How We Learn to Love Music

Music is the first way we develop to communicate. In fact it happens so early we call this ability of understanding an inborn ability. All over the world parents that speak to their children use the same melodies. Like a rise and fall for approval. Or rising, high pitch to call attention. The words don't matter, it's all in the melodies.
But throughout life we learn and our tastes change. It would appear from the following story that in fact our love and appreciation of music is a learned trait. Give the bit below a listen, but just in case you are in a hurry I am going to sum up for you. In the beginning of the 20th century Stravinsky presented himself in Paris with a new creation: the Rite of Spring. And while the beginning had a very calm and pastoral air to it, it soon changed to develop completely new (at the time) harmonies and a tension-creating repeating background (kind of reminds me of Burzum, if you don't know, you don't even want to know...). What was the result? Did the people herald him as a genius? Nope, they started a riot. Like a regular riot with violence, the likes of which any respectable mob would start on the street, and mind you this was a cultured audience expecting a show of classical music. But, the surprise (to me) is that, just one year afterwards, Stravinsky came back to present the show and this time, with an audience warned they are in for something absolutely special, he was welcome as a hero. And in a way he was, because he challenged human nature, specifically our brain, which loves the familiar and abhors innovation. When presented with something new, like the music of Stravinsky it tries to make sense of the new noise, but eventually releases a large amount of dopamine, which could possibly explain the violent behavior of the audience (in small doses dopamine makes you happy, in large doses it makes you go crazy). This happens when the brain fails to make sense of new sounds and find the patterns. But the brain is also an amazing piece of ingenuity as with time it learns to assimilate the new and integrate it with the all the known information and turn it into something familiar.

Nowadays the music is not that surprising but I still feel it's weird. If you are very curious about the music itself there is a whole book you can read: http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft967nb647&brand=ucpress

In case you were looking for more evidence in the same vein, and from the same source incidentally, here is another Radiolab piece.  There is a reiteration from min 23 of the idea from the bit above and then a more relatable example, with something as mundane as radio. And how going from something classic to something modern can create an unpleasant surprise. But then of course we quickly overcome it. In this case the transition from Gregorian chants to the 'modern' Bach makes a point in case (starting from 28:34).



If you don't understand what it is supposed to mean here is how a cello can be used in the modern world. I sincerely hope these will be unexpected for you.



And here you were thinking you would never like death metal :) (not that the above is to be considered that, just read on...) It just takes some repeated listens to get into, and even then it's hard (the thing I noticed about extreme metal is that it remove thoughts, so it's good if you want to focus and your mind keeps straying, in situations like learning or programming, but if you are not intellectually engaged, well I think then it just kills what remains, leaving you dumb).

I don't know about how weird-ass classical music is created but here's how you can do death metal. Opeth explain all the riffs and the construction of The Drapery Falls from their Blackwater Park album. Especially part2 is interesting about tension and creating disharmonies (See minute 10: "A lot of people say that [chord] sounds like shit. And it does")

Here is a full performance so you can pay attention to all the things he mentioned about playing live. And you probably want to hear the original too. So go buy the album. The Drapery Falls:

The Number of the Beast

I recently came upon something that blew my mind. We have the number of the beast wrong. Ahhhhhh, what will save us now?

I'm guessing everyone is used to the classic 666 without which some T-shirts wouldn't be funny at all

The original quote from the Bible is: This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.

But probably this recited version is better:



Ok, so now the revelation: the original sources mentioned a different number and the number is:

616

And it's not just one source. While this version has been known for a long time, from here, it has only been recently accepted as probable original value since it is also mentioned in a papyrus, thought to be the oldest source, and thus with most authority, on the subject.

So, are we going to change the number of the beast? In the end I think we will always remember an awesome Iron Maiden album.

A moral choice: Part 2, the Freedom

Last time I posed some moral questions about killing and such nasty stuff. And looked at them from lets say a practical point of view. Now let's switch to looking from the perspective of freedom. Basically this is something like the other side of Utilitarism vs Kantianism. You would be very well off reading Kant's (who is probably the greatest philosopher, IMHO) books. And you will see that he is highly practical too, just smart about it.

We will be revising the dilemmas from the first part in this new light.

So let's start off with the first question: would you kill the guy on the tracks? Remember the discussion about guilt? and conscience? Well, Kant thinks that listening to our conscience is the only means of being free. It is the most intimate part of ourselves giving us advice on how we should behave. How can we even begin to imagine that if we do anything else than listen to ourselves we are really free? Here's a quote from Heinlein that might help you in your struggles:

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

Then what about the uneasy part? Why do we usually associate conscience with a negative sentiment? With a preacher-like figure making reproaches instead of a helpful advisor? Well because we are not perfect and we are ashamed of it. But of course this implies we do have an image of our perfect self, and we should do everything we can to fulfill that image of ourselves. Whenever there is something to decide a good advice would be to ask yourself: What would Jesus the perfect me do?

Remember the other guy from last time? The fat guy you have to push? Of course it is immoral to push the guy. The moral problem with killing him being that the fat guy was not involved. He only gets involved if you push him, meaning you take away his freedom. People should not be used as means to an end. Did you see a flaw in this argument? I'll tell you my take on it anyway. How does this differ from the other guy? the one who is already on the tracks? He is not involved and I would guess he sure as hell doesn't want to die. The answer is: you are not in his shoes. Think about it for a moment, you cannot switch places with the guy on the tracks, but you could switch places with the fat guy. If it is moral for you to push the fat guy to save 5 people, it would be just as moral for the fat guy to push you. Frankly, your chances are pretty slim compared to the fat guy :P

And that is a highly condensed but pretty usable lesson on Kantian morality: A thing is moral if you would want it to become an universal law. Have fun with it, you just won the gold ticket of being a better person. Well unless you have inhuman views like killing all the Jews (and there you have what's wrong with the answer to the Hitler question).

But are we free to choose? or are we conditioned by our biology and surroundings?
We, generally, seem to be tricked. Here's Dan Ariely explaining it with a couple of amusing examples:

Did you like the metaphor about illusions? It looks like scientists like it a lot. I stumble upon it time and time again. Here are some more examples. Ok, so this guy likes illusions too, but he did something even more interesting. He made an experiment that tests people's willing. He measured brainwaves while instructing people to wiggle their fingers at any given time. You would expect first to see an impulse of willing to do the action and then see the waves that actually carry out the action. Actually this looks more like:

 To hear the interview about wiggling go to the last part (about min 15) of this:



Their results says that our conscious will is just a rationalization. Think that this takes away your free will? Maybe. But is it bad? Well, freedom implies making choices and if you need reminding about how terrified we are about decisions scroll a little bit up and watch Dan Ariely talking about doctors giving people a hip replacement. I'll elaborate about making decisions and if that's good or bad in some future installment I haven't planned out yet. If you are confident about making decisions, go back and read the books referenced in the previous post. Freedom is often an illusion, not always having freedom could be a blessing. And I leave you with another insightful Heinlein quote:

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.

A moral choice: Part 1, the Science

What got me going this time is a debate about what is right and what is wrong. And how people make these decisions. It's from this Radiolab episode:

It has an interesting and not so interesting part. The interesting parts are the ones dealing with this guy's research, which luckily is summarized on his homepage. I'll just go ahead and copy/paste the first problem:

A runaway trolley is hurtling down the tracks toward five people who will be killed if it proceeds on its present course. You can save these five people by diverting the trolley onto a different set of tracks, one that has only one person on it, but if you do this that person will be killed. Do you turn the trolley and thus prevent five deaths at the cost of one?  Once again, the trolley is headed for five people. You are standing next to a large man on a footbridge spanning the tracks. The only way to save the five people is to push this man off the footbridge and into the path of the trolley.  Do you push the fat man?

What struck me as odd is that there seems to be a consensus. Something like 90% of people answered Yes to the first and No to the second. If you did too, than congratulations you fit in. If not you are a monster and should be put to death. Well not exactly, but you get the point. I have to admit I was confused at both questions, because you do not have enough information: the life of that one man can be infinitely more worth than those of the 5 put together, but who are you to judge that? Anyway, adding such information I guess says more about the one answering the question...

What still leaves me confused is that being right by being consistent, a thing which is believed we do subconsciously, is socially unacceptable. I felt that asking the first question right before asking the second would condition people to realize that the two cases are the same and thus make them give the same answer in order to keep consistency (see the Influence book). Obviously I was wrong. By being right I mean of course doing the rational thing, calculating and killing the 1 to save the 5. That is after all what separates us from animals, right? Our rationality... and we will see what role it plays in the choices that we make (for an alternative take a look at part 2: Freedom). But first let's look at the second dilemma and our options. Here it is:

It's war time, and you are hiding in a basement with several other people.  The enemy soldiers are outside.  Your baby starts to cry loudly, and if nothing is done the soldiers will find you and kill you, your baby, and everyone else in the basement.  The only way to prevent this from happening is to cover your baby's mouth, but if you do this the baby will smother to death.  Do you kill your own baby?

A rational answer (so rational it becomes inhuman) would be: sure, you could always make more; but I am pretty sure I couldn't be able to, already at theoretical level, not to mention the emotional response triggered by holding the little one in your hands. And you should be aware that the emotional response is much stronger than you predict the emotional response to be (see the Predictably Irrational book). On the other hand the cynical point of view is: what do you care if the whole village dies? when you weigh it against your child, there are enough people in the world anyway... 

I don't like these lose, lose questions but apparently we can't help but find them fascinating. The child scene was analyzed in the last episode of M.A.S.H. Very powerful moment (for more on the use of moral choices in media stay tuned for part 3: Entertainment).

Now lets look a bit more at what they did here: What if it was someone else's baby? Specifically, let's take a look at this popular quiz, often found told as a joke (don't know why, maybe people think this is dark humor):

If you knew a woman who was pregnant, and she had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis; would you recommend that she have an abortion?

If you answered yes you just killed Beethoven. (Ignore the fact that this is totally bullshit, meaning the facts are not right, the idea is that you might have killed Beethoven. I think the point here is that it is not for you to decide)

This question often goes together with another:

It is time to elect the world leader, and your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three leading candidates:

• Candidate A associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologists. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.
• Candidate B was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whisky every evening.
• Candidate C is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and hasn't had any extramarital affairs.

Which of these candidates would be your choice?

Now for the revealing: Candidate A is Franklin Roosevelt, Candidate B is Winston Churchill, and Candidate C is Adolph Hitler. Anyway, I would say this only proves one thing: Hitler is the man people really want, why do people say he was evil? And you get what you deserve. Or was it more like: careful what you wish... ?

It's time to be wrapping up, don't you think? Instead of a conclusion we will be looking at the most important question of all: how do we decide? What are our moral choices based on? Is it society, upbringing etc or is it something deeper? something that is in our nature... maybe in our genes or in the place we usually go to look for answers: the brain.

Remember Joshua Green? Here's what he found: different parts of the brain light up when we do rational choices, compared to those that light up when something more instinctive is involved. For the first question, about 1 guy on the rails vs 5, only the rational parts fire up. However, when the fat guy is concerned, we "know" that it is wrong to push to kill one of our own kind, so the other parts light up more intensely. It is basically a shouting match between different parts of yourself. But what happens in the case of the baby, where they are almost evenly matched? Scientific answer: you "exhibit increased activity in anterior regions of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex" (or something like that, just listen to it on the Radiolab episode at the top, it's clearer). You know, the part of the brain that is more developed in humans. This gives it a nudge toward the rational side.

The distinctly human nature manifesting itself is the one making us kill our own child. And here I was thinking that the highest expression of human nature is a cat giving its life to protect its young.

PS. I'm sure this cat stuff is paraphrasing some famous quote. And I thought it was from Heinlein, but it seems I can't quite trace it.

Memories

 Today a more scientific approach, I hope, to viewing the world. But, I promised a movie so here goes Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

I just read the summary on imdb and a comment and I think it is the most spoiler-tastic thing I have ever seen there. Of course I don't remember the thing very accurately, maybe that's why my memories of it are so fond.

The story is a romance pure and simple. Boy meets girl, they fall for each other and have some romantic moments together. The remarkable thing about it is that it puts a pin on it: everything has happened before and when their relationship failed they erased each other from their memories. Wow, an interesting idea in a romance who would have thought?

And then, a couple of years later for me, comes the mind-blowing part: this movie is not SF. At least not in its entirety. Specific memories can be erased... Come again?

Due to the subjective nature of memories (I'm sure this hasn't gone by unnoticed, memories tend to be slightly different depending on your frame of mind, on new connections you are now able to make etc) we may have thought they are something inexplainable happening at a higher level due to the interaction of neurons in the brain. At least those were my thoughts... thinking that you just store information and then retrieve it just seems plain wrong, and it is. Though it does have a grain of truth in it in the sense that memories are physical things and not some intellectual abstractions.

This was found out by giving a drug to mice and realizing that they are unable to form new memories. While the drug is in their system, they are physically unable to form memories. Turns out the drug was inhibiting synthesis of proteins, meaning memories are some proteins or their constituents: amino acids (you know that word they abuse in shampoo commercials). Ok, now get ready for the mind-blowing part: when injected with this drug during the act of remembering something, the initial memory disappears as well.

What does this mean? It means that when we remember something we are actually creating the memory anew. It is more of a creative than a retrieval process. It seems to involve three steps, at least this is how I understand it: Find the physical memory, that protein somewhere in your brain, interpret it by reading and triggering a series of electric impulses which form your thoughts on the matter and the actual memory you experience and as you are going write it back in the form of a protein. As the last step is inhibited by the drug the whole memory will be lost afterwards. The changes in memory seem to be on a physical level due to a rearrangement of the connections between neurons, but on a more practical level we can very easily be influenced. For example by someone sharing an experience with us and having very strong views about what they saw. That confidence seems to shake our own and in the process of remembering alter the initial memory so that we think we saw stuff we did not see.

What it also means is that "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" may not be just cool but a glimpse into the future. Although people do seem to use these discoveries in more useful things like curing people of severe traumas instead of love sickness. But, as seen in my previous post that can lead to severe trauma. At least in Japanese minds. My conclusion on the matter is that I have to see Charlie Kaufman's other stories too, I already love this and Adaptation. Especially Adaptation :)

Reminded of my favorite music album: The Human Equation, by Ayreon. Got me thinking about lyrics from Day Fifteen: Betrayal.

Reason: This memory burns inside
You can't forget, you cannot fight or erase it.
You'll have to tell and set it right
You cannot run, you cannot hide, so face it!

PS. Actually, what I did in this post is hardly more than to sum up a show I heard on Radiolab. They have a lot of cool anecdotes which make these things more interesting and more understandable. I tried to be as short as possible, but give it a listen. It will be worth it.



I think this is the beginning of a section: "What I learned today".