[MD] Music as Intellectual?

Fri Dec 21 06:04:51 PST 2007

On Dec. 17, in Thread "What is SOM?, SA asked Marsha:
  Marsha,I don't understand what this means.  What did Tittivulus say here? What's the difference between components and parts? 
 To which Marsha replied:  I think that by setting up the discussion based on 'experience of' rather than let it hang there like some subject (thing), the course of the conversation might flow in a more MOQ'ish direction.  That is what I understood Tittivulus to be doing in the 'Music as Intellectual? thread.  My understanding is that parts are separate things, while components are interrelated systems.  I'm remembering RMP's discussion in ZAMM on the structure of a motorcycle.  Anyway, it's something I'm thinking about, and it sounds like it could channel the discussion in a new and interesting direction.

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  As to components and parts: I'd say Marsha got it right; interrelated systems versus 
separate things and Yes, Pirsig in ZAMM, when talking about motorcycles explains the difference very well.

   If I may, I'd like to dwell a bit on this topic because the jigsaw puzzle I mentioned in last Post is made up of 'components' and not of  'parts'. No need I suppose to recall what Pirsig said in ZAMM because you fellows probably know the book by heart. But I'd like to quote though what Koestler wrote on this  in that admirable book "The Ghost in the Machine". It's a  cute parable (originated by Prof. H.A. Simon). 

   Once there were two watchmakers named Bios and Mekhos. … They both made quality watches but, while Bios prospered, Mekhos just struggled along and in the 
end had to close shop. Why ?

 "The watches they made consisted of about 1000 parts each, but the two rivals had used different method to put them together. Mekhos had assembled his watches bit by bit – rather like making a mosaic floor out of small colored stones. Then each time that he was disturbed and had to put down a partly assembled watch, it fell to pieces and had to start again from scratch. "

 " Bios, on the other hand, had designed a method of making watches by constructing, for a start sub-assemblies of about ten components, each of which held together as an independent unit. Ten of these sub-assemblies could then be fitted together into a sub-system of a higher order; and ten of these subsystems constituted the whole watch. This method proved to have two immense advantages."

   Now if these sub-assemblies of Bios were built on the basis of "what they do" the implications for the maintenance and understanding of motorcycles, watches or living cells and higher organizations like brains are quite obvious.  This is, after all, what makes Cybernetics and Systems Theory such powerful tools. 

     In considering something as complex as a music experience we might be well advised if we follow the approach of Bios; not just 'analyzing' and looking for what 'parts' it may be made-of , but looking for 'components' selected on the basis of 'what they do' to other components and their role in the whole (functionalism?).  I'd be the last one to deny that it is useful for understanding experiences to learn that they are made of cognitive and emotional parts. But the real challenge lies in finding out how do both 'interrelate' (to use Marha's words), how do they affect each other and, if they malfunction, like a faulty carburetor, how does that affect the overall experience. 

    Furthermore, if we consider the said music experience under the analogy of a jigsaw puzzle, we might be ill advised if we separate the pieces in two lots: in one lot those that may labeled subjective and in the other the ones that may be labeled objective,(the S/O distinction). The same holds for the two lots, intellectual and corporeal;  much better, IMHO, to separate them in lots according to their function or role in the overall experience and, even better, not to separate them at all, but to try to locate them in the original jigsaw picture and see if we can find out how they contribute to the picture. 

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