For me, the key words here are ‘vague’ and ‘might’. Many idiots will read your ”subtle cues can have deep effects that we’re not consciously aware of” as “Oh, no! They’re being brainwashed against their will! They’re becoming addicted to terrorism through music and videos!” Pretty much all brain activity is unconscious. The Homunculus is a gross generalization. Brain functions such as listening and interpreting music are not static or discrete. The structures and systems of the brain intensively interconnect. This is an unsurprising fact of neurophysiology not the basis for launching conspiracy theories.

[yes, we have few idiots here. some background assumptions of non-stupidity are held stable. if you aren't careful, there might be one less idiot....

-razib, god-of-the-blog :) ]

Edited By Siteowner

Of course it isn't, hence my guarded language, but then I take it for granted that we don't have many idiots at GNXP. I've been wrong before, of course. I don't believe in conspiracies. My thinking was more that the psychological dynamics bear a slight resemblance to those at work in drug culture, and that we might look for a similar psychological profile.

In an autobiographical book called "Discovering my Autism", Edgar Schneider (a high-functioning autist, or Asperger's syndrome sufferer) tells how his life was made miserable by his insensitivity to other people's feeling, which was partly the result of his own flattened affect.

He was a mathematician and his autism did not harm his math abilities (possibly the opposite - several science-math geniusses are suspected to have been Aspergers.)

The interesting thing to me was that his enjoyment of music was also not affected; he still loved music and performed in amateur music groups.

Music tends to be identified with feelings, love, etc., but actually it's highly formal. Many math-science people are musicians, and many musicians are tech geeks.

I might add that there are two cases of crossover from music electronics to military electronics. The actress Hedy Lamar and the musician George Antheil were responsible for one of them, and Skunk Baxter of the Doobie brothers the other.

John, I've noticed that too. It's not too surprising, given the correlations between what Agnostic calls "shadows of g".

I'm not sure that Schneider's case sheds much light here. Autistics can't process the emotions of others (probably because they lack a theory of mind), but they still feel emotion for themselves, even though they do tend to suffer flattened affect as they get older. But hypothetically, a finding that subjects with damaged emotional centers could still comprehend and perform music would be a corroboration of the Peretz thesis from the opposite direction. I would certainly expect that to be the case.

Semi off-topic, but what the heck ...

* As far as I'm aware, the Asperger's/music connection largely has to do with western-classical music. (Eager for correction if wrong.) This would make sense. High-functioning Asperger-y people seem to love activities like math, programming, etc. And western-classical music is very much about formal patterning. Is there any link between the Aspergery mind and the many musics that aren't so much about formal patterning and intricate puzzle-solving?

* So far as brain-damage and music goes, I once saw an amazing performance. A father-daughter team of Irish folk musicians came out on state ... She was middle aged (played the flute, I think), he was quite old (played accordion), and it became clear very quickly, deep into Alzheimer's, or something like it. Never stated, but he had to be led out, he was clearly bewildered by everything, he wasn't speaking, etc. Then the music started up. Suddenly he was completely alert and awake, played beautiful music, lacking nothing, etc. Very moving, heart-breaking stuff, full and rich and deep -- you'd never have guessed it wasn't made by a fully-functioning person. At the end, he kind of returned to dullness, and she led him offstage. Touching partly because it was clear that this was the only real connection that any longer existed between the two of them. Oliver Sacks has written here and there about the importance of music to (for instance) people with Parkinson's ... Their faculties go out of synch, but with music some of them can sometimes get all their mudules and rhythms and pulsings working together instead of against each other ... How does the music do this? How does it actually each (and then synch up) the various faculties?

"actually reach (and then synch up) ..."

I read the Chris Roach post about the al Qaeda music. The most interesting part to me is the one about the role of music in the lives of young people:

"Music is of especially supreme importance to young people. It is the soundtrack to their lives; it informs their sense of what is important and what is beautiful; the words and tunes often define how and what they love. It's what they remember even when they claim to be unable to memorize dates for their history tests."

Being a college student, I must agree that music plays an important role in young people's lives. I often come to associate a particular song with a specific year or period in my life. I think the interplay between music and values goes more in the other direction though: young people's values and sense of what is good about life (how to have fun, how to interact with the opposite sex, etc.) determine what type of music they will enjoy listening to.

As someone with high-functioning autism myself, I can say that it doesn't interfere with my ability to appreciate music. I don't like classical music, as would be predicted by the "formality" theory, and many of my friends like it more than I do (in fact my roommate has been listening to such music for the last few hours). I also can say that I definitely don't lack all emotions, just that I tend not to experience certain emotional states that are closely tied to social situations, and I do have trouble understanding others' emotions sometimes. I have never been interested in playing an instrument, though I have written some rap lyrics (and was really impressed by some of the ovo/bio raps submitted to GNXP a while ago).

I usually like music that has a lot of "energy" (i.e. is fast and rhythmic), as that fits with my normal mental state. However, I sometimes enjoy listening to music that has deep emotional content, particularly from female singers. This may well be related to the fact that I value the trait of understanding emotional/social complexity (which I greatly lack) in girls/women. I can "sense" the basic feel and tell that a complex emotional state is being conveyed, but can't say that I really understand it.

arosko, you should try dancing. ;)

In argumentation I have found it far easier to convince individuals to take the knife and cut their own throat because their beliefs demand it

Any ideas on how to get the Iranians to cut their own throat?

Personally, I have found the reaction, "they're crazy" to be more useful than, "they're just like us, they don't really mean what they say".