Thursday, March 06, 2014
Squishy arrow?
NPR ran a feature on a modern jazz violinist who made new arrangements of some extremely old Southern songs. One of the songs was written in a modal scale, and the violinist caught the mode precisely. Shivered my bones. Music brought straight up from 1400, skipping the Tempered Scale entirely; but without the academic harshness that usually accompanies such modal stuff.
Reminded me of Winifred Jacobson's 1948 attempt to bring back Baroque. The same pure loyalty to old sources, sweetened by a modern sensibility.
Like a tree drawing from a deep artesian source to build new fruit. Water that hasn't been touched by modernity, jumping seamlessly through the strata.
If trees have awareness (and I don't see any possible reason why not**) ... Is their time permanent? Does a creature without a destined end feel time without an arrow? Time all at once? Mature religions attribute an arrowless time to God's awareness, so the concept is part of our human genome just as a modal tune is part of my hillbilly genome.
= = = = =
** Why not: This ponderation about trees was triggered by my perpetual annoyance with a tunnel vision shared by Commie behaviorists and Catholic intelligent design advocates. Both of them insist on drawing a bright and impenetrable line between humans and the rest of nature, and insist that ONLY humans have awareness.
I understand why the ID'ers draw the line. "Created in his image" and all that crap. I don't understand why the Commie behaviorists draw the line. Inside the range of the human species, behaviorists refuse to draw any lines based on genes. This means quite simply that they are NOT SCIENTISTS, because the lines between genotypes are perfectly well established by secular methods. At the same time, they constantly apply conclusions from pigeon and rat experiments to humans. If their basic rule could be described, it would be like this: There are no differences among humans. Any behavior shown by one type of human must be common to all humans. There is a sharp but one-way line between humans and other animals. Results obtained on rats always generalize to humans, but human qualities like empathy and awareness do not exist in rats or dogs or anything else.
Continued the ponderation here.
If trees have awareness (and I don't see any possible reason why not**) ... Is their time permanent? Does a creature without a destined end feel time without an arrow? Time all at once? Mature religions attribute an arrowless time to God's awareness, so the concept is part of our human genome just as a modal tune is part of my hillbilly genome.
= = = = =
** Why not: This ponderation about trees was triggered by my perpetual annoyance with a tunnel vision shared by Commie behaviorists and Catholic intelligent design advocates. Both of them insist on drawing a bright and impenetrable line between humans and the rest of nature, and insist that ONLY humans have awareness.
I understand why the ID'ers draw the line. "Created in his image" and all that crap. I don't understand why the Commie behaviorists draw the line. Inside the range of the human species, behaviorists refuse to draw any lines based on genes. This means quite simply that they are NOT SCIENTISTS, because the lines between genotypes are perfectly well established by secular methods. At the same time, they constantly apply conclusions from pigeon and rat experiments to humans. If their basic rule could be described, it would be like this: There are no differences among humans. Any behavior shown by one type of human must be common to all humans. There is a sharp but one-way line between humans and other animals. Results obtained on rats always generalize to humans, but human qualities like empathy and awareness do not exist in rats or dogs or anything else.
Continued the ponderation here.
Labels: Danbo, Grand Blueprint, Smarty-plants
¶ 2:36 AM
