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Music, the Social Mind, and Language
Thirty-first LACUS ForumUniversity of Illinois at Chicago, July 28,
2004
William L. Benzon
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An Exercise in Speculative Engineering
1. Brain-to-Brain Communication2. Neural Life in the World3. Music and Coupled Oscillation4. Collective Decision5. From Synchrony to TOM6. Vygotsky & Development7. Poetry as Musical Language?
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1. Brain-to-Brain Communication:
A Thought Experiment
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Long-Term Storage
CPU
If the brain were a computer . . .
Working RAM
Moving patterns of bits from place to place.
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• Point-to-point connections, end-to-end
• Isolated signal paths• Bit patterns have an identity that is
independent of location in the system
• Locations are labeled (addresses)
Digital Computers
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• “Wire” brain A to brain B directly– neuron to neuron
• Assume physical problems are solved
• Two problems remain– Correspondence– Source identification
Direct Connection
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Correspondence Problem• How do you identify which neuron
in brain A corresponds to which neuron in brain B?
• This is possible for small nervous systems– e.g. C. elegans, 959 cells, 302
neurons • Not possible for large nervous
systems
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Source Identification• How does a neuron distinguish
between native and foreign signals?
• Neural signals do not have source and destination codes.
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Therefore . . . . • Direct communication between
nervous systems would result in incoherent noise.
• Though one can imagine that, in time, people might learn how to interact with specific others through such a channel.
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Questions . . . . • What does this suggest about
interactions between brain regions?
• What does this suggest about the “standard” computer analogy?
• What does this suggest about meaning?
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Reset . . . . • Interpersonal communication
cannot be thought of as sending signals through a wire.– Even if the “wire” consists of millions
upon millions of neurons.
• Let’s start from a beginning . . .
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2. Neural Life in the World
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External World
Neural Net Internal Milieu
Life in Two Worlds
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External World
InternalMilieu
A Simple Animal
Meaning is in relationships.
Lamb, S. M. (1999). Pathways of the Brain. Amsterdam, John Benjamins B. V.
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External World
Fred
Internal Milieu
NS
CNS
Spot Spot
JoanJoan
Self in the World
Fred
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External World
NS
CNS
Spot Spot
JoanJoan
Self and Other
Fred
NS
CNS
Spot
Fred
Joan
Fred
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3. Music and Coupled Oscillation
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Coupled Oscillators• Pendulum clocks (Huygens)
– a purely physical device, no symbols• Fireflies
– mediated, but still no symbols• Self-organizing, no leader
Strogatz, S. H. and I. Stewart (1993). "Coupled Oscillators and Biological Synchronization." Scientific American (December): 102-109.
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Bi-modal Clapping• Hear individually, act collectively• Desynchronized, and loud• Synchronized, not so loud• Two values:
– Enthusiasm for performance– Group solidarity
• No leader
Néda, Z., E. Ravasz, et al. (2000). "The sound of many hands clapping." Nature 403: 849-850.
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Jamming• Things happen• The some things happen again• Group memory
– holophony: Longuet-Higgins• Well-coordinated interaction• No leader necessary
Longuet-Higgins, H. C. (1987). Mental Processes: Studies in Cognitive Science. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
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Musicking Creates Social Space
• The group of individuals are closely coordinated in a common activity.
• They become a coherent individual actor.
• As far as we know, apes do not synchronize.
Benzon, W. L. (2001). Beethoven's Anvil: Music in Mind and Culture. New York, Basic Books.McNeill, W. H. (1995). Keeping Together in Time: Dance and Drill in Human History. Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
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4. Collective Decision
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Baboon Travel: Their Problem• Where does the troop move next?• Each has some preference.• They all know the territory, more
or less.• How do they coordinate their
preferences and knowledge?
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The Problem
?World
Geoffrey
Terence
X
X
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Hans Kummer: • Younger adult males and their
groups at periphery.• Pseudopods protrude and withdraw
again.– male faces in some direction
• Older male from center of the troop struts toward one of the pseudopods.
• The troop moves out.
Baboon Travel: Solution
Kummer, H. (1971). Primate Societies: Group Techniques of Ecological Adaptation. Chicago, Aldine • Atherton.
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?What are They Doing?
Troop
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
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5. From Synchrony to “Theory of Mind”
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Interaction Synchrony• William Condon• Films of people interacting
– adults and adults– neonate and adult
• Neonate’s body movements track adult voice.– very slight phase lag
Condon, W. S. (1986). Communication: Rhythm and Structure. Rhythm in Psychological. in Linguistic and Musical Processes. J. R. Evans and M. Clynes, eds. Springfield, Illinois, Charles C Thomas • Publisher: 55-78.
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Synchrony = Society• Autistics and others have trouble
with synchrony.• Does synchrony have any function
or is it just some arbitrary characteristic of interacting humans?– We don’t know– But . . . .
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Possible Value of Synchrony• Segment the speech signal
– where are the boundaries?• Read faces (TOM)
– people are in relative motion– visual system moves as well– synchrony eliminates one factor from
this relative motion
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Synchrony & “TOM”• TOM not a theory in any robust
sense– inference beyond the information
given
• Synchrony ≠ TOM
• Synchrony as enabling condition for TOMBaron-Cohen, S. (1995). Mindblindness. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
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Parkinson’s & Synchrony• Disorder of Motor Control
– dopamine deficiency• Music helps Parkinsonians• Even late stage
– immobile patients become mobile by synchronizing with music or with others
Sacks, O. (1990) Awakenings. New York, HarperPerennial.
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Interactional synchrony binds ego and alter into a single intentional system.
Just as musicking makes a group of individuals into a coheren individual.
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6. Vygotsky & Development
Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and Language. Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press.
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External World
child
Internal Milieu
NS
CNS
blanket blanket
Child
mommom
World and Nervous System
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Inner and Outer• Signals flow from point to point• The route can be entirely inside
the nervous system• Or it can travel through the
external world• Thus we might have:
– FUNCTIONALLY inside– PHYSICALLY outside
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Physical World
CNSblanket
Child
CNSblanket
Mother
Ablanky
Ablankyspeak hear
Rblankyhear
mom
blanket
“blanky”
mom
Mother-Directed
Bloom, P. (2000). How Children Learn the Meanings of Words. Cambridge, MIT Press.
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Physical World
CNSblanket
Child
Ablanky
speakhear
Rblanky
blanket
“blanky”
Child-Directed
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Physical World
CNS
blanketblanket
Child
Ablanky
Rblanky
Inner-Speech
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Now we can “walk” in one another’s
cortex.
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7. Poetry as Musical Language
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Constituency in “Lime-Tree Bower”
1
2
3
4
5 1.1111.1121.1211.1221.1231.2111.2121.221 2.1112.1122.1212.1222.1232.21 2.22
1.11 1.12 1.21 1.22
1.222
2.11 2.12
2.21.1 1.2 2.1
1 2
LTB
beginning end
Benzon, W. L. (2004). Talking to Nature in “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison. Unpublished ms.
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Lines and Constituentstopic
subtopicsubtopic
line line line line
topic
subtopicsubtopic
line line line line
CONSISTENT
INCONSISTENT
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Constituents in “Kubla Khan”
KK
1
1.31.21.1
1.211.221.23 1.311.321.111.12
2
2.2
2.212.222.23
2.1
2.112.12
2.3
2.312.32
fountain sunny pleasure domecaves of ice
Paradise
Benzon, W. L. (2003)."Kubla Khan" and the Embodied Mind, PsyArt: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts, November 29, 2003, URL: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/2003/benzon02.htm
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Rhyme in “Kubla Khan”And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seethingAs if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,A mighty fountain momently was forced:
GGH
171819
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burstHuge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Of chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
HII
202122
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and everIt flung up momently the sacred river.
FF
2324
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Perhaps . . . .• Poetry externalizes the sound of
language so that it becomes a surrogate for the external world.
• LTB is organized so as to emphasize continuity of narrative consciousness.
• Rhyme in KK introduces an element of predictability into the poetic act in compensation for its lack of narrative.
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Shareability• Jakobson on the poetic function of
language • Bateson: redundancy in primitive
art• Freeman: neural “alignment” during
ritual
Jakobson, R. (1960). Linguistics and Poetics. Style in Language. T. Sebeok. Cambridge, MIT Press: 350-377.
Bateson, G. (1972). Steps To An Ecology of Mind. New York, Ballentine Books.Freeman, W. J. (2000). A Neurobiological Role of Music in Social Bonding. The Origins of Music. N. L. Wallin, B. Merker and S. Brown. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press: 411-424
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Neural Alignment
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One-Liner
• The music IN language creates the social space through which people coordinate meanings and intentions THROUGH language.
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the end