On Music, Interconnection, and Consciousness
Michael D Golden · 2017
Music is an activity of human beings involving sound, the purpose of which is to facilitate and enhance our connection to our environment. "Environment" here is intended to be inclusive of both the natural/physical and social realms. The level of connection to the environment through vision is necessarily one step removed or abstracted from our physical experience, and functions within a narrower range of circumstances than other senses. The inherent temporality of auditory experience makes it an ideal medium for embodying (if in ephemeral form) the temporal experiences of living. The author proposes that the five response systems arise from five functionally distinct neuro-physiological systems. Each response system solves an important problem in tailoring behavior so that it is optimally adapted to a given environment. Rodolfo Llinas discusses the relationship of time to consciousness in terms of neural activity.