Odd ponderings

[nebula]

Sorry I didn't get back to this before you got banned SDS.

I confess I had in incorrect understanding of the hyoid based on my anatomy readings and such. Now I have to figure out 1) how a "hyoid apparatus" differs form a "hyoid bone" and 2) why I didn't see a hyoid on the cat's layrnx when we dissected it out.

As for the links, the cat skeleton has numbers but no names to the numbers.

But thank-you for clarifying the point.

Unfortunately, I am still stuck here trying to figure out how to explain to you how my mind works in details, preventing me from just accepting these formations of complex processes out of random mutations and natural selection. But since you cannot return to this debate, I guess I have no reason to keep trying.

Besides the fact that I never wanted this thread to turn into yet another rehash of every other evolution-creation debate. So, I guess it's just as well if this thread dies anyway.

[DarkNebulaWelder]

I'm not sure if you're misunderstanding the question, or if I'm misunderstanding you're point.

So, basically, you're saying that it provides an advantage, but you're not sure what the advantage is?

If you don't even know WHAT the advantage is, how do you know if it's even an advantage?

I'm just not really following your reasoning, that's all.

At least, in my belief system, I know what the advantage is...to bring us into closer communion with God.

Cool. If it means anything, I value music highly. I started playing piano 25 years ago, and music is perhaps the art form I understand and appreciate beyond all others. So I see music as a good thing.

The reason I have been equivocating on this is that despite my appreciation for music, I do not feel qualified to argue that musical ability is a specific trait that has been selected for during the evolutionary process. If I had to guess (and I am now officially making this up), I would guess that evolution produced humans with ever-increasing intellectual capabilities, and natural selection, over time, resulted in smarter and smarter humans. This was definitely an advantage, because our ancestors' superior intellect helped them to not be eaten. It also allowed them to adapt (through innovation, not evolution) to their surroundings. Arctic people figured out how to survive in inhospitable conditions, for example. And as SDSJap has suggested, perhaps as humans found more time for activities beyond pure subsistence (because their intellectual capacity had produced a state where they were not constantly running from tigers, or gathering food, or freezing to death), cultural endeavors such as writing, music, Pac Man, and so on became possible. In this model, music is not an advantage, it is a byproduct (and a very lucky one) of an advantage.

I find this plausible, but it is of course speculation. How does it sound to you?

The fact that intelligence is not entirely linked with creativity kind of throws a wrench into the works, for me, at least. Intelligence is not completely equivocal with creativity, which is why there are 2 seperate tests to measure intelligence (intelligence quotient) and creativity (creativity quotient). I do believe that human creativity is a direct result of our being created in the image of God. In the evolution of technology, computers have been getting smarter and smarter....even smarter than humans, in some respects....but even still, a computer cannot paint a masterpiece like Van Gogh, write a play like Shakespeare, or compose a symphony, like Grieg or Handel. Such feats go beyond mere intelligence...they require emotion, feeling, and a unique perspective, which are all God-given qualities. Creativite expression also differs from person to person...if evolution were responsible, I doubt there would be so much differentiation.

God is the most creative, intelligent being in the entire universe, and the fact that we are creative beings (along with the fact that we have free will) stems from the fact that we are created in His image. Intelligence, in the creative sense, is God-given. Computers have intellectual capabilities that, in many aspects, surpass those of man....but they do not possess creative capabilities. That's why it's called "artificial" intelligence.

Not only that, but the fact that music follows a set pattern indicates, to me at least, that the same Creator who ordained the natural order also ordained the musical order....and if you don't think these patterns exist, check out this site:

http://www.toshima.ne.jp/~edogiku/index.html

Order exists in music, just as it does in nature. The fact that so many things are governed by this "natural order" indicates to me that a Divine Intellect is what brought everything into existence....even music!

[Joshua-777]

Interesting observation. I am not sure, however, that evolution specifically addresses technologies such as tools and fire. Rather, evolution offers an explanation for the gradual progression from less sophisticated creatures to more sophisticated creatures (that would be us).

Music, fire, advanced tools, music, the space shuttle and weapons of mass destruction are all technologies which arose as a result of the intellect possessed by human beings (and supported by our ability to pass knowledge to our ancestors).

Hmmm sounds like intellect is destructive? Is it human nature? or is it something that adapted to us? The more advanced we become, the more destructive we become, my question for you, where does this destructive nature come from?

[nebula]

I can't think of any advantage for music, but it seems a likely by-product of increased intellect.

Why would it be a "likely-by product"?

And how? I never realized how complicated music was until someone tried to teach music theory to me. I was all .

How can something so complex and beautiful "just" come about?

If you think about music in a similar vein to cave paintings, they don't really show any advantage per se, and are a rather crude start, but as the sophistication grew (maybe as people started settling into villages and had more free time ) it probably began to be a little more lifelike and eventually, painting became what it is today.

But what you are missing from this is cause. What would cause the desire in homo-whatever to draw on cave walls? And then even the desire to create a paint that would last on the walls?

It's a little harder to imagine with music because it isn't so easy to imagine the progression, but I would imagine it started as percussion on a log, and grew from there.

But even percussion on a log takes motivation. What motivation would there be for creating rhythms before the processes to appreciate those rhythms were formed? And why would the appreciation of rhythms be formed without there being rhythms to enjoy?

It's interesting to think about, because you don't hear a lot about music before the 1500s and at that stage it was already far too sophisticated to have just popped out of nowhere.

Good! You're starting to think deeper. Let's keep this ball rolling.

[nebula]

The point is, music would have inherently 'evolved' with fitness being determined by how much people like the sound, and therefore how good it sounded. They would have passed on good sounds and discarded bad ones.

I am not talking about intelligent beings taking music that was already there, learning about it, improving on it, transforming it, evolving it, . . .

I am talking about the basic ability to appreciate and create.

Think of it this way. Wha makes a certain neuron transmit one type of information? Why do neurons in one spot in the brain process conscious thought while other neurons in another spot process imagination? And how do they do that?

The argument has been that brain size just "naturally" increased as a result of evolution, and then just "naturally" developed creative functions as a result. But why is it "natural" to happen? This would involve not just more neurons, but more specialized neurons with specialized connections between other brain regions, which themselves had to already have specialized neurons to connect to in order to have any use.

If the whatever home species did not have the capacity to appreciate music, why would he have developed it? And where would the capacity to appreciate music would have come from if there was not the existance of music?

[nebula]

That being said, my ponderings were not about where music came from.

My ponderings were over priorities.

Evolution considers fire and tools to be man's greatest creations.

Yet science seems to ignore the importance of artistic expression in humanity.

But what would we be without art - music, poetry, dance, drawings and paintings and sculpture and such?