[MD] Research

[Squonkonguitar at aol.com]

Hi Ian and Dan,
 
"Fugues have that interesting property, that each of their voices is a  piece 
of music in itself; and thus a fugue might be thought of as a collection  of 
several distinct pieces of music, all based on one single theme, and all  
played simultaneously...each of these individually meaningful lines fuse with  the 
others in a highly non random way, to make a graceful totality."  
[Hofstadter, GOEDEL, ESCHER, BACH, p. 283]
 
Hearing a theme is like seeing a thing in a room, a section or movement is  
like a room, and a whole sonata is like an entire building. I do not mean to 
say  that music builds the sorts of things that space-builder does. (That is too 
 naive a comparison of sound and place.) I do mean to say that composers  
stimulate coherency by engaging the same sorts of inter-agent coordinations that  
vision uses to produce its illusion of a stable world using, of course,  
different agents. I think the same is true of talk or writing, the way these  very 
paragraphs make sense– or sense of sense–if any. Music, Mind, and Meaning.  
Marvin Minsky. Computer Music Journal, Fall 1981, Vol. 5, Number 3
 
This seems to point to a philosophy of mind approach Ian?
I know well the moq tries to avoid the term, 'mind' and it does have a sour  
Western bias - Indian philosophers may not even choose to recognise the term - 
 but if this area of research is a lock just waiting for sq/DQ to pick it 
then  maybe the stigma of the term, 'mind' may be a burden worth carrying for 3 
or 4  years?
Key to picking this lock (excuse the musical pun) may be providing a very  
simple and elegant metaphysically stable account of what coherence is?
Well, that's already been done hasn't it squire! (squire? lock?)
 
If i wish to persuade the supervisors i have in mind (no! stop it!) to help  
me i need to interest them as well as gain freedom to follow my own path.  
Philosophy of mind, Metaphysics and Phenomenology are key areas of interest for  
these potential supervisors.
 
I could hammer (piano)? the philosophy of mind approach to a point where  it 
crescendo's for one note to resolve it, and that note could be the moq?  In a 
sense, this would ensure the thesis is actually shot through with  Quality?
 
I think it's true to say one can never know where help may emerge next and  
you and Dan may have started something here...
 
But it's early days and this may all be for nowt.
 
Thanks Dan and Ian,
Love,
Mark
 
 
Hi Mark, .... ah, bliss ...

(When I compare the comments here to my  earlier response, I noticed I
used words like happy, excited you're happy,  postitive, etc up front
too.)

I won't repeat myself, but adding the  musical theme fits well too.
(tuning / resonance / coherence etc). I think  this stuff is typically
PoM / Evolved Intelligence / EvoPsych material too.  As well as the
reference Dan gave you, look at Booth (who discovered the  Cello late
in a life of academic rhetoric), as well as Minsky and of  course
Hofstader for musical links between logic and aesthetic.

Follow  your muse.
I've said enough.
Ian