It's interresting that you use Mr. Spock from Star Trek to make your point. However, even Mr. Spock, with all his "logic," eventually embraces human emotion in the later movies (Star Trek IV, V, VI and several "Next Generation" episodes).

Not that it matters much, but it's much less depressing thinking about that than the current state of the financial system...

I may. However being second in command of a new company has a lot of responsibility. It seems to me that all of the things that I have been telling my family and friends, namely, that the financial industry was being reckless and was showing growth when all they were doing was playing a ball and shell game, have come to light.

I perceive that we are now going to have to pay the bill. It won't be pretty at all, but things will still function after a fashion.

Good post! I think that our society has become to scientific, or tech minded. I think it is one of those pendulum swings of our society. Hopefully it will right itself soon.

Mr. Spock is my favorite Star Trek character because he was always conflicted.

I'm an atheist, but I have very little faith in humans or in the notion that scientific inquiry will solve everything.

New discoveries erase old ones. Research constradicts research. Etc.

However, I think far more dangerous to the planet and the human race are those among us who reject almost all science out of hand, because they have faith in some deity. (Sarah Palin comes to mind.)

People who reject evolution, or embrace "intelligent design" without bothering to read that the "evidence" for ID is utter crap.

Or, they reject evolution because it contradicts what is in their holy book, and don't even consider the possibility that perhaps their deity is powerful enough or smart enough to devise the system of evolution.

I don't fear emotions, or chalk up every "feeling" to the firing of synapses or releasing of chemicals. But, I don't think that there's some all-seeing, all-knowing invisible man who has a plan for me.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I fear the Mr. Spocks of the world far, far less than I do the Sarah Palins (or the Ned Flanderses, if we need a fictional reference). I fear the people who don't "think." They "believe" or "have faith in" things that they have not researched. And, I don't mean religion. I mean anything. I mean, the people who read mass-forwarded e-mails about Barack Obama or 9/11 or Lindsay Lohan or whatever, and they believe them. They believe them because someone has taken the time to write them down. They believe them because a friend clicked the forward button, and their friend "believes" things, too.

(This is a long comment. I apologize, but I'm feeling this.) :)

Case in point: I need to lose some weight, and so I went back on the Atkins diet that I had great success with a few years ago. I mentioned this to my office manager, because she brought in doughnuts and I didn't want her to think I was rude.

She looked at me askance and said, "Oh, didn't he die?"

"Who?"

"Dr. Atkins."

"Yes," I said, wondering if she had been taught the concept of mortality.

"And, you're still going to do that diet?"

"Yes, why?"

"Because Dr. Atkins died of a heart attack, right?"

"No, Dr. Atkins died when he slipped on some ice and hit his head. And he was 72."

Why did she think Dr. Atkins died of a heart attack? Someone forwarded her something on the Internet a few years ago.

Anyway, thanks for comment on my blog. I think I may turn this comment into a post with a link here, if that's all right with you.

I always held Mr. Spock in high regard. It was somehow comforting to think that it was possible for a (half) human to get every fact correct. Then I saw the episode where his mother recommended that his human side be tested and developed, too. In those few words, she pointed out that Spock was only half a person ... and it was the non-human half which was being developed.

I think I know a few people who, although 100% human in the biological sense, could tell us what it means to be only half-human and find that the other half of themselves gets all the positive attention.

Hey Tom,

I figured I'd make a quick reply in defense of that post, iffin' ya don't mind, as we used to say back home.

I'm interested in what exactly you mean by the "magic" of music or love? The phenomenal qualia of them? The emotions that rush through your entire body when you listen to Bach, or Grieg, or Handel, or Metallica, or Led Zeppelin (hey, I played in an orchestra for a while and do a lot of metal guitar on my own time. I have eclectic music tastes.) As I said, I experience these quite as fully as everyone else (and to be honest, sometimes I feel more than a lot of people I know).

What is more human than to be reduced to tears over an opera aria? I know I've had that experience a lot.

Now, to dig a bit deeper in this, I will also admit that as a musician myself, I am often very interested in the technicalities of how a piece is performed. I want to know how a guitarist plays a solo - I want the score to the piece because I want to reproduce it myself for my own enjoyment (as I said, I love playing and performing music as much as listening to it). And so there is always a part of my brain that is picking apart the score while I'm listening to a given piece (usually this starts the third or fourth time I'm listening to something - I enjoy the full experience first before trying to play it myself). In short, i think musicians listen to musically differently than most people anyway, but I don't think this is a bad thing. Architects are often able to discern what's "really special" about a given building that most people would simply walk by.

Also, especially in modern music, it's quite important to know the exact effects that have been used on a given sound wave. Compression is the easiest example that comes to mind - you clip the peaks and troughs of a sound wave beyond a certain threshold. This gives it a "distorted" or "fuzzy" sound that is so famous in rock music.

Note, there is no other difference in pure compression like this - the instrument is played the same, presumably the listener is the same - the only difference is the actual, physical waveform which enters the ear. And yet, this produces a profound difference in the way the sound is processed by the brain. In general, to be a bit flippant, older individuals tend to say "Ugh!" to it, and young, angsty kids flock to it. C'est la vie.

So, to summarize - from a sound engineer or musician's standpoint, it is incredibly important to know that actual physics of what's going on when music is played, because manipulating the physical waveform produces profound differences in emotional response. For one brief example, a lot of contemporary studios are doing heavy compression with a high gain increase to make up for it...I really dislike this sound. It's good for dance clubs, I guess, but when I listen to an album, I want to be able to hear individual guitar picks or strums, and I want to hear the full experience of the instrument being played.

Anyways, on the bigger issue.

I think we're talking past one another at this point. I've admitted here and on my blog that I am a methodological materialist. When I'm talking about behavior, emotions, thoughts, etc., I am indeed making the assumption that all of these are products of brain activity. Some people call this the "mind" or the "soul." Okay, sure. Put whatever label you want on it, but, mechanically speaking, it's the brain working away.

So, yes, indeed, when I talk about the emotional response to music, that assumes that there is a functioning brain with a functioning auditory cortex which can interpret signals coming in from a functioning ear. That's a mechanical viewpoint to discuss it. In everyday conversation, I'm much more likely to say "Man, that symphony moved me! It was a amazing! Did you hear that cello solo?!" Much in the same way as I might say "I drove to work today" without mentioning all the mechanics of what's going on under the hood, or the theory of friction that explains why force applied to my tires is imparted onto the road, which allows me to move forward. Would you still say "Is that what driving 'is?!'" I would argue that yes, in part, that is what driving mechanically is.

I think we're arguing at different levels of explanation. You want to take the larger "mind/soul"-oriented viewpoint, which is fine. I have no problem with that. We can both talk on that level and probably never disagree with one another. Our disagreement appears to be on the mechanical level. I would argue that first, a brain is necessary, and second, a brain is sufficient to produce all those wonderful things that we discuss from a more abstract viewpoint. I feel that you would disagree with at least the second of my propositions. At which point I would ask you explain the interaction of music and the "soul" or whatever concept you want to invoke.

So...yeah, basically I feel that the real point of contention here is the mechanical level of explanation, and our differing opinions on materialism and dualism. If you disagree with that, or want to explain more deeply what exactly else you feel is necessary to include in the account of music (at a mechanical or abstract level, whichever one you want to argue at), then please feel free to reply.

As always, good talking with you, and an interesting read.

P.S. - Are you actually going to see the new Star Trek movie? I'm worried that my love for the original series and movies is going to ruin any attempt to restart it.