music, the social mind, and language
TRANSCRIPT
Music, the Social Mind, and Language
Thirty-first LACUS ForumUniversity of Illinois at Chicago, July 28,
2004
William L. Benzon
An Exercise in Speculative Engineering
1. Brain-to-Brain Communication2. Neural Life in the World3. Music and Coupled Oscillation4. Collective Decision5. From Synchrony to TOM6. Vygotsky & Development7. Poetry as Musical Language?
1. Brain-to-Brain Communication:
A Thought Experiment
Long-Term Storage
CPU
If the brain were a computer . . .
Working RAM
Moving patterns of bits from place to place.
• Point-to-point connections, end-to-end
• Isolated signal paths• Bit patterns have an identity that is
independent of location in the system
• Locations are labeled (addresses)
Digital Computers
• “Wire” brain A to brain B directly– neuron to neuron
• Assume physical problems are solved
• Two problems remain– Correspondence– Source identification
Direct Connection
Correspondence Problem• How do you identify which neuron
in brain A corresponds to which neuron in brain B?
• This is possible for small nervous systems– e.g. C. elegans, 959 cells, 302
neurons • Not possible for large nervous
systems
Source Identification• How does a neuron distinguish
between native and foreign signals?
• Neural signals do not have source and destination codes.
Therefore . . . . • Direct communication between
nervous systems would result in incoherent noise.
• Though one can imagine that, in time, people might learn how to interact with specific others through such a channel.
Questions . . . . • What does this suggest about
interactions between brain regions?
• What does this suggest about the “standard” computer analogy?
• What does this suggest about meaning?
Reset . . . . • Interpersonal communication
cannot be thought of as sending signals through a wire.– Even if the “wire” consists of millions
upon millions of neurons.
• Let’s start from a beginning . . .
2. Neural Life in the World
External World
Neural Net Internal Milieu
Life in Two Worlds
External World
InternalMilieu
A Simple Animal
Meaning is in relationships.
Lamb, S. M. (1999). Pathways of the Brain. Amsterdam, John Benjamins B. V.
External World
Fred
Internal Milieu
NS
CNS
Spot Spot
JoanJoan
Self in the World
Fred
External World
NS
CNS
Spot Spot
JoanJoan
Self and Other
Fred
NS
CNS
Spot
Fred
Joan
Fred
3. Music and Coupled Oscillation
Coupled Oscillators• Pendulum clocks (Huygens)
– a purely physical device, no symbols• Fireflies
– mediated, but still no symbols• Self-organizing, no leader
Strogatz, S. H. and I. Stewart (1993). "Coupled Oscillators and Biological Synchronization." Scientific American (December): 102-109.
Bi-modal Clapping• Hear individually, act collectively• Desynchronized, and loud• Synchronized, not so loud• Two values:
– Enthusiasm for performance– Group solidarity
• No leader
Néda, Z., E. Ravasz, et al. (2000). "The sound of many hands clapping." Nature 403: 849-850.
Jamming• Things happen• The some things happen again• Group memory
– holophony: Longuet-Higgins• Well-coordinated interaction• No leader necessary
Longuet-Higgins, H. C. (1987). Mental Processes: Studies in Cognitive Science. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
Musicking Creates Social Space
• The group of individuals are closely coordinated in a common activity.
• They become a coherent individual actor.
• As far as we know, apes do not synchronize.
Benzon, W. L. (2001). Beethoven's Anvil: Music in Mind and Culture. New York, Basic Books.McNeill, W. H. (1995). Keeping Together in Time: Dance and Drill in Human History. Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
4. Collective Decision
Baboon Travel: Their Problem• Where does the troop move next?• Each has some preference.• They all know the territory, more
or less.• How do they coordinate their
preferences and knowledge?
The Problem
?World
Geoffrey
Terence
X
X
Hans Kummer: • Younger adult males and their
groups at periphery.• Pseudopods protrude and withdraw
again.– male faces in some direction
• Older male from center of the troop struts toward one of the pseudopods.
• The troop moves out.
Baboon Travel: Solution
Kummer, H. (1971). Primate Societies: Group Techniques of Ecological Adaptation. Chicago, Aldine • Atherton.
?What are They Doing?
Troop
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
5. From Synchrony to “Theory of Mind”
Interaction Synchrony• William Condon• Films of people interacting
– adults and adults– neonate and adult
• Neonate’s body movements track adult voice.– very slight phase lag
Condon, W. S. (1986). Communication: Rhythm and Structure. Rhythm in Psychological. in Linguistic and Musical Processes. J. R. Evans and M. Clynes, eds. Springfield, Illinois, Charles C Thomas • Publisher: 55-78.
Synchrony = Society• Autistics and others have trouble
with synchrony.• Does synchrony have any function
or is it just some arbitrary characteristic of interacting humans?– We don’t know– But . . . .
Possible Value of Synchrony• Segment the speech signal
– where are the boundaries?• Read faces (TOM)
– people are in relative motion– visual system moves as well– synchrony eliminates one factor from
this relative motion
Synchrony & “TOM”• TOM not a theory in any robust
sense– inference beyond the information
given
• Synchrony ≠ TOM
• Synchrony as enabling condition for TOMBaron-Cohen, S. (1995). Mindblindness. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
Parkinson’s & Synchrony• Disorder of Motor Control
– dopamine deficiency• Music helps Parkinsonians• Even late stage
– immobile patients become mobile by synchronizing with music or with others
Sacks, O. (1990) Awakenings. New York, HarperPerennial.
Interactional synchrony binds ego and alter into a single intentional system.
Just as musicking makes a group of individuals into a coheren individual.
6. Vygotsky & Development
Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and Language. Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press.
External World
child
Internal Milieu
NS
CNS
blanket blanket
Child
mommom
World and Nervous System
Inner and Outer• Signals flow from point to point• The route can be entirely inside
the nervous system• Or it can travel through the
external world• Thus we might have:
– FUNCTIONALLY inside– PHYSICALLY outside
Physical World
CNSblanket
Child
CNSblanket
Mother
Ablanky
Ablankyspeak hear
Rblankyhear
mom
blanket
“blanky”
mom
Mother-Directed
Bloom, P. (2000). How Children Learn the Meanings of Words. Cambridge, MIT Press.
Physical World
CNSblanket
Child
Ablanky
speakhear
Rblanky
blanket
“blanky”
Child-Directed
Physical World
CNS
blanketblanket
Child
Ablanky
Rblanky
Inner-Speech
Now we can “walk” in one another’s
cortex.
7. Poetry as Musical Language
Constituency in “Lime-Tree Bower”
1
2
3
4
5 1.1111.1121.1211.1221.1231.2111.2121.221 2.1112.1122.1212.1222.1232.21 2.22
1.11 1.12 1.21 1.22
1.222
2.11 2.12
2.21.1 1.2 2.1
1 2
LTB
beginning end
Benzon, W. L. (2004). Talking to Nature in “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison. Unpublished ms.
Lines and Constituentstopic
subtopicsubtopic
line line line line
topic
subtopicsubtopic
line line line line
CONSISTENT
INCONSISTENT
Constituents in “Kubla Khan”
KK
1
1.31.21.1
1.211.221.23 1.311.321.111.12
2
2.2
2.212.222.23
2.1
2.112.12
2.3
2.312.32
fountain sunny pleasure domecaves of ice
Paradise
Benzon, W. L. (2003)."Kubla Khan" and the Embodied Mind, PsyArt: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts, November 29, 2003, URL: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/2003/benzon02.htm
Rhyme in “Kubla Khan”And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seethingAs if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,A mighty fountain momently was forced:
GGH
171819
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burstHuge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Of chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
HII
202122
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and everIt flung up momently the sacred river.
FF
2324
Perhaps . . . .• Poetry externalizes the sound of
language so that it becomes a surrogate for the external world.
• LTB is organized so as to emphasize continuity of narrative consciousness.
• Rhyme in KK introduces an element of predictability into the poetic act in compensation for its lack of narrative.
Shareability• Jakobson on the poetic function of
language • Bateson: redundancy in primitive
art• Freeman: neural “alignment” during
ritual
Jakobson, R. (1960). Linguistics and Poetics. Style in Language. T. Sebeok. Cambridge, MIT Press: 350-377.
Bateson, G. (1972). Steps To An Ecology of Mind. New York, Ballentine Books.Freeman, W. J. (2000). A Neurobiological Role of Music in Social Bonding. The Origins of Music. N. L. Wallin, B. Merker and S. Brown. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press: 411-424
Neural Alignment
One-Liner
• The music IN language creates the social space through which people coordinate meanings and intentions THROUGH language.
the end