# 'Sheer, Pointless Pleasure'



## Xavier (Jun 7, 2012)

The following is a quote by cognitive scientist Steven Pinker:



> It's often been suggested that music, art, most narrative are adaptations because they bring the community together or they enhance happiness or allow us to experience the sublime or see the world in new ways. I don't accept those explanations because they are close to being circular. They assume that music has the ability to bring a social group together, or that religion does. That aspect of human psychology -- the tendency of people to enjoy music, or to be brought together by religion -- is as much of a puzzle as the question of why we have music and art and religion to begin with. If there is a beneficial effect, it's as much of a puzzle why it has that beneficial effect, as why it exists. Why a series of noises in harmonic relations should cause people to feel that they're more in touch with their fellows is part of the same mystery as why a single individual puts on a recording for his own amusement. The direct physical effect of noises in harmonic do not include "bonding within the group," so we cannot invoke such an effect as an explanation of why music evolved.
> 
> With genuine adaptations, the ability in question causes some effect that we can antecedently argue enhances fitness. An adaptation is a mechanism that brings about effects that would have increased the number of genes building that mechanism in the environment in which it evolved.
> 
> ...


I think it's important to be reminded of this basic fact, especially since men in the 20th century like Theodor Adorno have argued fiercely for the human and social importance of music.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

That begs the question: What is pointless about pleasure?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Crudblud said:


> That begs the question: What is pointless about pleasure?


Right! Yet another judgement call


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Mr. Pinker has a habit of not 'puzzling' enough.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Xavier said:


> I think it's important to be reminded of this basic fact, especially since men in the 20th century like Theodor Adorno have argued fiercely for the human and social importance of music.


Can't agree with Mr. Pinker on this one. Among people with a common musical language, music often carries a heavy load of ideas and opinions. You hear a march, you know it's time to tromp off to war. You hear a mass, you know it's time to kneel and pray. You hear Shostakovich, you know it's time to crush the bourgeoisie. Well, if he's toeing the line at least.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

It is, or was, pretty difficult to get away from the "social / bond with fellow man" aspect of music because 
1.) Beyond one soloist, we see and hear two or more people working in concert to make music.
2.) Only the very wealthy might hear that as 'music played only for them,' i.e. the public, if hearing it, were the public in attendance in numbers -- ergo the 'social / commune with fellow man' notion, which would be taken to an extreme by anyone with a socialist bent in the 1920's - 30's (pretty impossible to imagine how they could not, really.)

Now, with CD's collections, home playback systems / tiny electronic storage and playback devices, earphones and earbuds, many an average citizen today has what no king or emperor could have had in 1920 - 30 ~ a recording of a world class orchestra playing the music of your choice -- including non-western and non-classical musics -- while you are utterly alone and in private, whether indoors busy in the loo, or outdoors hiking up a mountainside. This very much changes 'what is of social significance' about recorded music or the listening of it, now the largest percent of how the world "takes their music."


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

Even Spock, the unemotional and logical first officer, played the harp
View attachment 38353


Music can't be pointless if Spock learned to play the harp.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Spock made a point of playing without vibrato and in a most logical way.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

> I don't accept those explanations because they are close to being circular.


I sympathize with Steven Pinker on this--in fact, it's hard not to detect a certain circularity in most arguments from evolutionary biologists (that appear in the "science" section of various newspapers I read).

http://www.theonion.com/articles/researchers-find-human-beings-naturally-evolved-to,35529/


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I think it's important to remember that Pinker's term "pointless pleasure" refers specifically to pleasure that does not increase fitness in the biological sense (i.e. genes that specifically increase musical ability - rather than general intellectual ability - must be preferentially selected due to some benefit of musical ability). Pleasure that is not pointless in this sense is sexual pleasure or pleasure from eating that increases the likelihood that those genes will survive in the next generation.

The real question is whether music developed due to specific "music" genes or more general genes that allow humans to think and perceive sounds. Science is enormously valuable to human survival, but most people do not believe there are "science" genes that increased human adaptiveness.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

mmsbls said:


> I think it's important to remember that Pinker's term "pointless pleasure" refers specifically to pleasure that does not increase fitness in the biological sense (i.e. genes that specifically increase musical ability - rather than general intellectual ability - must be preferentially selected due to some benefit of musical ability). Pleasure that is not pointless in this sense is sexual pleasure or pleasure from eating that increases the likelihood that those genes will survive in the next generation.
> 
> The real question is whether music developed due to specific "music" genes or more general genes that allow humans to think and perceive sounds. Science is enormously valuable to human survival, but most people do not believe there are "science" genes that increased human adaptiveness.


Your second paragraph ain't describing a question, it's the answer. I have done many minutes of research; my detecting of Pinker's Puzzlement Problem is only part of it.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> I think it's important to remember that Pinker's term "pointless pleasure" refers specifically to pleasure that does not increase fitness in the biological sense...


And in that Pinker is quite wrong. Music can increase a society's cohesiveness and survivability -- and thus the likelihood of it's individual members to pass on their DNA. I'll skip Plato this time and quote Confucius:

"I care not who writes a state's laws -- just let me write its songs."

I have an image of some protohuman beating out a rhythm on a hollow log, calling the hunters in from the field to defend the tribe from attack. And some early-day aesthete muttering, "That log sounds a bit flat to me..." :lol:


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

KenOC said:


> And in that Pinker is quite wrong. Music can increase a society's cohesiveness and survivability -- and thus the likelihood of it's individual members to pass on their DNA.


I think you are misinterpreting Pinker. He isn't saying music doesn't increase a society's cohesiveness and survivability, he is only saying that, even if it does, that is not why it exists - that musical capacity didn't evolve because it in itself is adaptive. Sickle cell anemia doesn't exist because it is adaptive. It is a byproduct of a genetic trait that is advantageous if it is possessed by one parent. When both parents carry the gene, it is highly maladaptive. It is possible that the capacity for producing and comprehending music is a byproduct of other capacities, like speech and language comprehension, that are adaptive, even though music isn't in and of itself - which is pretty much what mmsbls was saying with different examples.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

EdwardBast said:


> I think you are misinterpreting Pinker. He isn't saying music doesn't increase a society's cohesiveness and survivability, he is only saying that, even if it does, that is not why it exists - that musical capacity didn't evolve because it in itself is adaptive.


If music has survival value, then the suggestion that it evolved by accident or as a by-product of something else seems pretty pure speculation. Much easier to believe that it evolved the same way as other human traits. Pinker is well out on a limb here, seems to me.


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## Guest (Mar 30, 2014)

Spot on Pinker. Bravo!


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Music is used to cope with the world around us. It satiates a longing, it nurses and it heals. Take music away and see what happens to the world. It's already incredibly f*cked up as is.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

KenOC said:


> If music has survival value, then the suggestion that it evolved by accident or as a by-product of something else seems pretty pure speculation. Much easier to believe that it evolved the same way as other human traits. Pinker is well out on a limb here, seems to me.


Do you think science evolved in the same way as other human traits? There's no question that science has enormous survival value, yet I'm not aware of anyone who has proposed genes for science thinking.

The view that traits come about as by-products of other things (known as a spandrel) is a common one within evolution. Stephen Gould and Richard Lewontin proposed this idea, and many evolutionary biologist accept that process in many cases.

There is fairly significant debate about whether music is just such a spandrel so I wouldn't say Pinker is well out on a limb here.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> Do you think science evolved in the same way as other human traits? There's no question that science has enormous survival value, yet I'm not aware of anyone who has proposed genes for science thinking.


I'm quite sure "science" has been around as long as people have. Even tree-swingers used inductive reasoning and proposed and tested hypotheses. "I believe a vine this big will do nicely, but I'll test that hypothesis on a very low vine first -- just in case!" This is science, pure and simple.

Science didn't really "evolve" until written language was invented, mathematical tools and conventions developed, and so forth. This didn't seem to occur until historical times -- Egyptian and Biblical. All of Newton's genius wouldn't have done us much good if he couldn't write it down, or others couldn't read it.

No I don't believe there's a "gene" for science as we understand it, but there are definitely genes for being able to observe accurately and reason well. Also genes, I'm sure, for curiosity.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

That's why I never want to go to prison. No serious music.

The self-pollination I could deal with, however.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I'm quite sure "science" has been around as long as people have. Even tree-swingers used inductive reasoning and proposed and tested hypotheses. "I believe a vine this big will do nicely, but I'll test that hypothesis on a very low vine first -- just in case!" This is science, pure and simple.
> 
> Science didn't really "evolve" until written language was invented, mathematical tools and conventions developed, and so forth. This didn't seem to occur until historical times -- Egyptian and Biblical. All of Newton's genius wouldn't have done us much good if he couldn't write it down, or others couldn't read it.
> 
> No I don't believe there's a "gene" for science as we understand it, but there are definitely genes for being able to observe accurately and reason well. Also genes, I'm sure, for curiosity.


Yes, science doesn't evolve… it's the human observation that evolves.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

KenOC said:


> If music has survival value, then the suggestion that it evolved by accident or as a by-product of something else seems pretty pure speculation. Much easier to believe that it evolved the same way as other human traits. Pinker is well out on a limb here, seems to me.


I think it is easier to believe it is parasitic on speech capacities. Think about it. Relative pitch differentiation is critical in recognizing and producing speech inflections. Sound is parsed into units like phrases and sentences. Subtle changes in rhythm, timing, and accentuation can carry wildly different meanings (e.g., sarcasm versus straight delivery). We are inclined to parse speech in subtle ways for the emotions it conveys. Most practical and important: any vocal apparatus capable of the refined coordination of speech is inherently capable of producing music as well. Add to that the fact that adding systematic pitch content to words has value in holding the attention of infants and in performing various mnemonic feats. In short, it seems entirely likely to me that speech capacities and musical capacities are hand and glove.

As for this idea being speculative: So is trying to imagine what vital survival value music might possess.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Can't agree with Mr. Pinker on this one. Among people with a common musical language, music often carries a heavy load of ideas and opinions. You hear a march, you know it's time to tromp off to war. You hear a mass, you know it's time to kneel and pray. You hear Shostakovich, you know it's time to crush the bourgeoisie. Well, if he's toeing the line at least.


And you hear Wagner, you know it's time to invade Poland. 



senza sordino said:


> Even Spock, the unemotional and logical first officer, played the harp
> Music can't be pointless if Spock learned to play the harp.


Yes, but as someone pointed out, he played in a most logical way, and besides, those in the know will tell you that he actually preferred MIDI files. The harp was just a concession to human madness.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

senza sordino said:


> Even Spock, the unemotional and logical first officer, played the harp
> View attachment 38353
> 
> 
> Music can't be pointless if Spock learned to play the harp.


Spock was half human. not all logic.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

So how come he didn't play with half-vibrato?

He was also one of the pithiest organisms on the Starship Enterprise. 

My hero!!! :tiphat:


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> I think it is easier to believe it is parasitic on speech capacities. Think about it. Relative pitch differentiation is critical in recognizing and producing speech inflections. Sound is parsed into units like phrases and sentences. Subtle changes in rhythm, timing, and accentuation can carry wildly different meanings (e.g., sarcasm versus straight delivery). We are inclined to parse speech in subtle ways for the emotions it conveys. Most practical and important: any vocal apparatus capable of the refined coordination of speech is inherently capable of producing music as well. Add to that the fact that adding systematic pitch content to words has value in holding the attention of infants and in performing various mnemonic feats. In short, it seems entirely likely to me that speech capacities and musical capacities are hand and glove.


I think you are most likely right. I am currently reading a very interesting book in which the author argues that mathematical ability is also a byproduct of language ability, or more precisely, that it stems from the same source as language.

We need to keep in mind here that music evolved under conditions very different from the concert hall. As classical enthusiasts, when we think of music we automatically think of symphonic music, but such is an extremely recent phenomenon. For most of human history, music consisted of singing, accompanied by clapping and simple percussion and woodwind instruments. Maybe it helped the group to bond and maybe it didn't. Among the San people in southern Africa, music sometimes served a ritual purpose: accompanied by hypnotic singing and rhythmic clapping, people would dance round and round a fire until they went into a trance, during which time they communicated with the spirit world. (Or at least, they _believed_ that this is what happened during a trance state.)

The same thing goes for the visual arts: for most of human history, art consisted of decorations on clothes, tools and the person, and also of cave paintings. The latter seems to also possibly have served a ritual purpose.

In short, if we want to know what good the arts are, we must forget about the Sistine Chapel frescoes or Beethoven's ninth - they are very recent aberrations. The same goes for mathematics: for most of human history, there was no such thing.

It seems clear the brain did not evolve in order to make music, art or math. These abilities are a byproduct of whatever it was that the brain did evolve for, though I think it is possible that once very simple art or music existed, sexual selection may have driven their further evolution. Perhaps this is also true for language: once language evolved to a certain point of sophistication, it became possible for people to start telling stories, and the best story tellers may well have ended up getting laid more often, so perhaps here too, sexual selection played some role (i.e. the brain may partly be a kind of peacock tail - pointless in terms of direct usefulness for survival, but there anyway because it serves as a sign of fitness in a potential mate).

Since the dawn of civilization some ten thousand years ago, it has turned out that the brain is very flexible, and has all manner of amazing capacities that it surely did not directly evolve for. However, the thing that makes language possible is very likely the same thing that makes the arts and mathematics possible.

And what is "that thing"? As EdwardBast points out above, it is partly the ability to produce and make sense of immensely complicated patterns of sound. However, language is more than sound, and can indeed exist in the absence of sound. Fundamentally, it is the creation of complex webs of categories, that enable abstract thinking. Abstract thinking has very definite survival value - compare the life style and longevity of _Homo sapiens_, who could engage in it, with that of its hominid ancestors.

Now, if an individual enjoys engaging in all manner of abstract thought for its own sake, such an individual may well be more inventive, more likely to impress the opposite sex and more likely to spread his/her genes around, so it seems to me not to be too much of a stretch to imagine that along with our ability to perform abstract thought, came a built-in enjoyment in doing it. And thus, along with ships, aircraft and antibiotics, we also produced reams and reams of utterly useless nonsense as a byproduct, from Shakespeare to the Bible to Götterdämmerung. 



> As for this idea being speculative: So is trying to imagine what vital survival value music might possess.


Or art, or mathematics, or... 
But of course, what is at stake in the evolutionary sense is reproduction rather than survival, and if the ladies won't have anything to do with you unless you can sing and dance, being the best hunter in the tribe will not do your genes much good. 

But perhaps it is more likely that much of our artistic baggage is just a byproduct of a brain that does have survival value. It must be good for _something_, considering that it gobbles up a good twenty percent of the body's energy budget... 

And here is the rest of Pinker said in the article referred to by the OP:



> Instead of being adaptations, most of the arts may arise because we have acquired technologies to excite our pleasure circuitry. The pleasure circuitry has an adaptive explanation. The intelligence that manipulates the world to bring about certain effects has an adaptive explanation. But you put them together and you get a species that in a biologist's sense, misapplies its intelligence to infiltrate motivational circuitry and short-circuit it. We have figured out how to amuse or titillate ourselves with artificial stimuli that don't themselves enhance fitness.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

KenOC said:


> No I don't believe there's a "gene" for science as we understand it, but there are definitely genes for being able to observe accurately and reason well. Also genes, I'm sure, for curiosity.


Scientists probably wouldn't say that there are genes for reasoning accurately and curiosity, but the genes that allow the brain to develop clearly led to such traits. Pinker would say that science is a spandrel because there is no gene for science. He would say the identical thing about music. There are genes for abilities that allow us to create and enjoy music, but there are no genes for music. That is what Pinker means by music (and science) not being an adaptive trait.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> There are genes for abilities that allow us to create and enjoy music, but there are no genes for music.


I'm not even close to sure what that statement means. It seems obvious to me that some people are born "musical" and some aren't, with most everybody in between. I would naturally assume that there is a survival advantage in a population with a certain distribution of musical talent, especially in groups of social animals (which people are).

When you say, "There are genes for abilities that allow us to create and enjoy music," then most, I would think, might suspect there is a reason for this.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

senza sordino said:


> Even Spock, the unemotional and logical first officer, played the harp
> View attachment 38353
> 
> 
> Music can't be pointless if Spock learned to play the harp.


I'm sure it was all Pythagorean, and not for fun -- though, one star wars episode has a delegation of Vulcan diplomats being treated to a concert, a Brahms chamber piece (in the context, perhaps that music was 2000 years old or so, lol) where one of the Vulcan diplomats _is moved to tears by the music._ Maybe that individual Vulcan was an aberration


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

KenOC said:


> When you say, "There are genes for abilities that allow us to create and enjoy music," then most, I would think, might suspect there is a reason for this.


Evolutionary biologists would say that most or all of those genes are adaptive. The question is whether those genes increased in prevalence in the population _because they directly led to musical ability_ or because of some other adaptive reason. Pinker would say that those genes did not give rise to a selective advantage explicitly because of music. He would say that once those genes existed, they _later_ allowed us to compose or perform music.

We have genes that allow us to do differential topology. There is a reason for that. Presumably those genes allow us to think in certain ways. But I hope no one would suggest that there are genes for differential topology.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I am certainly not arguing that a population of Mozarts or Mendelssohns is more survivable, simply that a certain distribution of musicality has survival value for the group (and via the group, for the selfish genes of its constituents). Dawkins makes a similar and very detailed argument for an optimum balance between selfish and altruistic personality types.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

KenOC said:


> I am certainly not arguing that a population of Mozarts or Mendelssohns is more survivable, simply that a certain distribution of musicality has survival value for the group (and via the group, for the selfish genes of its constituents). Dawkins makes a similar and very detailed argument for an optimum balance between selfish and altruistic personality types.


Dawkins was drawing on mathematical work by Fischer, Haldane, and Hamilton who demonstrated that kin selection could give rise to altruistic behavior under certain conditions. Maynard and others developed the evolutionary stable strategy which shows the potential for stable populations of defectors (selfish behavior) and cooperators (altruistic behavior). These are highly mathematical theories that are just recently getting the empirical support necessary to even consider the idea of adaptive genes for altruism.

There appears to be little empirical evidence for an adaptive gene for music. That is Pinker's argument. In fact, even if today people found a clear selective advantage for musical people, that would not demonstrate that the genes that allow for musicality were originally adapted for the purpose of music. They could have evolved for other reasons and later were co-opted for music (the concept of a spandrel).

Unfortunately, this is a highly complex evolutionary question. While I consider it interesting, I think I know far too little to feel I understand the details of the arguments well. I feel it's way over everyone's head here on TC. If not, I'd love to hear from those who have that knowledge and experience.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> Dawkins was drawing on mathematical work by Fischer, Haldane, and Hamilton who demonstrated that kin selection could give rise to altruistic behavior under certain conditions. Maynard and others developed the evolutionary stable strategy which shows the potential for stable populations of defectors (selfish behavior) and cooperators (altruistic behavior). These are highly mathematical theories that are just recently getting the empirical support necessary to even consider the idea of adaptive genes for altruism.
> 
> There appears to be little empirical evidence for an adaptive gene for music. That is Pinker's argument. In fact, even if today people found a clear selective advantage for musical people, that would not demonstrate that the genes that allow for musicality were originally adapted for the purpose of music. They could have evolved for other reasons and later were co-opted for music (the concept of a spandrel).
> 
> Unfortunately, this is a highly complex evolutionary question. While I consider it interesting, I think I know far too little to feel I understand the details of the arguments well. I feel it's way over everyone's head here on TC. If not, I'd love to hear from those who have that knowledge and experience.


You're plainly not as far over your head as I am! Though I'm trying to hide it. :lol:


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

PetrB said:


> I'm sure it was all Pythagorean, and not for fun -- though, one *star wars* episode has a delegation of Vulcan diplomats being treated to a concert, a Brahms chamber piece (in the context, perhaps that music was 2000 years old or so, lol) where one of the Vulcan diplomats _is moved to tears by the music._ Maybe that individual Vulcan was an aberration


Star Trek, not Star Wars. Anyway, as I understand it, the Vulcans are not lacking in emotion. On the contrary, they are prone to intense emotions, which in the past brought their society to the brink of destruction. So they decided to train themselves and their children from a young age to suppress emotion and act logically instead.

So presumably they are perfectly capable of enjoying Brahms, but will not easily outwardly show whatever emotions his work evokes. The diplomat's reaction is highly unusual - perhaps they spiked his tea with pot or something.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> There appears to be little empirical evidence for an adaptive gene for music. That is Pinker's argument. In fact, even if today people found a clear selective advantage for musical people, that would not demonstrate that the genes that allow for musicality were originally adapted for the purpose of music. They could have evolved for other reasons and later were co-opted for music (the concept of a spandrel).


Daniel Dennett, in _Darwin's Dangerous Idea_, argues that, architecturally speaking, spandrels are not under-determined byproducts of more essential design elements, but are in fact essential design elements in themselves. Using the example of St. Mark's in Venice (among others), he argues that the spandrels are purposely maximized for the essential function of displaying Christian iconography. Nevertheless, Dennett agrees with your point, observing that the first stages in the evolution of eyes, for example, likely had nothing to do with vision, but rather with photosensitivity, which was adaptive for organisms needing light for various reasons. Likewise, it has been argued that the transformation of scales into feathers served the purpose of efficient heat exchange before it began to serve any purpose in locomotion or flight.

Anyway, the Dennett book is a fascinating read. Perhaps getting a little off topic . . .


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

senza sordino said:


> Even Spock, the unemotional and logical first officer, played the harp
> View attachment 38353
> 
> 
> Music can't be pointless if Spock learned to play the harp.


That's good, actually brilliant. The brevity. The humour. The logic or anti-logic. Have your thought of applying for a grant to do some research to prove your thesis? But some academic has probably beaten you to it anyway. Publish or perish, as they say. Bad luck! :lol:


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Must we put everything in such depressing, reductionist terms?

I object to this materialist idea that all we do as humans is seek pleasure and avoid pain because it seems to me if one were to extrapolate, hypothetically the greatest end of human kind is to end up sitting in small chambers with tubes in our arms pumping endorphins and dopamine into our bloodstream for all eternity. Is that really what we're heading towards?


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