Re: WmRm2, #1 "Synchronise rhythms now..."

[jorn@chinet.chi.il.us (Jorn Barger)]

Jon Drukman emulsifies:
> [look mom, no flames.]

bless ya, my bro...

> jorn barger writes:
> >Maybe *emotions* in the brain and body (and breathing) *do*
> >have distinct, someday-scientifically-mappable *rhythms*, so that people
> >can move *into* phase (if their emotions have the same cycle-length) or
> >out of phase (when they don't).
> 
> i'd buy this.  anyone who has spent a magical day with a lover where
> you're both "in tune" knows this phenomenon.  and similarly, when you
> get into a heated fight with that same person two days later and you
> say, "i just don't UNDERSTAND you anymore!" you are observing the
> phenomenon in reverse.

(Jonathan... I'm starting to *like* you!  ;^)

> >So when we listen to emotional music, ***maybe*** our emotional rhythms
> >naturally move *into* phase with it, the better to savor it at full
> >intensity,
> 
> this is also acceptable - to a point.  "emotional music" needs some
> defining, for instance. 
> ...The Future Sound of London - the song "Papua New Guinea" is
> extremely moving, for me.  [...]   it
> evokes a mood of wistful longing in my brain that is incredibly
> clear-cut.  and it is definitely more than the sum of its parts...
> [...] FSoL just *hits that certain spot* in my head.

*There's* the real artist... *feel what you feel*!

> as it stands now, your statement makes it look like there are ways to
> measure musical compositions' "emotional impact content."

Track down Manfred Clynes's "Sentics".  He tried to find archetypal *graphs* 
for different moods.  (I can't judge his success, however.)

> >and our *brainwaves*, or the slow rhythms of our breathing, or
> >our heartbeats, or a billion other sorts of rhythmic biological signal,
> >really maybe might *gently color*, in a perfectly *asimovian* way ( ;^),
> >the physical fieldstrengths thruout the room, including necessarily the
> >*read* mechanism of the stereo as it plays, to any least infinitesimal
> >degree *sufficient to leave a mark*...
> 
> well, i was with you up to this point.  i'm sorry, but i just can't
> believe this.  the reasons are numerous and have been brought up in
> this forum many times in the past.

Feh!  *Nobody's* asked me to clarify my 2-way vs non-2-way distinction...
If you consider *every* possible kind of media for sound (or any message),
you can certainly arrange them from the most to the least "2-way".  So
*looking into someone's eyes* is the most 2-way, or loving touches, and
spying on someone who can't see you but feels your gaze as a prickle is
many steps down, and the angels on the subway in "Wings of Desire" were
almost CD-like (tho pained souls felt soothed by their loving attention).

A phonograph needle *does* scratch an infinitesimal record of your room-
sounds as it plays.  (Atoms are *tiny*.  Don't prejudge what may some-
day be recoverable!)  Ditto the tape's readhead.

> >(But CDs, see, being digital, can't take *any* mark, unless it's
> >imprinted thru a zero toggling into a one, or back, which, *by design*
> >almost literally *never* happens... )
> 
> you seem to be lacking some fundamental knowledge of how a CD player
> works.  if you read up about ADCs and digital filters and error
> correction, i think you'll find that a CD almost *never* plays back
> the same bit-pattern twice.

But the nature of digital is powers-of-two, and that random toggle may
add 1 to the amplitude, or 32000.  It's *not analog*!!!