Music Banter - View Single Post - The Evolution of Music: Accident, or Adaptation?
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Old 11-28-2011, 01:45 PM   #6 (permalink)
Salami
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Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Derbyshire
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pedestrian View Post
I'm not religious by any means, if anything I'm the quintessential agnostic believer, but something about giving music a biological imperative felt very violating to me, equal to a debunking of faith.

I would prefer music to have been a spandrel of language in the end, because it then retains its soul and beauty of creative genius. I was surprised to find myself agreeing more with the initial theory that outraged me than the provided alternative. This was not an outcome I anticipated.
Well, they are taking something that is a deeply personal expression of someone's own feelings, and attempting to reduce it to purely naturalistic causes. I think that they grossly underestimate what is really involved in the human brain. They consider every aspect of human life to be merely an elaborate development of a basic, primordial, and ultimately chemical urge. I think that is not only wrong, but deeply undermines the value of any expression of art.
Not only that, but there isn't a shred of evidence for it. Not everyone is a reductionist, Pinker.
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