to your effectiveness? Do these Gods have a proven track record of increasing profits?"


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Bicameralism - you don't have to read the book anymore!


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## Muse Wanderer (Feb 16, 2014)

Discovery is finding something that is already there waiting to be found.

Invention is a more active process of building something using raw materials or knowledge that is already there.

An airplane wasn't discovered but invented using raw materials and technical knowhow that accumulated over the previous centuries. 

Similarly in literature, Shakespeare did not discover Hamlet but used his inventiveness and creativity to produce his great works using the building blocks of language.

Music, being somewhat a language of its own, can be thought of as being composed of similar building blocks but it needs a creative and inventive mind to produce the music we all love and adore.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

science said:


> Bicameralism - you don't have to read the book anymore!


Bi = two / dual: camera = compartment or room. Hey, if you know your Latin word parts, you don't even have to look up _bicameral._ It would be a much more fun word if it had something to do with two camels, but there 'tis....

I thought the business about the brain and right hemisphere left / hemisphere became common public knowledge in 1979 when Betty Edwards' _Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_ became a huge best-seller


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

PetrB said:


> Bi = two / dual: camera = compartment or room. Hey, if you know your Latin word parts, you don't even have to look up _bicameral._ It would be a much more fun word if it had something to do with two camels, but there 'tis....
> 
> I thought the business about the brain and right hemisphere left / hemisphere became common public knowledge in 1979 when Betty Edwards' _Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_ became a huge best-seller


Yes, I think everyone over the age of 10 in every industrialized country has heard of right brain / left brain, but there is a lot more to Jayne's theory than that.


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## Muse Wanderer (Feb 16, 2014)

I am interested by suggestions in this thread of how a work comes into fruition on its own as if budding from one's own mind. There were suggestions about the subconscious doing most of the work.

The brain is a complicated structure and our consciousness resides on its surface, the highly convoluted cortex. The rest of its mass is beyond our direct control. There are several areas of the brain that may be involved in music composition. 

The temporal areas deal with processing of sound, the frontal areas with reasoning and personality, the parietal and frontal areas with processing of language. However there is a deeper more fundamental area called the limbic and hippocampal systems. These deal with emotion, behavior, motivation and long-term memory. 

The limbic system is central to emotion, motivation, learning, sensory processing, time perception, attention and instincts. Furthermore it is the central system that connects to the cortex, that is our consciousness . This would explain why our emotions are sometimes beyond our control. The hippocampus is also central to memory, spatial processing and cognition. 

These two systems probably make a huge contribution to musical processing and invention of new music. We can't be aware of their functions because otherwise the cortex becomes overloaded with information. However we could possibly glimpse at our 'inner selves' in our dreams. 

Music may also be a way of communicating with our own emotive centres within our brains. That would be a very interesting concept explaining why all societies are so perceptive to its effects and why music is so important to our wellbeing as if it was 'food for thought'.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Direct contact with the Gods is not very much valued by employers today. Your should think twice about listing it on on your C.V.


Drat and damn :-/


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

science said:


> Yes, I think everyone over the age of 10 in every industrialized country has heard of right brain / left brain, but there is a lot more to Jayne's theory than that.


Dropping neuroscience into a non-science oriented music thread is about as welcome to me as when religion suddenly gets interjected.

Fascinating, I'm sure, but I can not be bothered if it cannot directly help me better compose, learn to play and memorize a piece. That is totally selfish, but that is me at times.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Muse Wanderer said:


> I am interested by suggestions in this thread of how a work comes into fruition on its own as if budding from one's own mind. There were suggestions about the subconscious doing most of the work.
> 
> The brain is a complicated structure and our consciousness resides on its surface, the highly convoluted cortex. The rest of its mass is beyond our direct control. There are several areas of the brain that may be involved in music composition.
> 
> ...


So you're serious about this!

One thing that stands out to me is that music is ordinarily a social activity. Of course nearly everyone hums or sings to themselves or taps their foot to a beat they only "hear" in their own mind, but I would be dumbfounded to learn that some culture existed in which that was the main form of music.

So I'm cool with music as "a way of communicating with our own emotive centres within our brains," but I'd be much cooler with music as "a way of communicating with our own emotive centres within each other's brains."

One fact that strongly points that direction for me is that music and dancing and religious ritual seem to have gone together in every society without a powerful state (i.e. where people are free to do religion and music the way they want to), and whenever state power begins to weaken people tend to put them back together.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

PetrB said:


> Which you need to know because science is your interest, or because you are an amateur or budding hope to be neurologist.


Just didn't want to have Jayne's ideas (which I do not find very plausible) equated with that pop culture cliché.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

PetrB said:


> Dropping neuroscience into a non-science oriented music thread is about as welcome to me as when religion suddenly gets interjected.
> 
> Fascinating, I'm sure, but I can not be bothered if it cannot directly help me better compose, learn to play and memorize a piece. That is totally selfish, but that is me at times.


Well, I didn't bring it up. Also, actually, this is arguably a neuroscience thread. The question is, where does music come from, and if the brain is any part of the answer, then....


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## Guest (Jun 8, 2014)

The nature of the universe is that everything already exists.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

science said:


> This amounts to a strong endorsement of Birtwistle.
> 
> (No "h.")


Hmm. Can't even spell his own name!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Jerome said:


> The nature of the universe is that everything already exists.


As far as I know, Beethoven's ninth didn't exist before 1824 - at least in a form we could hear it!


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## spradlig (Jul 25, 2012)

The question is a good one and so is brianvds's analogy.

Almost all mathematicians would tell you that they discover mathematics, they don't create it. "Pure" mathematicians who prove theorems, anyway.

The question seems more difficult for music. I think that composing music is a mixture of discovery and craftsmanship. _Everything that follows is my opinion_: basic elements, such as simple melodies and harmonies, are "discovered". Many people could have thought up the famous melody from the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth; Beethoven was just the first person to do so, compose a great piece using it, and have it performed, published, and preserved for posterity. Composing a long piece of music, such as Beethoven's Ninth, requires a lot of craftsmanship. The composer must make many decisions that are not obviously the "right" ones, at least the first time one hears the piece. If you alter one note in the basic Ode to Joy melody it will probably sound wrong. Perhaps after one has heard Beethoven's Ninth many times, one has learned the structure of the piece and it sounds "correct".

The exact design of musical instruments was not handed down from God (whether you believe in Him or not). They have been improved (in my opinion, the changes are all or mostly improvements) over the centuries, but it's not obvious that, for example, the viola as we know it today is better than the larger-bodied "vertical viola" that never really caught on (Yo Yo Ma used it in a recording of Bartok's Viola Concerto; I don't know if he performs this in concert). In my view, a good, simple melody has an absolute quality that is more important than the instrument used to play it.



brianvds said:


> The question is perhaps somewhat analogous to the question of whether mathematicians invent or discover new mathematics.
> 
> But then, mathematical space consists of all the logical implications of the basic mathematical concepts, not just any ideas whatsoever. Therefore, in a sense, mathematics is discovered. With music it may be different: in the post-modern world, anything at all can be music, and in such a world, perhaps there is nothing to discover, and everything is invented?
> 
> Indeed a question that makes for a pleasant evening in the speculative armchair.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

spradlig said:


> The question is a good one and so is brianvds's analogy.
> 
> Almost all mathematicians would tell you that they discover mathematics, they don't create it. "Pure" mathematicians who prove theorems, anyway.
> 
> ...


I liked this post for bringing the question out to a cultural level rather than just an individual level.

A work like Bartók's viola concerto isn't merely a product of Bartók's mind. So many people's work and creativity went into that before Bartók had a single idea about it - every single instrument had to be invented, each of them had a history of development. The orchestra itself as an idea had to be developed. When Bartók did get around to thinking about his concerto, he didn't create the structure of it ex nihilo - he had about two hundred of years of concertos to think about; he didn't have to invent the idea of modes or scales or chords or anything like that, nor did he have to invent a completely new notation to record his ideas - it all came to him via thousands of brilliant people's hard work and creativity. (We could even think about the production of the ink and paper and furniture and so on that he and the musicians needed.)

This is an artistic analogy to the scientific thing about standing on the shoulders of giants.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

science said:


> I liked this post for bringing the question out to a cultural level rather than just an individual level.
> 
> A work like Bartók's viola concerto isn't merely a product of Bartók's mind. So many people's work and creativity went into that before Bartók had a single idea about it - every single instrument had to be invented, each of them had a history of development. The orchestra itself as an idea had to be developed. When Bartók did get around to thinking about his concerto, he didn't create the structure of it ex nihilo - he had about two hundred of years of concertos to think about; he didn't have to invent the idea of modes or scales or chords or anything like that, nor did he have to invent a completely new notation to record his ideas - it all came to him via thousands of brilliant people's hard work and creativity. (We could even think about the production of the ink and paper and furniture and so on that he and the musicians needed.)
> 
> This is an artistic analogy to the scientific thing about standing on the shoulders of giants.


Yea, pretty solid points. It's sort of like a web of knowledge where everyone is holding onto everyone else. But who started it? Probably some cave-people.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Vesuvius said:


> Yea, pretty solid points. It's sort of like a web of knowledge where everyone is holding onto everyone else. But who started it? Probably some cave-people.


And their gods, no doubt!

(I'm being cryptic perhaps, but not sarcastic.)


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

science said:


> And their gods, no doubt!
> 
> (I'm being cryptic perhaps, but not sarcastic.)


I guess you can keep taking it further and further back. Who inspired the cave-men to make art? Probably other animals and nature. What got these animals and nature going? I guess we can call it the manifesting power of the cosmos. What got that going? I don't know.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Vesuvius said:


> I guess you can keep taking it further and further back. Who inspired the cave-men to make art? Probably other animals and nature. What got these animals and nature going? I guess we can call it the manifesting power of the cosmos. What got that going? I don't know.


Amazing what the cosmos had to go through just to get some decent music. I'd've given up trillions of universes ago.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Muse Wanderer said:


> The temporal areas deal with processing of sound, the frontal areas with reasoning and personality, the parietal and frontal areas with processing of language. However there is a deeper more fundamental area called the limbic and hippocampal systems. These deal with emotion, behavior, motivation and long-term memory.
> 
> The limbic system is central to emotion, motivation, learning, sensory processing, time perception, attention and instincts. Furthermore it is the central system that connects to the cortex, that is our consciousness . This would explain why our emotions are sometimes beyond our control. The hippocampus is also central to memory, spatial processing and cognition.
> 
> ...


I agree with both you and "science" that music helps us communicate emotionally both within our individual brain and between ours and others' brains. I wonder if the limbic system's effect on emotional communication is different when we hear externally produced music or internally produced music (e.g. composing or "playing back" music in our minds). After processing by the ear, sound (and music) signals are directly sent to the limbic system for processing before receiving signals from the temporal and frontal areas. Apparently the visual system does not act this way, and music/sound seems to affect us emotionally more strongly than generic visual stimuli.

During internally produced sound, I assume the temporal and frontal areas create the "sound" and then send those signals to the limbic system. I guess the question is whether internally produced music has a similar emotional effect as externally produced music.


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## Muse Wanderer (Feb 16, 2014)

mmsbls said:


> I agree with both you and "science" that music helps us communicate emotionally both within our individual brain and between ours and others' brains. I wonder if the limbic system's effect on emotional communication is different when we hear externally produced music or internally produced music (e.g. composing or "playing back" music in our minds). After processing by the ear, sound (and music) signals are directly sent to the limbic system for processing before receiving signals from the temporal and frontal areas. Apparently the visual system does not act this way, and music/sound seems to affect us emotionally more strongly than generic visual stimuli.
> 
> During internally produced sound, I assume the temporal and frontal areas create the "sound" and then send those signals to the limbic system. I guess the question is whether internally produced music has a similar emotional effect as externally produced music.


That is a fascinating argument indeed. Just thinking about how a person living in other eras can compose something through his emotional brain centre that is received through our ears directly into our emotional centres even before passing through to our cortex. Thus we feel emotion even before we know what hit us!

I am sure we had this experience countless of times when listening to music as diverse as Palestrina and Schoenberg. It just hits you at the core of your being and you stay there stunned not knowing what just happened.

How many times do you feel the need to stay silent after a magnificent piece of music plays?

You are just there in your own wonderland that has been created by that composer. The music is still swirling in your mind from your limbic system to your cortex. You go to sleep with that tune still stuck in your head. You hear it again after years pass by and feel the exact same reaction!

Internally produced music should have the same effect with the added bonus that if notated and reproduced it can affect other individuals in a similar manner.

My guess is that the interconnected auditory and limbic systems have evolved in such an intricate way, especially in primates, that it is fundamental to our familial and societal instincts. We are social beings, and this necessitates communication. We communicate mainly by sounds and these sounds are a means of communicating our feelings.

Even more so, if you go further back into our ancestral past, the sounds perceived from our environment, neighbours and own family were essential for our own and our progeny's survival. Thus if your child is in distress you react to it without thinking. If a threat is heard in the middle of the night you immediately build up a 'fight or flight' response. The sound of your child asking you questions or laughing jokingly creates different emotional reactions, again without the need of involving our consciousness. By our very nature these behaviours became strengthened over the past four million years or so.

Music, same as language, was thereby created by early humans as a way of feeding into those very intricate and emotional centres that are at the core of each and every one of us.

That might well be why music can literally touch our souls.


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## Guest (Jun 9, 2014)

DavidA said:


> As far as I know, Beethoven's ninth didn't exist before 1824 - at least in a form we could hear it!


The universe is infinite. Nothing is new. Not only did it exist, but somewhere there is a version the composer actually _heard_.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Jerome said:


> The universe is infinite. Nothing is new. Not only did it exist, but somewhere there is a version the composer actually _heard_.


That's quite interesting, but wow is that a behemoth subject for such a small forum.

Trust me, I've had many failed attempts at getting 'deep' topics rolling. Maybe you're more capable, though.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Vesuvius said:


> That's quite interesting, but wow is that a behemoth subject for such a small forum.
> 
> Trust me, I've had many failed attempts at getting 'deep' topics rolling. Maybe you're more capable, though.


Let the good times roll. "The" universe is not infinite. For we who are trapped in Time, every instant is new.


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