Re: Musical vs everyday listening

[Branka ZEI <Branka.Zei@xxxxxxxx>]

Kevin said:
>Physical systems provide the stream of data -- it will be the mind 
>that will segment and organize it. 

Thank you Kevin for reminding us of this most fundamental epistemological principal  that no physicist (worthy of this name) would deny.

Physics is considered to be one of those pure sciences that study the material reality and are based on "objectively" found facts. Yet, the only thing a physicist would say about  the "reality" is that they have a model and they may also have a method to test it (or invalidate it) or that they do not have a model and cannot say anything. That's all. What the material world "IS IN REALITY" is irrelevant  and finally uninteresting for his function of a physicist.
Unfortunately this fundamental epistemological position is too often ingnored by those who believe that the identity of an object resides in its inherent characteristics and not in the way our cognitive system treats the sensorial input. The latter is obviously related to  the capacities of the organ of perception (or  the physicist's method of data collection. 

Kevin said:
> I haven't read a description / 
>definition of what hearing or music is.

Jean Piaget (a biologist and above all an epistemologist) defined perception as a cognitive act. He defined perception as " l'organisation immédiate des données sensorielles". Once you accept this, you obviously take into account 'cross-modal' structuring of information that gives rise to differentiations of meanings or qualities etc. The result is that the perceived portion of material reality is always a cognitive construct.

What a Beethoven fan will hear by listening to rap music may be very different from what a rapper would hear by listening to the same piece of music.

Best to all.

Branka



________________________________________
Dr. Branka Zei Pollermann
Psychologue
Psychiatrie de Liaison
Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève
51 Bvd. De la Cluse, 1205 Genève
tél. : 0041 22 382 48 81
Portable : 0041 79 203 92 17


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