Hey SC!

I know, it appears that I have fallen and I can't get up!

If someone tells me these are just extra-chance-random features of consciousness, then I ask them for what reason? In the absence of an answer, the clues point to a metaphysical language of sorts... .

the slogan is not a good representation of the theory of natural selection. — SophistiCat

Herbert Spencer adopted ‘survival of the fittest’ not longer after OoS was published, and Darwin later used the term.

Darwin responded positively to Alfred Russel Wallace's suggestion of using Spencer's new phrase "survival of the fittest" as an alternative to "natural selection", and adopted the phrase in The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication published in 1868.[1][2] In On the Origin of Species, he introduced the phrase in the fifth edition published in 1869,[3][4] intending it to mean "better designed for an immediate, local environment".[5][6] — Wikipedia

Also note the ‘better designed’. I suppose he should have enclosed the word in scare quotes. :smile:

I know, it appears that I have fallen and I can't get up!

If someone tells me these are just extra-chance-random features of consciousness, then I ask them for what reason? — 3017amen

The fact that our blood is red does not confer fitness advantage to us, so why is it red? The color of blood appears to be "just extra-chance-random" feature. Of course, in this case we know the answer: blood is red because of hemoglobin, and hemoglobin does confer fitness advantage. But there is no reason for the color as such: it could just as soon be blue or green. So do we have a problem here that cries out for an explanation? Maybe it's a metaphysical language of sorts?

Evolution, music and math — 3017amen

(... and poetry, science etc.)

I always assumed @Pattern-chaser was named in answer to this question.

:chin:

I always assumed @Pattern-chaser was named in answer to this question. — bongo fury

What question, pray tell? :chin

Hello sophisticat! ( by the way what kind of cats do you own? I used to have a few himalayan's and I actually had a dream about baby Lions last night haha.)

Anyway I'm not sure that analogy would give us the clues that we need to parse this accurately.

If you use your reasoning there, then you would ask why is mathematics and written music notation always in Black ink? There are very few exceptions if any... .

Wouldn't you say the same for human skin color? Or what about any biological color? Are some colors random and/or indeterminate?

I think it's kind of a regressive argument yes?

It is an interesting question though because it does make me think of causation across the board... .

But here's the central concern. We have two ways to avoid falling objects. And we have two ways to enjoy music.

Thus, there is no disputing the following facts:
1. Music came first, then somebody figured it out.
2. We avoid falling objects first, then somebody figured it out.

There is no need for us to have that theoretical and abstract knowledge, no?

What question, pray tell? :chin — Pattern-chaser

The OP. Google gives a more mundane explanation of the name. :sad: nvm

Still, it is a common (and to me reasonable) conjecture that evolution has endowed us with a general thirst for pattern.

And after all what right have you, the mere author of your name, to dispute that interpretation?

:joke:

Still, it is a common (and to me reasonable) conjecture that evolution has endowed us with a general thirst for pattern. — bongo fury

Yes, I consider my name equivalent to Adam (Christian mythology), "everyman", or even just "human", as the chasing of patterns is so intrinsic to humans. By choosing the name, I declare myself to be (typically?) human. :smile:

:ok: :cool:

It is certainly an interesting question to ask how music came about, and there can be different ways of answering it. The "easy" question is the descriptive one: How did the human cognitive capacity and disposition for music in fact develop? I say "easy" because it is amenable, at least in principle, to the kind of empirical enquiry that we know how to conduct - not that actually producing anything like a definitive answer would be easy! The "hard" question is the philosophical why question that I think you want to ask, and it is hard because it is not very clear what exactly we are asking and what (and why) we would take for an answer: the epistemic standards here are nowhere as well-developed as in the case of a scientific enquiry.

But what I think is not terribly controversial is that the question of humans' musical ability does not pose any particular challenge to the evolutionary theory. (I am emphasizing this because of the way you originally framed the topic.) It is not out of the question that music-making could have some adaptive value at some point in our development as a species, but even if it didn't, its emergence shouldn't be particularly surprising. Some traits are what evolutionary biologists Gould and Lewontin nicknamed as "spandrels": side-effects of other adaptive developments that don't have any particular adaptive value in themselves. Given the enormously complex furniture of our cognitive apparatus, some unintended "quirk" like musicality wouldn't be all too surprising, I think.

by the way what kind of cats do you own? I used to have a few himalayan's and I actually had a dream about baby Lions last night haha. — 3017amen

I was a cat in my past life, a Russian Blue I think ;)

Hello SC!

Thank you for the reply (sorry so late, been extremely busy). In summary, from your reply I think your short answer is: You/we don't really know. Which is fine I guess.

In a general sense, when we don't really know the nature of things (in themselves), in philosophy we can easily default to theories of its existence (IE: Metaphysics is: theories about theories).

So in that sense, could we say it's a metaphysical language that exists a priori, or developed from that existence or cognition that we uncovered? And is it somehow an innate property we have?