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Complexity
We are going to talk about the neural networks and the brain in terms of complex
systems theory and self organisation. Self organisation has been thought of as
a key property of matter by which individual material elements in an assembly
spontaneously start to interact with each other and behave in a coherent and
cooperative way to finally result in the formation of larger and more complex,
stable structures which show emergent properties not possessed by the
individual elements.
(Romijn: 2002, 70)
Complex systems theory on the other hand is not easily definable, a useful description
states, “complexity entails that, in a system, there are more possibilities than can be
actualised” (Luhmann: 1985, 25), another vital feature of complex systems is that they
are characterised as open. Meaning that while the system can be thought of as
individual it is actually composed of smaller subsystems, while at the same time it is a
subsystem of a larger system itself and is constantly involved in a dynamic interaction
with the environment. For example, a cell is part of an organ which is part of a body
which is part of a society and so on. Or more poetically
Man follows the way of the earth,
The earth follows the way of Tao,
Tao follows its on way.
(Lao Tzu)
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We shall endeavour to present a theory of the brain that allows thought to transpose
the concepts taken from complexity theory onto other similar self organising systems.
Neural networks consist of a large number of interconnected simple neurons, each
connection bearing a certain intensive weight, dependent on the strength of
communication between neurons. It is the distributed pattern of spontaneously
modulating weights that determine the characteristics of the network, this pattern
actualises what is known as ‘representational information’ (Cilliers: 1998). A basic
structure of neuronal interconnectedness consists of input units, mediating units and
output units. For example the perception of sound requires the auditory nerves
situated in the ear to acquire the vibrational resonance of the melodical modulations
swarming the environment, which is then channelled through the body via the limbic
system, resulting in the activation of particular motor neurons that elicit some kind of
response. Stimulus ‘percolate’ through networks of basically similar neurons and the
response enacted is governed by the patterns of weights formed during the systems
distributed representation of the event.
Neural networks assemble representational formations of external multiplicities in a
non linear, distributed way (Cilliers: 1998, Globus: 1998), hence the emergent
patterns arise spontaneously rather than in terms of linear causality. Due to
phenomenal complexity large networks are able to simultaneously encode an
incommensurable plenum of stimuli. Whilst encoding, it is the patterns of weights, not
individual neurons that constitute a distributed representation. Importantly, there is no
difference in kind between the sensory traces entering the network and the traces that
interact inside the network (Cilliers: 1998, 82). Therefore, the internal composition of
the system is a direct correlation of the external manifestations that are received
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through sensory apprehension. The gap between internal and external disappears.
Similarly, when we implement our own complex system to perform a creative task,
the distributed pattern of weights that constitutes ones frame of mind are incorporated
into the patterns of organisation that constitute the implements one is working with,
resulting in a psychical superpositioning of the neural pattern of emergence onto the
world at large. Of course there are currents of speed and intensity ‘percolating’
throughout extensive space; therefore our psychical superpositions affect the world-
in-creation to a certain extent but other forces are equally at play in the constitution of
external manifestations.
Self-Organisation
This process is based on the electrico-chemical properties of the individual elements
and some environmental conditions, such as temperature and energy supply, while it
is governed by deterministic chaotic, non-linear dynamics (Kauffman: 1995). We may
postulate the system to be subject to a certain indeterminate-determinacy as the
outcome of this proposition. The complex structures that are formed can be thought of
as meta-stable, oscillating, low energy preference patterns (DeLanda: 2002), to which
the dynamic system is attracted. Highly susceptible to environmental influence, the
oscillation patterns can easily adapt to change. If one or more of the environmental
influences pushes the system beyond a critical level, it can jump to a new meta-stable
preference pattern (Romijn: 1998). This is known as a Phase transition. Phase
transitions are events which take place at critical moments of a systems genesis,
switching it from one state to another (DeLanda: 2002), “There is ample evidence in
living cells to support an intimate connection between phase transitions and life.
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Many of the processes and structures found in living cells are being maintained at or
near phase transitions” (Langton: 1992) [delanda 103]. At this moment, chaos and
order are indeterminately-determining the form of the system, the system is poised on
‘the edge of chaos’,
The edge of chaos is where information gets its foot in the door in the physical
world, where it gets the upper hand over energy. Being at the transition point
between order and chaos not only buys you exquisite control - small input/big
change - but it also buys you the possibility that information processing can
become an important part of the dynamics of the system.
(Langton in Lewin: 1993)
Becoming-chaotically allows access to the imperceptible, beyond that which is ‘in-
formation’ a subtle dimension: ‘unthinged’ – provides the resources necessary for
genesis. This is the novelty that a self organising system exhibits. A bridge between
the manifest and the groundless,
Extensity as a whole comes from the depths. Depth as the (ultimate and
original) heterogenous dimension is the matrix of all extensity… The ground
as it appears in a homogenous extensity is notably a projection of something
‘deeper’ only the latter may be called Ungrund or groundless…
(Deleuze: 1994)
Self organised systems exist on an intermediary point between absolute
Groundlessness and thingedness, hence they are ‘becoming’.
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In the perception and composition of music (and generally) self organising systems
evolve towards attractors/ singularities; “a large number of different trajectories,
starting their evolution at very different places in the manifold, may end up in
exactly the same final state (the attractor), as long as all of them begin somewhere
within the “sphere of influence” of the attractor (the basin of attraction)” (Delanda;
2002). The system intuits weights of chaotic becomings from the heterogeneous
dimension of ungroundedness which consequences arrival at a meta-stable state,
which is a recurrent topological feature within the history of the system. Now,
behaviour in complex systems occurs via local interactions amongst constituent
parts, distributed in such a way as to display ‘global properties’, adding an extra
layer of complex interactions to the relationship between system and environment.
Within this material system of interrelated components dwells the formless, in the
visible lives the invisible; “not objects, but fields, subdued being, non-thetic being,
being before being” (Merleau-Ponty: 1987). It is the endeavour of this project to
bring to light the relationships between material processes in extensive multiplicities
such as the human being, consciousness and musical experience.
5
The Neural Specialization for Tonal Processing
Subjective experience occurs in relation to objective observable states of affairs, such
as synchronised neural firings accompanying the enjoyment of a harmonious melody.
By examining the brain states associated with musical perception it is hoped that we
may be able to bring to light concretely, elements of our subjective experience that
can be deemed philosophically important. To start with, it is widely agreed that
‘speech and music must engage the most cognitively demanding aspects of auditory
processing’ (Peretz & Zatorre 231), an analysis of neuro-acoustic processing shall
focus on the many trajectories encountered during musical experience in terms of
‘functional specialization’.
Besson and Schön distinguish temporal, melodic and harmonic aspects as the
constitutive elements of the neuro-acoustic system, they argue that we should think of
each element as relative to a particular sub-module of the system and that the specific
components are hierarchically organised, constantly evolving to form new properties
(Besson & Schön: 1999). These are maintained by individual elements of the system
which interact locally, resulting in higher order global functions occurring across the
network. The higher order processing of musical experience is attributed to Heschl’s
gyrus, which allows an intensive focus of musical trajectories to culminate in a
specific region. The right primary auditory cortex is the area where sounds are filtered
according to pitch, the right temporal cortex resonates in tune with the spectral pattern
organisation of the sound and the superior temporal gyrus holds tonal content in
retentional and presentified memory (Besson and Schön: 1999). This provides us with
a minute description of how a distributed pattern emerges within the neuro-acoustic
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network as the result of musical stimulation, unfortunately a complete delineation of
the regions involved for the processing of all the elements of musical experience is
beyond the scope of this project. However, this information provides insight into the
distributed networks that coalesce to form a representational pattern of emerged
phenomena. These modular networks are engaged in the acquisition of a patterned
vibrational field that reverberates throughout the entire system, “the auditory system
maintains direct connections to every organ in the body…. including the thymus
gland, which is the main regulator in the fight against disease” (Berendt: 2001). Let it
be noted that our entire body is permeated with dynamic modulations affected by
sound, resulting in a two way open interaction between the brain/ body-component
and the environment whence it dwells.
In terms of functional specialization we can generally say that the left hemisphere
processes speech whereas the right processes sound/ music. The left hemisphere is
better suited to process rapidly fluctuating acoustic formations with highly transitive
energy peaks that speech is composed of, whereas, the right hemisphere is better
suited to process the fine spectral differences intrinsic to pitch perception (Zatorre:
2003, Tervaniemi & Brattico: 2004). If either hemisphere is operating with a rapid
influx of sense data then limitations imposed by working memory often impair the
functional proficiency of the latent hemisphere. This entails an inter-hemispheric
negotiation of which aspect of the perceptual flux will be accorded interpretational
priority, subjective manipulation of attention influences which hemisphere/ facet of
experience is prioritised (Tervaniemi & Brattico: 2004, Besson & Schön: 1999).
Directed attentiveness allows the subject to ‘hone-in’ on either speech or sound during
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their simultaneous unfolding which inhibits the registration of incongruities occurring
through the unattended medium.
* Experimental evidence shows a functional dissociation between the acts of
monitoring sensational input and merely holding sensorial stimuli in working
memory, the dorsolateral frontal areas increase in cerebral blood flow when test
subjects are engaged in an auditory tonal working memory task (Zatorre: 2003). The
dorsolateral frontal area receives input from virtually all the other modules in the
brain and has been cited as the area responsible for “executive function” (Dietrich:
2004). The processing of tonal information occurs in the right inferior frontal areas
(Zatorre: 2003), this information will be relevant when considering the
neuropsychology of exceptional phases of consciousness.
Different activities result in the formation of distinct higher order functions, the
system for making judgements and retaining information about pitch in music is
separate from the neural architecture choreographed during the semantic
categorization of words (Binder: 1997). The prevailing variation being that musical
perception is mainly dependent on modules in the right hemisphere with linguistic
perception mainly occurring in the left hemisphere; however a certain amount of
bilateral activation during experimental studies implies that these activities are not
completely independent.
There is strong evidence to suggest that the networks activated during musical
experience are present from infancy onwards (Petetz & Hébert: 2002), as well as that,
the cochlea, with its connections running throughout the entire body, is fully formed
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four and a half months into gestation (Berendt: 2001). This implies a fundamental
importance of hearing and music to the human organism as a whole.
The strength of the connections and patterned formations corresponding to an
experience show a degree of plasticity, dedicated training and practice radically
rewires neural architecture. Musicians under test exhibited a 25 percent increase in
left brain activity compared to untrained subjects when listening to a piano piece, they
also, on average, had a 130 percent larger auditory cortex (Weinberger: 2005). This is
probably explained as a result of greater exposure to a wider variety of acoustic
formations, “when the-sound evoked neuronal firing does not match the existing
neural templates activated by the previous content, other neuronal populations fire …
readjusting the neuronal structure for the incoming acoustic signals” (Tervaniemi &
Brattico: 2004). These data thus underline the existence of different modes of music
cognition, partly influence by attentional listening strategies, but a significant part
being independent of the allocation of attentional resources. Musical perception can
be seen as a largely autonomous dynamical function of the nervous system relative to
particular sub-modules but acquired by the entire network.
9
Neural Processing of Language and Music
Consider this,
Language is a complex, specialized skill, which develops in the child
spontaneously, without effort or formal instruction, is deployed without
awareness of its underlying logic, is qualitatively the same in every individual,
and is distinct from more general abilities to process information or behave
intelligently.
(Pinker: 1989)
A Voila - Music. There is no known culture that does not have music or language.
Both music and language have an underlying syntactic structure that regulates
creation and perception, their natural difference infers that – “language can be used to
convey an unlimited set of discrete, propositional meanings, and music cannot”
(Fitch: 2000). Music as an intensive force, untied from any interrelated network of
significant meaning, possesses a latent ability to affect corporeality from the depths of
manifestation; music ‘means itself’ (Meyer: 1969), what is it then? This problem shall
first be framed within neural terms before a wider investigation ensues. By examining
the deep cognitive syntactical structures it is hoped that the meaning of meaning shall
become more distinct.
As outlined above the cognitive study of music divides neuro-acoustic processing
into three modally related areas; these are, temporal (metre, rhythm), melodic
(contour, pitch) and harmonic (chords). Linguistic processing is similarly divided
amongst various modules; these are, phonetic-phenomenological (phonemes,
prosody), morphosyntactic (the transition from prosody to word), the relationships
between words, and lexicosemantic (access to the meaning of linguistic structures)
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(Besson & Schön: 1999). We can see that linguistic processing requires at least one
added dimension of complexity, insofar as lexicosemantic interpretation is required.
Moreover it is proposed that a further level, pragmatic, situating experiential
information within organizational and contextual factors, is necessary. This network
will be an emergent property of the former colonies that carry the flow of modulating
frequencies constitutive of sound experience, be it language or music. Although
neuroscientists yearn for each aspect outlined above to have a specific neural correlate
it is recognised that a certain amount of inter-modular/ inter-hemispheric negotiation
of input stimuli occurs.
Experiments have shown the modular formation of the neuro-acoustic system,
certain regions of the brain showing a stronger response to certain stimuli varied along
the temporal, melodic and harmonic dimension than other regions (quoted from?).
Certain regions such as the superior temporal sulcus, middle temporal gyrus, angular
gyrus and lateral front lobe show a stronger activation for words than tones, but both
stimuli activate Heschl’s gyrus and the superior temporal plane. Situated within the
superior temporal plane, the planum temporale is similarly involved in the auditory
processing of words and tones; the lexicosemantic categorisation of words occurring
through a related broadly distributed network (Tervaniemi & Brattico: 2004, Besson
and Schön: 1999). At the neurological level it is becoming increasingly difficult to
separate language from music, the main difference is that language exists as a
complex network of interrelated signs that signify something, and that the brain must
filter stimuli through a specific network of formed neuronal connections in order to
acquire any meaning from an utterance, whereas music can be appreciated for what it
is.
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We have reached the implication of memory, an essential feature of self organising
systems; when certain clusters of information that flow through the system altering
the pattern of weighted connections between the individual elements (neurons) the
system acquires a stable set of weights to represent those cluster, recurrently
presented clusters will be recognised by the system (Cilliers: 1998). A word can be
presented to the system over a thousand times, each time a slight alteration of the
patterned weights occurs resulting in an ever increasing web of interrelated
complexity pertaining to the many different aromas one word can exhibit. Memory is
the cognitive transversal of this conglomerated pattern of representation, occurring in
“the same early sensory cortices where the firing patterns corresponding to perceptual
representations once occurred” (Damasio: 1994). In a similar fashion music triggers
the recuperation of episodic memories, but, freed from a system of significance and
representation, music in environment composed of unknown intent, burns new
pathways through the neural hyper-colony.
The rhythmachine captures your perception as it switches from hearing
individual beats to grasping the pattern of beats. Your body is a distributed
brain which flips from the sound of each intensity to the overlapping relations
between intensities. Learning pattern recognition, this flipflop between
rhythmelody and texturhythm drastically collapses and reorganises the
sensorial hierarchy.
(Eshun: 1999)
Symmetry breaking synthesis of sound and sensorium relays new formations among
the colony, response patterns that saturate the entire distributed network. Semi-
independent modules choreographed to oscillate in unison, attaining new degrees of
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unity, synchronising the various energies that indeterminately-determine
manifestation. This entrainment of biological oscillators allows them to “mesh, or
form an assemblage, with the daily and seasonal rhythms of their external
environment” (DeLanda 2002). This way the external sounds are contracted by the
system,
Sensation is excitation itself, not insofar as it is gradually prolonged and
passes into the reaction but insofar as it is preserved or preserves its
vibrations. Sensation contracts the vibrations of the stimulant on a nervous
surface or in a cerebral volume: what comes before has not yet disappeared
when what follows appears. This is its way of responding to chaos.
(Deleuze & Guattari: 1994)
The contraction of sensation affecting the oscillation patterns of the organism will
inevitably effect the creation of sense. If we can accept that “the body converts a
certain motor essence into vocal form” (Merleau-Ponty: 1962) then the collection of
sensation will co-occur with an emission of the sense that the organism has made of
the stimuli. The subject has an automatically formed response pattern distributed
throughout the nervous network, in transmission, prior to any meta-cognitive mapping
of pre-acquired data onto the cluster of emitted reaction. If we compare the act of
dancing with communicative gesture a parallel emerges, “Gesture is not a motor
supplement to speech. Nor is it subordinate to speech, but is semantically and
performatively coordinated with it” (Gallagher: 2005), dancing also allows degrees of
speech; many things can be said without the need for words. This entails that certain
movements, implicitly significant, are organized by the neuro-linguistic assembly
before the motor neurons convert the intention into an act. So while music has the
possibility of affecting us, beyond the scope of systematic signifying systems such as
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language, it is also a medium by which we can integrate our subjective perspective
into the environment, minus the use of words.
Emotional complexity of musical experience
There is no doubt that music is evocative of emotion, but what emotions are and how
they are evoked by music is a cloudy area. For Heidegger ones emotion or more
specifically affectedness attunes ‘Dasein’ to the world, constituting an irreducible pre-
theoretical background that colours our disclosure of the world, without which
explicit cognition could not occur (Heidegger: 1962). Affectedness is “a background
that constitutes one’s sense of self, world and one’s place in the world. It is, quite
simply, the rhythm of life” (Ratcliffe: 2002). In a self organising organism the feeling
of what happens occurs globally before the system has the ability to intellectualise
what is happening, emotional resonance procures a ‘kind of cradle’ (Ratcliffe) from
which intellect and reasoning emerge. Therefore the content and process of thought is
antecedent to the affectedness of the thinker. It has been proposed that we should
contemplate our affectedness in terms of valence and intensity (Trainor & Schmidt:
2003). Valence accords with the contours of affectedness, whether or not the
condition suggests a positive or negative feeling. Intensity is how strong the
affectedness is, how much nervous excitation is generated by the situation.
Neurologically emotion can be seen as a cognitively mediated body state, which both
affects and is affected by cognition, relative to specific brain regions: amygdale,
hypothalamus, basal forebrain, limbic system, prefrontal and somatosensory cortices
(Damasio: 1995). This circuit has the ability to release chemical molecules into the
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blood that will act on various parts of the body and spread neural activation to various
brain centres and muscles, musical experience has been shown to induce muscle
contractions, changes in breathing and heart rate, changes in blood flow and sweating
(P+Z 312). Autonomous physiological changes occurring through the reciprocal
relation between the body and the sound. Highly intense excerpts of music have been
seen to increase blood flow in brain regions associated with positive emotions,
euphoria and cocaine administration (Blood & Zatorre: 2001). Interestingly the
neural networks associated with emotion are closely interrelated with the auditory
networks; sound experience and affectedness are delicately woven in close proximity
throughout our neural architecture (Damasio: 1999). This is not to say that we can
attribute functional supremacy in these matters to the brain, it is best to consider it as
the material region with the highest concentration of activity relative to certain
embodied experiences. However this does show that hearing plays a major role in our
existential affectedness, more so than vision; just imagine watching the shower scene
in the film ‘Psycho’, then imagine they had replaced the piercing string sounds with
“All you need is love…” The fear dissipates and is replaced by… whatever emotion
that song makes you feel. If you reverse this idea and watch a harmless scene with the
shrill music in the background it is more than likely that the fear will return.
We can say with William James that an emotion ‘just is’ the feeling of our body
changing (1884). James Russell takes up this line of thought, for him core affect is the
bodily feeling one has in the here, now. Emotions are then derived by attributing a
conceptual identity to the bodily state, “there is nothing fundamental about emotion:
no dedicated neural centre and no elemental emotional qualia. Instead, emotion can be
completely reduced to non-emotional elements” (Russell: 2005). Like the pattern of
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weights that allots the distributed representation in a neural network emotion or
affectedness is the total pattern of interconnections that arises out of local components
interacting on minute scales, “our bodies change, and an emotion ‘just is’ the feeling
of that change” (Prinz: 2005). To understand what role affectedness plays in the self-
move-ment of the flow/ temporal stream of consciousness Varela and Depraz propose
that we search the dynamics of the fold, the transition from pre-reflexive to reflexive
(2005). Their main concern is “to describe the original fluctuating move, the primal
asymmetric rythmicity at the core of our experience of time”. Affect is interrogated
through co-occurent components:
1) A precipitating event, or trigger that can be perceptual or imaginary or both.
2) A ‘feeling of evidence’ of the precipitating events meaning, the emergence of a salience. This appraisal can be fleeting or detailed, deeply realistic and empathic, much of the meaning attribution is pre-reflexive and even unconscious.
3) A lived manifestation of a feeling-tone along an intrinsic polar axis, the crucial and poorly understood valence dimension of affect.
4) A motor embodiment, especially facial and motor changes, and differential readiness activations.
5) Complex autonomic physiological changes, with the most commonly studied being various cardio-pulmonary parameters, skin conductance, and various muscle tone manifestations.
We have seen distributed evidence of these points throughout, properly, in musical
experience the lived manifestation of the feeling-tone is the most effective element of
this interrogative constellation. To uncover the living salience of these points we shall
apply them to a phenomenal description of music experience:
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Today went to concert at 11, a certain heaviness in my eyelids, and a bit of a moody blues as setting. The musicians arrive, tune up, and settle, a short silence and then begin with the sonata of the Musical Offering, which I love. Instantly, within the first five or six notes of the main theme, the break in mood and feeling-tone arises: suddenly my chest heaves a little, my skin becomes goose-bumpy and it is as if the body is bought into position. Almost at the same time there is a wave of beauty, of poignancy which brings sudden tears into my eyes, an intensified breathing. Without premeditation, I feel my eyes close and I lean backwards to relax my body into complete receptivity. My mental-space seems to spread out and my ego-centre to become almost imperceptible. By the time the first variation of the musical theme starts the feeling-tone is fully formed and the first waves of thought-wandering have begun, the first being a memory of another occasion when the very same music also touched me to tears. The whole thing has lasted a mere fraction of a second.(Varela: 2005)
It will be useful to read over the co-occurent dimensions of affect once more. This
description is reminiscent of the Greek conception of truth as φύσις, ‘a self
blossoming emergence’ in which there is an unveiling of the concealed depths that
spring forth the phenomenal apprehension, where “the origin… always contains the
unopened fullness” (Heidegger in Fay: 1977). The music is the presencing of a ‘this’
as opposed to a ‘they’, implying immersion in the ‘now’ as opposed to the ‘when?’,
connecting the emergence of disclosure in a synchronised sway of manifestation, “the
emergence of the living present is rooted in and arises from a germ or source of
motion-disposition, a primordial fluctuation” (Varela & Depraz: 2005). The moot
point to be made is that
…affect precedes temporality: affect implicates as its very nature the
tendency, a ‘pulsion’ and a motion that, as such, can only deploy itself in time
and thus as time… First the very original ‘pulsional’ tendency just evoked.
Secondly, the tendency is followed by a corresponding shift of attention that
manifests as the emergence of salience. Finally, the earliest e-motion follows,
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including a motion that embodies it. Thus, this primordial fluctuation cannot
be separated from its complex or multifarious constitution, since all its
moments are not a linear succession, but rather dimensions of co-arising.
(Varela & Depraz: 2005)
The ‘depth’ from which the Ereignis arises is a multifarious well of ‘timeless
unthingedness’ projecting a symphonic disclosure of ‘ownmost-mineness’ upon the
resulting harmony. For this argument to be sustained will require a deeper delve into
the depths of manifestation to search for the ‘originary source’ from which I exhumes
experience. Words may not be sufficient. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche has said that
‘the purpose of art is to show our non-existence in the world’ (Goguen: 2005),
inspired music offers glimpses of an infinite horizon, a ‘fourth moment’ in which time
is suspended and past, present and future are woven from “a limitless space of great
equanimity that unifies and transcends all three, and in which both self and world
disappear” (Goguen: 2005). Here we find the abode of the sacred.
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Neuropsychology of exceptional phases of consciousness
Following on from this brief discussion of the possibility of a zone of indiscernible
temporality from which actuality spontaneously emanates- (∞) -this exposure of the
interrelated existentiality of music and conscious is going to reveal insights from the
scientific community pertaining to our experience of experiencing space, time and
phenomena through exceptionally conscious lenses.
A common experience is entering into a state of flow, where life just seems to happen
in “an almost automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of consciousness”
(Csikszentmihalyi: 1975). The state of flow enables instantaneous recognition of
salient environmental phenomena as if their occurrence had been expected whereby
the appropriate response pattern is already formed prior to any deliberation. As if the I
no longer existed and the orchestration of action was performed by existence itself.
Sometimes excruciatingly complex tasks can be performed without the need for
conscious deliberation, such as finishing an essay on the spur of the moment or
conducting Beethoven’s fifth. We are going to examine the functioning of our nervous
system in these instances to see how it differs from our ‘average everyday’
somnambulant neural processes.
The first thing we must see is the locality of certain everyday functions to specific
brain regions, then we can investigate how symmetry breaking events can lead to
phase transitions which unseat the everyday functions enacted in the brain to effect a
new form of awareness altogether.
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For the sake of intelligibility we can divide the brain into two functional operating
systems, emotional and cognitive (LeDoux: 1996). Presently we shall be monitoring
insights pertaining to the cognitive operations occurring throughout the brain. The
cerebral cortex “likely underlies the development of complex thought” (Newberg &
D’Aquili: 2005), there are several associated areas that complement the higher order
functioning of the cerebral cortex, those being investigated are the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), the posterior superior parietal lobe (PSPL), the inferior
temporal lobe (ITL), inferior parietal lobe (IPL) and the prefrontal cortex (PFC).
The DLPFC “appears” to be the area where already highly processes emotional and
cognitive information is fully reintegrated (Dietrich: 2004), hence this region is
attributed with “executive function”, that is higher cognitive functions such as a self
construct, self reflective consciousness, abstract thinking, planning and theory of
mind. Here “plans and strategies for appropriate behaviour” are formulated so that the
adjacent motor cortices can execute the computational product (Dietrich: 2004). This
amounts to the most sophisticated response behaviour that the system can deploy,
although all neural receptors are able to produce an effective response, as we see in
reflex actions such as the typical knee jerk response. Because the DLPFC holds
working memory (Fuster: 2000), temporally integrates information (Knight &
Grabowecky: 1999) and implements sustained directed attention (Givens & Bruno:
2001) it provides “the infrastructure to compute complex cognitive functions by
actively attending to information, providing a buffer to hold that information in mind,
and order it in space-time” (Duncan & Owen: 2000). It is also able to inhibit
activation of other regions in a function known as deafferentation (Newberg &
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D’Aquili: 2005). It seems plausible to say that the DLPFC is the region that most
embodies egoic activity.
The PSPL is involved in the analysis and integration of higher order sensory
information, the right PSPL is involved in general localization and the sense of spatial
coordinates, whereas the left exerts influences in regard to objects that may be
grasped and manipulated. Some neurons in the left PSPL respond to items within
grasping distance whereas some respond mostly to objects beyond grasping distance
(Newberg & D’Aquili: 2005). Their hypothesis is that the self-other dichotomy
evolved from the primitive division of space into the graspable and non graspable.
The IPL is located at the confluence of the temporal, parietal and occipital lobes
(TOP), an “association area of association areas” (Newberg & D’Aquili: 2005), the
TOP neurons are primarily devoted to perception, the primary sensory cortices of all
sense modalities are located in TOP (Dietrich: 2005). The IPL is “generally regarded
as responsible for the generation of abstract concepts and relating them to words”
(Newberg & D’Aquili: 2005), so here we can see how conceptualisation is applied to
the entire stream of perceptual data coursing through the labyrinths of cognition,
“concepts are centres of vibrations” (Deleuze & Guattari: 1994).
With this brief summation of salient neural modules aside it remains to be seen how
they relate to the phase transition which occurs to consequence arrival at a new meta-
stable state, known as the flow state, and what this entails phenomenologically.
Furthermore we shall explore the possibilities of going beyond the experience of flow
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to arrive at a state where all boundaries collapse and time stands still, throughout
music shall appear as the attractor which instigates the phase transition.
The most remarkable element of the flow state is that immensely complex tasks can
be performed without deliberation, the proposed reason for this is that the body has
already required a complex pattern of response patterns that are not dependent on the
apprehension of explicit rule based learning for activation (Dierich: 2004).
Throughout our lives we acquire knowledge through the interpretive mode (insert H
quote here), this entails the channelling of experience through the explicit system
which is tied to our conscious awareness, hence to a certain degree the DLPFC and
other prefrontal regions (Ashby & Casale: 2002). We are also able to function without
the need of an interpretive framework, through the implementation of implicit
learning which “takes place largely independently of conscious attempts to learn and
largely in the absence of explicit knowledge about what was acquired” (Reber: 1995).
An example of this is the acquisition of language by children which is the result of an
intuitive understanding. The implicit system is the presence of a sub symbolic
memory of connection strengths or weights that a specific situation will induce the
system to presence (Cilliers: 1998).
The interal structure of a connectionist network develops through a process of
self organisation, whereas rule-based systems have to search through pre-
programmed options that define the structure largely in a priori fashion,
therefore learning is implicit in a neural network.
(Cilliers: 1998)
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Therefore the explicitly created egoic-strategical-interpretative frame of mind which
is commonly applied to situations appears an unnecessary counterpart to what could
otherwise be a fluid spontaneous existence,
Optimal performance involving a real-time sensory-motor integration task is
associated with maximal implicitness of the tasks execution. Given that the
explicit system is subserved by prefrontal regions, it follows from this
proposal that a flow experience must occur during a state of transient
hypofrontality that can bring about the inhibition of the explicit system.
(Dietrich: 2004)
The acquisition of the flow experience certainly involves deafferentation of the neural
modules appropriating reflective consciousness, by a sustained direction of focus
upon extractions from the perceptual flux that are arising from present nowness this is
able to occur,
… the universal form of all experience, and therefore of all life, has always
been and will always be the present. The present alone always is and ever will
be. Being is presence or the modification of presence.
(Derrida: 1973)
The problem one faces is that the mundane reality generally apprehended is not much
to focus upon. Hence, hyper intensive vibrations of pandemonial sonority, which defy
conceptualisation, capture your perception, thus entraining the mechanics of
embodiment to oscillate in unison with the “presencing of what is present”
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(Heidegger: 1975). The DLPFC and explicit system is bypassed and the neural
modules responsible for processing pure sensorial information function automatically
(*See p.7). The music is moving and we are moving with the movement. The now is
too much for reflection to reflect upon, phase transition occurs, system pushed toward
greater vibrational frequency1. So, immersion in a positively charged sonorous
environment can overcome the state our somnambulant selves are often found in.
What is most interesting is that upon arrival at this ‘strangely attractive’ state our
selves disappear, “self-consciousness is a meta-representation of the highest order and
probably one of the first phenomenological subtractions to manifest itself in flow”
(Dietrich: 2004). Receptivity is the key,
Unless existence dances in you there is no possibility of any dance… Remove
yourself so that you don’t come in between you and existence. Put the ego, the
very idea of ‘I’, aside and be utterly empty, receptive. And the moment your
emptiness is total, the whole starts showering millions of joys and millions of
flowers upon you. The splendour is infinite.
(Osho Rajneesh: 1991)
Often, the focus of attention is upon the ‘I’, the whorl of manifestation revolving
around an ideal construct maintained within our thought-forms. We can see that there
is no place for an ‘I’ in self organised systems, only parts and the whole. Now we are
going to see the neuropsychological processes that accompany experiences of oneness
and emptiness and how sonority can act as the attractor for this state.
1 Valerie Hunt has developed an electromyograph that detects the frequency of oscillations in the human energy field which condense at the areas associated with the chakras. The majority of people emit vibrational frequencies no higher than 250 cps, but some mystical people submitted to the test were shown to emit frequencies as high as 200,000 cps. The scale is relative to the person’s attunement. This is a broad spectrum. (Talbot: 1991)
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When the body is affected by vibrations in space the frequency patterns entrain either
the ergotropic or trophotropic system depending on their valence and intensity. The
ergotropic system innervates the body; it is the motivation behind our “fight or flight”
response in the face of environmental stimuli. The trophotropic system quiesces the
nervous system and is responsible for maintaining homeostasis, it functions to
conserve body energy (Gelhorn: 1967). Below is an example of how musical
stimulation can effect a profound phase transition.
Both the ergotropic and trophotropic systems are connected to the brain via the
hypothalamus. The combined activation of the neural modules associated with
perception of music and the ergotropic system, which is entrained by environmental
sonority results in a reverberation loop occurring in the systems most affected by the
frequency patterns of the rhythm (Newberg & D’Aquili: 2005). The reverberation
loop increases in intensity as progressive onslaughts of power course through the
systems distributed representation of the event, it is important that the rhythm
ensnaring the perception of the system be repetitive and intense, elevating as much
force from the depths as is possible2. This will result in what has been called the
hyperergotropic state,
This results in an extraordinary state of unblocked arousal and excitation and
is associated with keen alertness and concentration in the absence of
superfluous thought or fantasy.
(Czikszentmihalyi: 1975)
2 Bohm: one fraction of space contains more energy than occurs in the know universe.
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At a certain point the intensity of the situation can lead to maximum stimulation of the
ergotropic system which results in a ‘spillover effect’ (Hughdahl: 1996) thus
stimulating the trophotropic system. At this point there would be maximal stimulation
through the limbic structure to the left and the right PFC, Newberg and D’Aquili
“postulate that this ultimately results in a progressive deafferentation of certain parts
of the PSPL” (2005). The blocking of input into the left PSPL will result in the loss of
differentiation between self and other, hence boundaries collapse and the autochthon
is “becoming-music”, synchronised with the sonorous unfolding. On the other hand,
as ‘the right PSPL is involved in general localization and the sense of spatial
coordinates’ total deafferentation of the right PSPL is most likely associated with the
loss of usual orientation with regards to space and time. If all input into this structure
is blocked the experience will be of “complete nothingness” (Ah!). Total blockage of
both the left and right PSPL’s “should result in the merging of the self with all that is”
(Newberg & D’Aquili). “I have lost myself in the cosmos. I am no more.” (Osho
Rajneesh: 1988).
This result is generally achieved through meditation as opposed to music, meditation
innervating the higher order cognitive functions to issue a “top-down” reaction,
whereas music issues a “bottom-up” innervation of the nervous system. One
hypothesis for this being the case is that the mental formation is always a “direct
result” of the external forces surrounding the system, therefore it is proposed that as
long as there is some kind of positive content in the acoustic domain manifestation
will occur, whereas ignoring the external world and focusing upon the silent depths
within implies the possibility of no positive mental content to be presenced. The
interesting point is that these experiences seem to imply some kind of “depth”. Like
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Varela’s conception of affect determining the constitution of temporality or Deleuze
and Guattari’s “plane of composition” and “plane of immanence”. It seems that
harmonic frequencies affect humanity at a “deeper level”, “it penetrates to the centre
of our soul”, Plato says “and gains possession of the soul in the most energetic
fashion”, there must be a fundamental fact about our existence that gives reason for
this, indeed for Schopenhauer “the man inhabited and possessed by this intruder, the
man robbed of a self, is no longer himself: he has become nothing more than a
vibrating string” (Jankélévitch: 1961). For the sake of conclusiveness the
investigation must now turn to the empirical domain of quantum physics to reach a
more “primordial” understanding of the composition of extensive forces and the
nature of their effectiveness, particularly in regards to consciousness.
A Quantum Turn
‘self directed neuroplasticity’ ‘music is an image of a soul’ providing a sonorous
avenue for self exploration and exploration of ‘other’ depths. COSMIC
CONSCIOUSNESS MAN!
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