Abstract
We discuss further differences in genes and brain physiology between humans and their “evolutionary cousins” as it relates to music. No other creature creatively expresses themselves on the scale humans do, and certainly not in the domain called music. We discuss arts and literature, and how this may be accounted for by the human’s adeptness for syntax and semantics. We cover studies that show that brain regions related to emotion—amygdala, hypothalamus, hippocampus, nucleus accumbens, and critical regions of the cortex including insula, cingulate, and orbitofrontal. These organs generally mediate the depths of our feeling.
We are constantly invited to be who we are.—Henry David Thoreau
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Notes
- 1.
The genetic difference between individual humans is about 0.1%, on average—as between chimpanzee and bonobo a difference exists of about 1.2%, and for gorillas, about 1.6%. See, Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Program. http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics (Last visited 5/22/2019).
- 2.
Helen Keller, deaf, mute and blind, was said to have learned “Water,” by Anne Sullivan, her teacher putting Keller’s hand in a stream of flowing water. At the same time Sullivan wrote down the word “water” in Keller’s other hand, where upon the child understood what language meant. Perhaps this was as much an example of context and causation at work as well.
- 3.
In passing I would add that the social model of disability acknowledges that the mentally or physically challenged have a certain biological reality (like blindness). That having been said, creative or access limitations to a domain often exist as attitudinal or ideological biases, which are human rights or ableism issues society must address.
- 4.
I will mainly focus on Western musical traditions, although I doubt that what I have to say does not resonate across cultures.
- 5.
For a thorough account of how music affects the brain, see, Levitin, D.J. (2006). This Is Your Brain On Music. New York: A Plume Book, Penguin Group.
- 6.
The temporal lobes, frontal lobes, and limbic system, i.e., nucleus accumbens and the amygdala play a role in reward, emotional reactions, such as to music.
- 7.
Music and language share a process of building hierarchical structure.
- 8.
Qualia means the qualitative or phenomenal property inhering in my immediate sensory state: e.g., the pitch, volume or timbre of my instrument; the perceived texture of the keys I am pressing; the image of the room in my visual field.
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Carvalko Jr., J.R. (2020). Music to Mind. In: Conserving Humanity at the Dawn of Posthuman Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26407-9_37
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26407-9_37
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