“Knowledge is the conformity of the object and the intellect.” - Averroes
Sound waves are just that, sound waves. They’re an occurrence caused by vibrations propagating through a medium. If you’re biologically and physiologically equipped to detect these vibrations, then detect them you will.
We know sound waves exist because science has reached a level that has enabled us to study them empirically. Moreover, since we have ears, we can hear these waves manifested exuberantly in different ‘forms’ in our mind, but only within a certain range of frequencies of course: 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz.
I call sound waves the farther reality. Bats sense them in one way, wolves and us humans in another.
Meanwhile, music (which is the product of sound waves) is what we shall call the closer ‘reality’. It is a human construct. It evokes emotions of joy, sadness and excitement in ways that creatures like birds can’t interpret similarly.
Unlike sound waves, music’s existence is dependent on ours as a human species. Sure, on one hand it is the result of what exists independently of us but that doesn’t mean music itself can too. Music is us. It is the result of our brain interpreting sound waves and firing electrochemical signals in a way that creates the musical experience we feel. That experience exists because it’s created in our mind and is therefore dependent on our own existence.
So why does all this matter?
It matters. It matters, at least to me, because it represents something that begins swimming in my mind whenever I encounter a reoccurring theme in my thoughts – what is real Vs what is perceived.
Sound waves are real. Music is perceived.
But why does all this still matter you say?
Apply it to religion and see where that takes you, but before you do, there’s one metaphorical thing I’d like to add.
In a vacuum and without medium, there cannot be any sound waves. All that remains is Nothingness and Nothingness is Everything.
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SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I always wondered why let others control what you think and believe? Why, for example, fear God when God is Love?
I agree that you have to pay attention to what is “real” and to make your own interpretation of it, to “perceive” it in your way. I believe in a God. I don’t believe it wants us to be afraid and to be slaves to His whims. Everyone will find pros and cons for their belief system and that of others respectively. Many love proving others wrong about them. For me it is interesting listening to the other “ideas” to see if it brings me a new perspective, to see if maybe it challenges my views or if it enriches them. Asking myself “Why?” leads to answers. Wanted or not
So Drima, here is how I “perceive” this
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/blackhole_music_020409-1.html
You might find this interesting, music might not be dependent on us afterall. We interpret these real sound waves to be something that is familiar to us, is the music we make a realization of something that is completely independent of us?
sounds like a musical analogy for relativism.
“In a vacuum and without medium, there cannot be any sound waves. All that remains is Nothingness and Nothingness is Everything.”
how can nothingness be everything, since it doesn’t encompass the sound waves?
While sound waves cannot travel across a vacuum, light waves can and do. There is no part of the observable universe that is simply Nothingness.
I don’t think the statement “Nothingness is Everything” means anything.
I also think ito’s claim that “God is Love” goes way beyond the evidence; or at least, it proposes a particular definition of the word “God”. As this word already has hundreds of contradictory meanings, I guess you can use any definition you like.
How about “The force of Gravity is God”? At least that force is known to have created the Sun, stars, planets, etc - which is one of the tasks often assigned to God.
Alrighty, time for an elaboration.
If humanity seized to exist, so would religion. When that happens, the world will still remain which means whatever ‘truth’ we aspire to understand through science, spirituality or both will remain too. This ‘truth’ can be whatever you believe it to be. For a believer it would be God and for a non-believer the Physical Laws of the Universe that make everything tick and move the way it does.
The ‘truth’ is real. How we perceive isn’t necessarily. Like Averroes said “knowledge is the conformity of the object and the intellect.”
As for… “All that remains is Nothingness and Nothingness is Everything.”
Well to me, it is a metaphor for two things. The first is that when you’re in an intense spiritual state, you feel extremely tranquil and light. There is no you and the outside world. There’s just basically nothing and it’s this feeling of nothingness that’s so soothing. You don’t have to be a believer or a religious person to experience it. You can even through Yoga. Secondly, it also implies that God’s existence cannot be bound by things like space and time because if it is, then he cannot possibly exist because he created space and time which means preceding creation there must have been nothingness. There should have been nothingness.
I think atheists and those who believe in God tend to have strongly passionate disagreements because of how the things we believe are manifested into actions that are deemed ‘wrong’ by one another in certain aspects. However if we take a few steps back to the realm of belief, we’d be better off if we talked about what ‘God’ or ‘Truth’ really is. We need better definitions but no matter what their accuracy will always be limited since we can’t specifically define something we don’t fully understand.
I tend to believe that in many ways it’s all just semantics because in essence, we’re all searching for the same thing.
Have a look at this link for something related.
Just to add…
I’m against what I see as two wrong extremes, the first is a dogmatic religious mindset not open to science and the other is a mindset of pure reason which rejects spirituality (note that I purposely avoided using the word ‘religion’ here).
To keep it short, empirical knowledge has limitations.
Don Cox, gravity huh? That seems much more sensible.
If you want to be religious, you can regard gravity and the other forces as manifestations of God, or as the way God impacts on us.
The question is whether it heps to imagine God as being a “person”, like some kind of alpha male social mammal. This is the common metaphor used in Judaism and Christianity, with expressions like “The Lord God Almighty” likening it to an Emperor or King. Likewise the wishful thinking about God being “merciful”, like a King who commutes a death sentence to life imprisonment.
It is strange that these metaphors persist in the democratic USA.
The Ultimate Truth (God or Gravity, depending on you) *is* merciful.
I remember a while back, a wise Muslim scholar demonstrating this scientifically by giving certain examples such as the distance of the earth from the sun - just a little bit closer and we’d be roasted into ashes, just a little bit farther and our butts will get frozen into stone-ice.
So yes, believing that the Ultimate Truth is merciful is *not* wishful thinking.
If the Earth were a different distance from the Sun, we wouldn’t be here. This kind of discussion can only happen on planets that are favourable to the evolution of intelligent life of some kind.
A more elaborate version of this argument for the benevolence of God is the peculiar physical properties of water. But again, if water was not so suitable for life, we wouldn’t be water-based.
So I think the Muslim scholar’s argument is circular.
“This is the common metaphor used in Judaism and Christianity, with expressions like “The Lord God Almighty” likening it to an Emperor or King. Likewise the wishful thinking about God being “merciful”, like a King who commutes a death sentence to life imprisonment.”
Don, I can’t think where you got the alpha male social mammal thing with respect to christianity. I don’t know if you’re aware but christianity states that Jesus is God and if you read a little about his life and the stuff he said you will see that he is the antithesis of the alpha male. His trial was a farce yet he did not defend himself and when beaten, spat on and jeered never retaliated in word or deed. In a society which looked down on women and children, he not only associated with them, he cared for them. In terms of merciful, it was the people who lacked mercy and who chastised him for showing mercy to ’sinners’ and he was often scolded for associating with the undesriables of society.
Yes he is called ‘Almighty’ because he is- what’s wrong with saying that someone is strong if they are. If he’s God you’d expect him to be infinite in every way. He’s called lion and in the same sentence he is also called the lamb. Go figure. God is not one dimensional just like man is not one dimensional. God can be whatever he jolly well likes and whether it sounds logical or not, whether we like it or not will never change anything.
i really like what you have to say, i completely agree with you, well that is irrelevant really because it is as it is despite opinion, i’d just like to point out notice how people have to ruin a set statement with religion.. thats opinion, i like what you say because its observation not opinion, your a cool guy.
I was talking about this with a friend of mine, its that old age saying isnt it? if a tree falls in a forrest and no ones around to hear it, does it make a sound? maybe it makes music
I think what qualify as music is the harmonies of the waves… the wave is the sound, the harmonies in the frequencies of the waves is what create ‘music’. Interestingly enough the harmonic spectrum of sounds frequencies, match the harmonic spectrum of light’s colors frequencies.
I could not agree more with what your saying regarding reality and perception and the issue of music in Islam… Some people are so blind they don’t even realize that their voice is a combinaison of a cord and a wind instruments, and then they go on about music being haram etc.
Salaam
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