Any philosophers out there?

[launched]

This means every song I ever wrote has already been written. Just not performed yet. I hope the brain machine is not overly critical... 


And another thing that could be troubling...

I think, therefore I am.... A stone is, there for it.... thinks

[tony]

Scientists point out that everything has a natural cause. This has to include our minds. Our minds are 'caused' by brain activity. We have no real free will because our minds are ultimately just obeying the laws of physics. Material reality is all there is....Okay....here's the problem. If our minds are ultimately, just material reality, it follows that through scientific investigation, material reality (us) is trying to understand itself. Whenever we try to understand ourselves and what we are, reality is looking back at itself to try to understand itself....this is the interesting bit... If a stone studies itself and concludes,'I am just an unconscious lump of material reality...', suddenly the stone is more than what it says it is. It is conscious.

suddenly, the entire universe IS consciousness....and blind, unconscious reality can't exist.

I hope that makes sense!!!!

Free will is only a problem if you want to put it in opposition to determinism.  Free will can mean just making a choice.  We make choices all the time.  A simple example: I start a tune in C.  I'm going to choose between Cmaj, Dmin, Emin, Fmaj, G7, Amin, or Bdim to come next. (I'm leaving out extensions because we don't want the hassle) I could choose a lot of other chords but if I want to make sense, I'm going to choose one of the seven.  I know why those chords work because they are from the scale. I could go on and give reasons from the history and tradition of western music.  I could research why we have a major scale based on an octave and not 37 notes (or some other number - like a pentatonic scale) but if I do I'll probably end up writing songs that no-one 'gets' - or join  a jazz club, maybe the same thing.

If I want to communicate with others, I'll pick chords from the scale.  Which chord is not determined (until I do it) and I don't have unlimited free choice.  I have a limited freedom to choose - and I don't have to believe in anything.  I do it because it works.  I don't have to believe in western music to use it.  I use the scale because experience tells me that it will make a pretty tune/get me paid/get me laid/further my musical fantasies/whatever.  Social experience determines my range of choices, immediate desire shows the freedom of my specific choice.

A simpler example.  15 minutes ago I was hungry.  I went to the fridge and got out some salami (Hungarian) and made a sandwich (very nice, thank you).  There was a bottle of wine in there but I didn't try to eat the bottle.  Therefore there is no god and my world didn't collapse without one.  And I'm not a robot either.  Isn't Hungarian music great!?!

[launched]

If a scale gets toppled in the forest, does it make a sound if nobody was there to hear it?

Was it ever played?

[OsCKilO]

This was predetermined....I Guess....

[launched]

You start it Bert - Go ahead...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InZNBcJTmWs

[madrab]

Having a PhD in philosophy I feel that I should contribute to the discussion. But my wife has just poured me a glass of wine and today I have been skating a nice concrete pool and then jamming with my drummer and harmonica player...
Just one short observation. You write "If a stone...", then A follows. So in order for you to have an argument for A you must argue for "a stone...".
(Philosophers are often quite boring in discussions, sorry)

Wow, now there is dinner — and wine ... and did I mention the skateboard and jamming?

[Oldrottenhead]

i have started on the beers and it is now clear. let my hero the good captain explain


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQs8dka52H4

[Davo]

We dont know enough to know what we dont know.

[Greeny]

This means every song I ever wrote has already been written. Just not performed yet. I hope the brain machine is not overly critical... 


And another thing that could be troubling...

I think, therefore I am.... A stone is, there for it.... thinks

This is an interesting point. All of my best songs materialise as if from nowhere... as if I'm just channeling something that was - as you say - already there / written. Sometimes they seem so familiar that I have to do a double-check to make sure they aren't just rip-offs of existing songs.

But maybe I'm just drawing on our vast, collective unconscious? I like the Jungian thought that we're all connected on some deep, primal level with the same fears, desires and dreams. Maybe artists are just the ones who can tap into this level like a well and draw up some of the dream-water. All great art has basic human truths as a central motif, which makes all great art universal and timeless. Oh dear... I'm rambliing and talking b*llocks, lol. Too early in the morning for that.

[jackofall]

There's some great responses here. I think you are dead right, Greeny.Music does seem to be a tapping into a higher consciousness. A materialist would see music as sound waves entering the brain via the auditory nerve but what that music communicates seems like a mystery and beyond science. I still call myself a rationalist and non-believer, but I've opened my mind to all sorts of ideas recently. I think SteveB's point about grief is very interesting. What evolutionary purpose does it serve? I've often wondered why people generally love small furry animals. Again, what evolutionary purpose does it serve? Why do we love Tigers and other creatures that are deadly to humans? Why do we hate spiders that are generally harmless (always harmless in the UK at least). This doesn't seem to fit the Darwinian picture. How can there be free will in a universe dictated by cause and effect? Why don't I just shut up now?