Studying music leads to religious thoughts/feelings?

[Alon Wolman]

By religious I mean spiritual.

[BWV 1080]

aside from the general notion that art is somehow spiritual, I doubt it. I do not know about Jazz, but there are a multitude of agnostic or atheist classical composers, from Brahms to Bartok to Elliott Carter.

[Bev Stapleton]

I'd imagine if you are religiously or spiritually minded you'll find plenty in music to re-enforce your beliefs.

I've never studied music but I've listened to voluminous amounts over 35 years (including a considerable amount made by highly religious composers like Bruckner or Coltrane) and it's never shaken my non-religious/materialistic view of the universe.

[Poetic dreamer]

I'd imagine if you are religiously or spiritually minded you'll find plenty in music to re-enforce your beliefs.

I've never studied music but I've listened to voluminous amounts over 35 years (including a considerable amount made by highly religious composers like Bruckner or Coltrane) and it's never shaken my non-religious/materialistic view of the universe.


Then you're most likely missing a significant aspect of those musicians' music (especially Coltrane's) if you can't get the spiritual aspects.

People often confuse religion and spirituality.

Religion is made up by humans, spirituality is inside all of us, even inside the hearts of atheists. Everyone has felt a certain feeling when beholding an early morning's beauty; spirituality is in a similar realm, only more powerful and higher.

Don't let your rejection of religion cause you to reject your spirituality. They are two different things.

[Stackabones]

Yes, I believe it can.

By spiritual, I mean religious.

[harmolodic]

I'd imagine if you are religiously or spiritually minded you'll find plenty in music to re-enforce your beliefs.

I've never studied music but I've listened to voluminous amounts over 35 years (including a considerable amount made by highly religious composers like Bruckner or Coltrane) and it's never shaken my non-religious/materialistic view of the universe.

My experience exactly. And I'm not missing anything in Trane's music either.

[Jay Norem]

spirituality is inside all of us

So are tonsils.

[Bev Stapleton]

So are tonsils.

Not if you've had them pulled out!

Whoever took my adenoids out 40 years ago clearly whipped my spirituality out as well.

[Slant]

The history of music (both its performance and its study) is almost entirely based in and around spiritual pursuit. If you think you can escape the trend you haven't done your homework, and you obviously haven't given much thought to the numbers 7 or 12. How did these numbers become so prominent in music anyway? Not only that, but could centuries upon centuries of people that have come and gone across vast continents have all connected music with spiritual pursuit by complete accident and total intellectual ignorance? Hardly.

The idea that our current age is somehow intellectually superior to that of our ancestors is totally false. Today we have a pretty sad understanding of the meaning of either term: spirit or religion. Hell, we have a pathetic understanding of the term 'matter' for that matter. Matter is a term of "religion" from the get go! Most consider matter to be right in front of your face, but in reality the term has a much more broad and generic application (amongst others). Our reluctance to abandon the application of specific nomenclature to specific objects is the real hang up.

[Jay Norem]

I would have thought that the study of music leads to musical thoughts and feelings. But let's face it, studying music can be pretty tedious, which could lead to the religious feeling of wishing that your counterpoint teacher would just go to hell.

[Slant]

I would have thought that the study of music leads to musical thoughts and feelings. But let's face it, studying music can be pretty tedious, which could lead to the religious feeling of wishing that your counterpoint teacher would just go to hell.

HA!

:lol:

[Bev Stapleton]

I'm utterly convinced that there is neither a world above nature nor a spiritual dimension beyond the temporal body. But I'm never going to convince anyone who does believe in those things that they are wrong and I'm right.

So I don't see much point in trying to convince them that they are missing things in music that I see because of my materialist perspective; I equally reject the idea that I am missing things through rejecting the religious or spiritual perspective (after all, it's equally as likely that they are seeing things, deluding themselves about something that is not there).

I could be totally wrong in my materialism and have a nasty shock and my very own circle of hell awaiting me (full of people telling what jazz is, perhaps!).

But I'm comfortable with my hunch; and I'm equally comfortable with those whose balance of probability leads them to a religious/spiritual conclusion.

What none of us can afford to do is argue that our stance gives us a superior receptivity to music. Endless argument from inflexible positions stems from such a stance...another circle of hell!

If my understanding or appreciation of 'A Love Supreme' or the B-Minor Mass are deficient (which they almost certainly are), then the reasons are due to a lack of musical understanding or a lack of careful attention, not a lack of spirituality.

[thedwork]

[Does] Studying music lead to religious/ [spiritual] thoughts/feelings?

i believe the answer is Yes and No because i believe it has everything to do with the individual and nothing to do w/ the music.

to clarify - if a person has a natural tendency toward the spiritual, or was raised to be open to spirituality (i believe in both nature and nurture), then whatever they're exposed to in life will "lead them to spiritual thoughts/feelings." ie: that Doc Watson tune has spiritual meaning, and that Coltrane tune has spiritual meaning, and that beautiful wooden chair has spiritual meaning, and that birch tree over there has spiritual meaning, and that town meeting about local issues every week has spiritual meaning, etc...

when you're religious/spiritual, you see it everywhere. period.

if you're not, it's nowhere.

so for me, it's not the music - it's the person.


the real question is what leads people to be open to these thoughts/beliefs in the first place? and i believe that discussion may not be allowed on this forum.

[Alexander]

I love music, but I'm an atheist through and through. Music may well be connected to religion the world over, but that doesn't make music inherently religious. Religious people all over the world breathe too, but that doesn't make breathing a religious experience...

[Phat Boi]

Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads....

[Bev Stapleton]

Ralph Vaughan Williams was an atheist, though he did believe in the idea of spirituality. A considerable amount of his music was based on Biblical or religious text or was based on forms associated with the Anglican church (Te Deum, Mass, A Vision of Aeroplanes, Pilgrim's Progress etc).

Is it the case that those of a religious persuasion will not properly appreciate his music as they will take the religious elements at face value?

I don't think so - I'd say they are just as likely to be moved by the power of his music.

Equally I'd argue that, even though I don't share Bruckner's religious faith, I can still listen to his music and get the same depth of feeling as a devout Catholic listener. Of course, we might be interpreting its intellectual meaning somewhat differently.

[Slant]

I love music, but I'm an atheist through and through. Music may well be connected to religion the world over, but that doesn't make music inherently religious. Religious people all over the world breathe too, but that doesn't make breathing a religious experience...

Alexander,

Funny you should mention breathing, because if there were no air there would be no music. Sound acts on air. It excites it, so to speak. Since our bodies are largely composed of air, we find it hard to deny the power of music/sound. This applies whether or not you consider yourself to be a decided "spiritualist", an "agnostic", or an "atheist" of the 1st rank (i.e. almost everyone on this planet likes music in one form or another). Music enters our Being like a sharp tool that cuts through without any resistance. Since air is also seen as the substance that imparts life to us (translation: if you cut your supply of it you die), you can easily see how music is taken for what you term a "religious experience". Sounds are no more or no less than an intermediary between that power that moves you and the stuff moved (matter), and this is one reason that dance (motion) is music's primary expression through the human form. If this sort of "excitement" doesn't meet some definition of the term "spirit", then I don't know what does.

With that, I ask you in what spirit you conceive of the phrase "religious experience"? Are you under the impression that there is some sort of authoritative definition out there somewhere?

[harmolodic]

If you think you can escape the trend you haven't done your homework, and you obviously haven't given much thought to the numbers 7 or 12.

Right.....

I'm an atheist and I live for music. And I think about the numbers 7 and 12 ALL THE TIME!~pimp:

[Jay Norem]

"Religious experience" means a road-to-Damascus kind of event, where the experience serves to confirm or reveal the "truths" of a faith or religion. I think it usually leads the person having the experience to convert to a religious belief and life-style. I knew a guy once who said that he saw Krishna, so for awhile he was one of those bald guys giving away books at airports. Another guy I know said that he had an experience where, while talking to a "psychic," he actually saw through a wall, leading him into the whole spiritualist-psychic-Edgar Cayce thing, which he still believes in today. A friend of mine's brother became a "Moonie," and had a wife chosen for him by Sun Yung Moon. She ended up running off with their kids.
The closest I've ever come to such an experience was when I first heard jazz. Instant convert.

[JoeNovice]

I'm taking a graduate class called "Philosohy of Music History and Theory" and the over-arching concept the initial post referred to is a central theme of the class.

Call it spirituality, religion, or (for the non-believing materialist) the pre-existance of numbers (Pythagorean Philosophy)..... music has been used to create a logical connection between perceptions of reality and the greater cosmic structure by philosophers like Pythagerous, Plato, Boethesus, Decartes, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Lorca, etc

You can call that connection whatever.... but the founding concept is the same.

[JonR]

Not much to add here, but I wanted to weigh in with the atheists.

There is a lot we don't understand about how our minds work, and how the world works, and some people choose to put all that in box labelled "religion", "soul", or "spirituality".
Music can seem equally mysterious (at least in its effects on us), so it can get dumped in the same box.

Of course music has been (and is) central to religious rituals in all societies. But that's only a recognition of the power it has to move people en masse, to bring them together. Naturally religious groups will co-opt music to their ends just as will anyone who wants to organise a dance or (non-religious) celebration.

In my view, music works through our deep linguistic faculties. Its pre-verbal, but has a kind of grammar and syntax (the stuff we call "music theory"). It seems to "communicate" stuff, although the messages are highly (totally?) dependent on cultural context.

As an art form, it mediates time. It makes us focus on the present moment - and the immediate past and future - to the exclusion of real world stuff (in which time is more or less chaotic).

It's obviously deeply connected with what it means to be human. Homo Sapiens is a pattern-seeking animal - it's how we've come to rule the world. But it seems our brains can't get enough patterns. So we create patterns and order where none exists - we invent religions; and we invent arts of various kinds. Perhaps merely for contemplation, sheer enjoyment - or perhaps to exercise those very pattern-seeking faculties, to improve our evolutionary success.
(Religious concepts of order, of course, have the additional function of making us feel safe in an overwhelmingly chaotic universe. This would be why religious music is usually "safe" - or carefully awe-inspiring - and why religious groups despise music they can't control, or which is carelessly dissonant. Hey, the Taleban knew what they were doing when they sought to ban music altogether...)

:soapbox

OK, that'll do for now...

[Slant]

Right.....

I'm an atheist and I live for music. And I think about the numbers 7 and 12 ALL THE TIME!~pimp:

What do you think of those peculiar numbers?

[Jay Norem]

C'mon Slant, spill the beans! I have to admit that I have no idea what 7 and 12 mean.

[Bev Stapleton]

Not much to add here, but I wanted to weigh in with the atheists.

There is a lot we don't understand about how our minds work, and how the world works, and some people choose to put all that in box labelled "religion", "soul", or "spirituality".
Music can seem equally mysterious (at least in its effects on us), so it can get dumped in the same box.

Of course music has been (and is) central to religious rituals in all societies. But that's only a recognition of the power it has to move people en masse, to bring them together. Naturally religious groups will co-opt music to their ends just as will anyone who wants to organise a dance or (non-religious) celebration.

In my view, music works through our deep linguistic faculties. Its pre-verbal, but has a kind of grammar and syntax (the stuff we call "music theory"). It seems to "communicate" stuff, although the messages are highly (totally?) dependent on cultural context.

As an art form, it mediates time. It makes us focus on the present moment - and the immediate past and future - to the exclusion of real world stuff (in which time is more or less chaotic).

It's obviously deeply connected with what it means to be human. Homo Sapiens is a pattern-seeking animal - it's how we've come to rule the world. But it seems our brains can't get enough patterns. So we create patterns and order where none exists - we invent religions; and we invent arts of various kinds. Perhaps merely for contemplation, sheer enjoyment - or perhaps to exercise those very pattern-seeking faculties, to improve our evolutionary success.
(Religious concepts of order, of course, have the additional function of making us feel safe in an overwhelmingly chaotic universe. This would be why religious music is usually "safe" - or carefully awe-inspiring - and why religious groups despise music they can't control, or which is carelessly dissonant. Hey, the Taleban knew what they were doing when they sought to ban music altogether...)

:soapbox

OK, that'll do for now...

This all rings true with me.

I've always felt pattern making is what draws us to music...though when it gets too regular the fun comes in disrupting the patterns. People vary on just how much regularity, how much disruption they can take (some get absorbed in the mathematics of Bach, others thrill to disruption of free jazz).

One of the things that appeals to me about so much jazz (and Monk in particular) is that ability to balance the patterning with defying expectations by shifting the patterns.

********

I think very often people use words like 'spirit' or 'spiritual' to mean something chemical or electric going on up in the brain that we don't yet fully understand. I have no problem with that.

The trouble is the words, 'spirit' being derived from the religious world which presupposes a world beyond the temporal with other beings or where a non-material part of ourselves can exist.

********

I can also see the religious argument - if you believe, for example, that your particular saviour is not just one option out of a number but THE way, THE truth, THE light, then you will inevitably believe that things like music, painting etc (like the rest of life) can only be fully understood through that prism.

But if you don't believe, well...

In the end we can only agree to respect our different perspectives on this, whilst continuing to hold very firm beliefs that we are right (with a little door left open for a humble bit of doubt).

[Slant]

There is a lot we don't understand about how our minds work, and how the world works, and some people choose to put all that in box labelled "religion", "soul", or "spirituality".
Music can seem equally mysterious (at least in its effects on us), so it can get dumped in the same box.

Jon,

There's EVERYTHING we don't (and can't) know, and then there's every last thing we think we know. Every last thing we think we know we describe as having been established. As to these "things" opinions differ, always and forever. As for the EVERYTHING, it can not be established becuase it is the equivalent of NOTHING. Don't forget that for every 7 or 12 there is a 0 for its foundation. How is that possible?


Of course music has been (and is) central to religious rituals in all societies. But that's only a recognition of the power it has to move people en masse, to bring them together.

If all people were "together" then distinction would be impossible, and we'd have to return to the fact of zero again. So, with that in mind, what you say is very true.

It's obviously deeply connected with what it means to be human. Homo Sapiens is a pattern-seeking animal - it's how we've come to rule the world. But it seems our brains can't get enough patterns. So we create patterns and order where none exists - we invent religions; and we invent arts of various kinds.

Yes, very true. As a race, we've patterned ourselves into a relative state of unconciousness I'm afraid. We think we "rule the world" yet there's still that damn infinite mystery opening up under our feet.

One other thing: how did the name music come to be applied to organized sound anyway? Seems there's some spiritual connection in those five little letters...hmmm....

[Jay Norem]

One other thing: how did the name music come to be applied to organized sound anyway? Seems there's some spiritual connection in those five little letters...hmmm....

The word "music" comes from a Greek word which means "the art of the Muse." (Yes, I looked it up.)

[tpt1]

There's EVERYTHING we don't (and can't) know, and then there's every last thing we think we know. Every last thing we think we know we describe as having been established. As to these "things" opinions differ, always and forever. As for the EVERYTHING, it can not be established becuase it is the equivalent of NOTHING. Don't forget that for every 7 or 12 there is a 0 for its foundation. How is that possible? :shrug: :confused2 I dunno... but, did that go over anyone else's head?

[Bev Stapleton]

:shrug: :confused2 I dunno... but, did that go over anyone else's head?

I think it could be the title to an out-take from an early 70s John McLaughlin/Carlos Santana record.

[EdByrne]

C'mon Slant, spill the beans! I have to admit that I have no idea what 7 and 12 mean.

I too need to know! :shrug:

[Slant]

C'mon Slant, spill the beans! I have to admit that I have no idea what 7 and 12 mean.

I took a little break from this thread because I wanted to be sure that I formulate my words as carefully as possible for this. OK, here goes...

Absolutely the first thing that we need to establish is this: when looking into the "dim mists" of history it helps if we recognize the vast chasm that separates how we think in this day and age with how the "ancients" thought. Now obviously we have to speak very broadly here because there really is no way to know where or when music started...historically speaking that is. Nevertheless, it must be stated that, up until relatively late in history (roughly the Renaissance period), numbers occupied in minds a much more qualitative rather than quantitative aspect. This is hard for us to wrap our minds around. In the 18th and 19th centuries (industrial revolution), on the tail of the “enlightenment” period, and continuing unhindered unto the present day, we have been compelled to consider nothing BUT the quantitative aspect of numbers. This is helpful when you’re trying to meet the boss man’s bottom line, but when you’re trying to meet YOUR “bottom line”, you should perhaps consider the following.

So, what is meant by the “qualitative” aspect of numbers? First of all, it helps to recognize that for every object one encounters there is a vast wealth of subjective material that “underlies” its appearance. In the case of numbers, we don’t have physical objects to match them up with. They are abstract mental constructions. This makes them special. They are universal nexuses, so to speak; like invisible train stations where an infinite number of meanings are exchanged each day. In short, they are at once symbolic and symbols. This is exceptionally hard for us “moderns” to accept. We want things to be nice, neat and clean, and easily accounted for. Which is fine…IF you are interested in nothing but the “material” aspect of a thing. If, however, you are interested in something other than a simple reckoning, then you are faced with the option of negotiating with your inner Self.

Getting back to the subject at hand, let’s consider the number 7 and its close relative, the number 12. The statement “close relative” here may make little sense from the superficial quantitative level, but it will be shown that it is actually quite kindred from a subjective standpoint. This seemingly-odd numeric relationship is nevertheless made quite plain by the juxtaposition of these two numbers on each and every keyboard. Do note, however, that subjective interpretation is an open field. There are no quantitative equations in this place, and, as such, each individual will come away with an understanding of his/her own. This is why hardened materialists consider this stuff to be utter nonsense. To them I say: “Abandon hope all ye who enter here”.

The following is a very light reading of this inexhaustible symbol: Seven (7) was traditionally equated with Saturn. Saturn is the “old man”. He is the “Father of Time”. In the ancient cosmological system Saturn is the 7th planet (of 7), the one that moves very slowly across the sky. Hence also the associations of the “old man” with slowness, rest, repose – standing in the very doorway of death itself. When ancient music scholars studied harmonics they discovered something quite striking about the literal intervals. In short, they found there were seven differing qualities before a return to the key note (octave) when definite rules were observed. How strange this must have seemed! On the one hand you have 7 distinct “gods” in the sky, and here on earth are found 7 distinct notes in the air.

Returning to our old man for a moment: what lies beyond Saturn? I’m talking in ancient terms here, not about Pluto (that came a lot later)! That’s right, it’s the belt of stars that from time immemorial have been referred to as the zodiac. How many? 12. Thus "7" and "12" were considered neighbors. As everyone knows, modern day astrologists (crazy nut balls that they are) consider the stars to mediate the fate and destiny of all things on earth. If you want to know HOW the control was actually supposed to have occurred, you’ll have to dig very deep into history (far beyond what I have the time for tonight). BUT, I will say that nothing ever occurs without leaving in its wake a representative symbol. In music we have the symbols named quite nicely: A B C D E F G. The important thing to note here is that 12 is the overarching principle, while 7 is operative. Sound familiar?

This very superficial look at but 2 symbols should provide enough food for a bit of thought. Note that this is by no means an exhaustive study of how 7 and 12 relate to music: the Art of the Muses, but I’m going to bed now!

[Jay Norem]

I'll tell you what...I think we're such a cool bunch of folks! Let's all get together somewhere, have an AAJ what-do-you-call-it, you know, where all those business people get together, what the hell is it called...A CONVENTION, that's it.

[clave]

Well, if you're talking "esoteric," you could start with Pythagoras: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/math5.geometry/unit3/unit3.html

But I think you have to put anything of this kind into some sort of historical context as well.

I'm kinda more on the "architecture is frozen music" tip, if only because it makes sense, but it's an analogy, not a doctrine. ;) (See http://www.ergoarchitecture.com/quotations/ )

And even though some Western Europeans have accorded mystical significance to certain numbers, intervals and what have you, there's not a global acceptance of these ideas, and never has been.

Now, if somehow or other this stuff could help me with learning to hear certain W. African rhythms as if I'd grown up with them, I might just give it a try! ;)

[Bev Stapleton]

I'll tell you what...I think we're such a cool bunch of folks! Let's all get together somewhere, have an AAJ what-do-you-call-it, you know, where all those business people get together, what the hell is it called...A CONVENTION, that's it.

These chaps had a good venue:

http://www.ssa.gov/history/pics/acharter1.jpg
http://www.eastwaters.com/images/atlanticcharter2.jpg

Could be shifted around to embrace members from all seven continents!

[Jay Norem]

Looks real good. Go ahead and book it, Bev!

[Jay Norem]

Well, if you're talking "esoteric," you could start with Pythagoras


"This ain't bebop." Neal Cassidy

[shiatoru]

The numerical connection is obvious to anyone......

"7" is a "natural", while "12" is "boxcars"....:tanz:

[Jay Norem]

If 12 is boxcars, then what's 31? Or, for that matter, 9? Oh, and let's not forget 11. Bad number, that.

[walto]

Three is a magic number.
Then again so is four.

--Loudon Wainwright III

[harmolodic]

"Ten equals a million"--some little kid who lived next door to me 30 years ago

[Slant]

"Ten equals a million"--some little kid who lived next door to me 30 years ago

This is exactly right when you consider that numbers are APPLICABLE to phenomena. Therefore any number can be assigned any other value. In the case of 10 = 1,000,000, then 5 = 500,000, 1 = 100,000 and so forth down the line. It's a simple matter of ratio and scale, and how you prefer to do your reading.

[Bev Stapleton]

Looks real good. Go ahead and book it, Bev!

Book it?

I OWN it!

[engelbach]

Hmm. Another thread with no sign of the person who started it …

Plenty of posts, though. Let me know when it reaches 666.

[cillit bang]

Did man invent numbers ?
Or were they hanging around waiting to be discovered ?


I feel numb-er already ....... Jem

[Alon Wolman]

I'm here. Excuse me, I'm new to this board. I haven't had a chance to hang out much. I didn't really read this whole thread. Believe me, right now the last thing I want to think about is God, the Universe, and Everything... (having a beer, trying to relax!) :)

[JonR]

I'm here. Excuse me, I'm new to this board. I haven't had a chance to hang out much. I didn't really read this whole thread. Believe me, right now the last thing I want to think about is God, the Universe, and Everything... (having a beer, trying to relax!) :)Me too. I didn't want to read this thread either. I didn't even want to post this...

God sure moves in mysterious ways...

:rolleyes:

not quite as mysteriously as this, though... :banana:

[tpt1]

not quite as mysteriously as this, though... :banana:... or this. :dill:

[harmolodic]

or this:

[tpt1]

or this:

that.

is deep.

[edrowland]

By religious I mean spiritual.

As a hardcore atheist, I don't believe that spirtuality requires religiousity; and I don't believe that atheism and spirituality are incompatible. There's nothing in the ahteist membership application that says that embracing reductionism means that you have to give up holism. (And nothing that actually says you have to be a reductionist at all). In my opinion, reductionism works well for those things that can be approached from the bottom up; and for the large part of human experience which has not yet been entirely conquered by the reductionist approach, you leave huge swaths of life on the table if you don't just go with the flow and enjoy the wild ride.

Fortunately, music has not yet been reducted; it's a creative process, and I believe that it's neccessary to embrace the mystery of the process, wholeheartedly. It's not a rational process at all. It's a about seeking that place where the music comes through you, not from you. About the bliss of sitting in that magic place were four people play with one mind. Where extraordinary things comes effortlessly. That place that you get to by supressing conscious mind, and letting the muse speak. That state of hyper-awareness in which you are connected intimately with everyone around you.

Does it require a big magic man in the sky to make that happen? Definitely not. I'm sure all of those things can be rationally explained. But explaining it isn't the same thing as doing it.

Playing music is like falling in love, I think. Love may be all about messy primitive hormones, urges and drives, assembled through evolutionary proceses that have been at work since our ancestors were nothing more than blue slime in a pond. All fine and good. Biut you'd be foolish not to fall in love just because that's what it is. Playing music: certainly powerfully connected to things that were in play before our ancestors were human. But that doesn't take away from the joy of surrendering oneself to the experience altogether.

The attributes of Nirvāna are eightfold. What are these eight? Cessation, loveliness, Truth, Reality, eternity, bliss , the Self, and complete purity: that is Nirvāna. -- Buddha.

For me, being in that perfect state of mind in which music happens seems to have a lot in common with the what Buddists describe as the state of Nirvana. Seriously.

[Jay Norem]

Post #49: Good one, Ed.

[cillit bang]

I do sometimes get a 'stoned' feeling listening to someone
painting a beautifull picture in the air.
Mainly it happens live in small acoustic gigs no PA ,
and this grin I can't suppress appears on my face .............
it a bit embarrasing but then nobodys looking anyway , so its cool

Re above , you could call it a blissed feeling
Jem:hail

[Phat Boi]

sometimes when I play I don't think about anything. Mostly when I'm playing blues. When I'm playing jazz I hafta think more. I'm trying to get to the point where I don't even think about it. Maybe that's what you are talking about.

[Alon Wolman]

sometimes when I play I don't think about anything. Mostly when I'm playing blues. When I'm playing jazz I hafta think more. I'm trying to get to the point where I don't even think about it. Maybe that's what you are talking about.

yea... after a while of playing I realized I was making less mistakes and sounding better when I wasn't forcing it, meaning that I wasn't fighting my fears and just going with it more. I started to enter a sort of "zen" state while playing and I realized my mind was clear and it is like a kind of meditation, and I begin to think that I am actually not playing at all, but rather watching myself play. So in the end I found stillness to be more valuable that activity in my playing overall. The less I worry and the more I just play the easier it is.

so anyway i started to thing maybe thats why Trane became quite religious, maybe he experienced the same thing when playing, I think he did talk about God and helping people with music and stuff like that. So maybe it is because playing is actually like prayer, or meditation?

[edrowland]

sometimes when I play I don't think about anything. Mostly when I'm playing blues. When I'm playing jazz I hafta think more. I'm trying to get to the point where I don't even think about it. Maybe that's what you are talking about.

Honestly, I find it's almost the opposite. It's complex or difficult tunes that tend to push me into the zen state. Almost like my conscious brain is pinned down with mechanics to the point that it frees my creative brain to take over and make the music happen.

I attended a workshop last month where one of the faculty suggested that people try mentally counting backwards from 99 while playing in order to free up their playing. The same principle, I think.

[JonR]

"Play like you don't know how to play the guitar."
Miles Davis to John McLaughlin, on the Silent Way session. (The next take was the good one.)

[EdByrne]

[QUOTE=edrowland;335556]Honestly, I find it's almost the opposite. It's complex or difficult tunes that tend to push me into the zen state. Almost like my conscious brain is pinned down with mechanics to the point that it frees my creative brain to take over and make the music happen.

I attended a workshop last month where one of the faculty suggested that people try mentally counting backwards from 99 while playing in order to free up their playing. The same principle, I think,QUOTE]

ed, you may be right about this, but isn't part of this issue about the fact that these "difficult tunes" usually explore more subtle--even psychologically complex--moods? I know that I went through a long period of performing such compositions as "Dolphin Dance," Nefertiti," "Goodbye Porkpie Hat," etc. for that reason--until I replaced them with my own--rather esoteric--tunes. Indeed, its the primary reason I write. It may be that you merely respond best to tunes that don't go to the usual mood places. Of course, not being able to use your most ordinary licks helps too, when their progressions or successions aren't cliches.

Whatever the reason, however, it's a good thing, so keep doin' what you're doin'! It's the Zen zone.

[cillit bang]

Honestly, I find it's almost the opposite. It's complex or difficult tunes that tend to push me into the zen state.

I'm quite jealous now ..............

Jem

[olddrum]

Max Roach said:

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those that matter don't mind!"

[Alon Wolman]

Max Roach said:

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those that matter don't mind!"

That's it!

[senorblues]

Playing music may lead to a more spirtual state. studying or reading complicated music can lead to a state I call emotional mumbojumboism. That is over analizing music instead of playing it.

[jav]

I lie somewhere between being a buddhist and an agnostic, so really appreciated comments from edrowland. I think you can at least be an agnostic and be spiritual. This whole area of spirituality vs. athiesm is a topic of much interest to me. It seems that the world is overrun by fundamentalists who have blurred the discussion significantly!

[jazzbluescat]

My own study of jazz improvisation leads me to do a lot of introspection, which is highly spiritual by nature.

[Jay Norem]

"Spiritual." It's only a word, one that can mean anything. There's nothing the least bit spiritual about using your mind to ponder and solve a problem, whether it's a musical one or one about repairing an engine.
There are no such things as spirits, storks don't deliver babies and guess what? A supreme diety who has provided us all with "souls" is just a made up bit of ancient rubbish and so is the rest of all that totally unnecessary bullshit that thrives under the oppressive and bloody shroud of "sprituality."

[papsrus]

I knew this thread didn't have a prayer ...

[papsrus]

... Just trying to get in the spirit of things ....













somebody stop me! :clown:

[edrowland]

There are no such things as spirits, storks don't deliver babies and guess what? A supreme diety who has provided us all with "souls" is just a made up bit of ancient rubbish and so is the rest of all that totally unnecessary bullshit that thrives under the oppressive and bloody shroud of "sprituality."

Of course, I agree absolutely. With the minor quibble that it is the shroud of "religiousity" that is unneccessary, oppressive and bloody.

But, despite that, there is still a vast swath of human experience which cannot -- at the present time -- be fully approached and understood via rational means. Religiosity, in the past, has attempted to coopt that domain. But if you abandon religious thinking, love (the experience of it, rather than the reason for it), beauty, creativity, morality, artistic experience, still remain as valid domains of human experience.

Spirituality is an unfortunate word, with an unfortunate heritage. But I can't think of a better one to describe the the frame of mind in which one approaches the world experientially, from the top down, rather than rationally, from the bottom up. "Mysterious": a bit generic. "Mystical": close, maybe even slightly better, because it doesn't have that annoying "spirit" word in it, but it still has odd associations and connotations. "Noumenal": too technical. For my purposes, I don't have trouble denying the existence of disembodied "sprits", while reclaiming the word "spirit" in order to refer to that that thing within me that experiences the world in first person (sometimes also referred to as "conscious mind").

I think this has particular value when playing jazz. Theory, and analysis does have value. But theory and analysis only goes so far. Ultimately, jazz happens in the moment. And the difference between the ordinary and the sublime is not determined by a formula. I'm sure there is beauty and elegance in the world of fixing engines. But even more so in the process of creating music. Music, and the process of creating it are only understood on the most superficial levels in rational terms.

I say: embrace the mystery; let the music come, rather than making it happen; seek the state of mind in which many play as one; play with integrity, and honesty, and intensity; impart your music with meaning; believe that what you play says something about who you are; and your music may be better for it. Maybe. I think rhere are many paths, and the path you choose determines, to a certain extent, the final result. But I think this is a good path.

[BarnPass]

"Spiritual." It's only a word, one that can mean anything. There's nothing the least bit spiritual about using your mind to ponder and solve a problem, whether it's a musical one or one about repairing an engine.
There are no such things as spirits, storks don't deliver babies and guess what? A supreme diety who has provided us all with "souls" is just a made up bit of ancient rubbish and so is the rest of all that totally unnecessary bullshit that thrives under the oppressive and bloody shroud of "sprituality."

So says you - you know the old adage : " opinions are like *a* holes, everybody has one..:)

[Phat Boi]

This thread has caused me to speak in tongues.

[Noj]

http://www.ljworld.com/billsnead/gallery/222_snakehandlers_dewey.jpg
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWW!

[Slant]

"Spiritual." It's only a word, one that can mean anything. There's nothing the least bit spiritual about using your mind to ponder and solve a problem, whether it's a musical one or one about repairing an engine.
There are no such things as spirits, storks don't deliver babies and guess what? A supreme diety who has provided us all with "souls" is just a made up bit of ancient rubbish and so is the rest of all that totally unnecessary bullshit that thrives under the oppressive and bloody shroud of "sprituality."

Right you are, Jay: "spirit" is just a word that can mean anything. It's universal in a catholic sort of way -- kind of like the air, you can't escape it, even jammed between the most dense of atoms. Strange, the history behind the word spirit, especially via the Latin. But what's even more stange is the fact that you can't see air, yet no one on earth would deny its existence. Rather, we live by it.

Regarding the "made up bit of ancient rubbish" you refer to, I would urge you to consider the old addage "ex nihilo nihil fit". It's a very simple premise, really, and quite older than good ol' Parmy, who it's usually attributed to.

[papsrus]

This thread has caused me to speak in tongues.

You're not the only one speaking in tongues.

[Slant]

But, despite that, there is still a vast swath of human experience which cannot -- at the present time -- be fully approached and understood via rational means. Religiosity, in the past, has attempted to coopt that domain.

Edrowland,

Are you under the impression that a "rational" explanation of a subject is something other than a circular argument? I'm talking about even the most acute scientific explanations here. Are they somehow exempt from the abyss of endless definition?

It's not clear what you mean by "religiosity", but, if you are referring to organized religion as a type, then I'd beg to differ with your statement that they have "attempted to coopt that domain". In fact, subscribing to the notion that IT can be called a "domain" in the first place is like getting sand thrown in your eyes. If most organized religious bodies have failed to interpret thier authoritative documents properly...well that's another story altogether, but shouldn't be a basis for tossing out your own ability to use YOUR rational faculty to make sense of the seemingly senseless.

[Jay Norem]

I would urge you to consider the old addage "ex nihilo nihil fit".

Well I um, er....what's it mean?

[papsrus]

Edrowland,

Are you under the impression that a "rational" explanation of a subject is something other than a circular argument? I'm talking about even the most acute scientific explanations here. Are they somehow exempt from the abyss of endless definition?

Here goes....

Science advances as follows: A hypothesis is proposed to explain a given set of observations. The hypothesis is then tested -- rigorously -- in order to discover the conditions under which it no longer holds. In other words, attempts are made to falsify (not prove) the hypothesis. What emerges from this process (which I believe you characterized as "the abyss of endless definition") is a new and improved hypothesis (otherwise known as a better, more complete understanding of our world).

This is how science advances. This is how knowledge advances. This is how we went from foraging the forest floor for nuts to flying to the moon. To reduce science (or rational explanations) to "the abyss of endless definition" ignores the entirety of scientific achievement and human advancement. ... A slight oversight.

Please note that science and religion use evidence in exactly the opposite way. In science, evidence is sought to "disprove" or "falsify" a hypothesis (thus pointing the way to a new, better hypothesis). In the case of religious beliefs, evidence is always used to try to "prove" or "support" a given theory or claim, not to try to disprove or falsify it. That's generally a no-no in religious teachings, and why they place great importance on "faith."

Anyways, science and religion (or spirituality) come at things from entirely different perspectives. To say that one offers a better explanation of our world than the other is pointless because they each look at the world from entirely different vantage points. This, btw, is the argument against teaching creationism in science classes. It's not that creationism is an idea unworthy of consideration. It's because it's not science. It can't be disproved. (or proved, for that matter). So teach it in a religious studies class and everyone's happy.

Peace

[Bev Stapleton]

But religion is not founded on evidence - it is founded on faith.

Similarly, the statement 'one of Coltrane's greatest qualities was his spiritual depth' is not a statement founded on evidence but on a faith that he accessed a place beyond scientific understanding.

I have no problem with anyone choosing to put their trust in faith; but they can't use a belief founded on faith as a trump card when debating with those who do not share that faith. To become a trump card the faith must be backed by conclusive evidence.

Which is why I don't care for statements like that about Coltrane's 'spiritual depth' - it presents a personal belief as an objective reality.

If you are going to evaluate a musician in a public forum then you need to work with comon criteria. Otherwise you are trying to evaluate using completely different languages.

I'd have thought that there's quite enough to chew on in Coltrane's musicality without having to deal with his spirituality, beyond the observation that he did have a spiritual faith and that a conviction (be it right or wrong)that there was something beyond clearly inspired his music.

[Slant]

Here goes....

Science advances as follows: A hypothesis is proposed to explain a given set of observations. The hypothesis is then tested -- rigorously -- in order to discover the conditions under which it no longer holds. In other words, attempts are made to falsify (not prove) the hypothesis. What emerges from this process (which I believe you characterized as "the abyss of endless definition") is a new and improved hypothesis (otherwise known as a better, more complete understanding of our world).

This is how science advances. This is how knowledge advances.

Ah, I think I see where the divergence between how you and I view things is coming from.

You would state that a hypothesis is tested in order that a "new and improved hypothesis" might be arrived at. Basically, until the "new and improved" is disproved or otherwise outmoded, it stands as a representative of our current understanding of the "world". Correct? And it stands to reason then that we currently "don't have a clue" as compared to what we might know in...say...150 years?

If I'm understanding you correctly, then you must think that those who came in eras before ours had a quite inferior understanding of the objective world, correct? After all, you did mention the whole forest vs. space travel thing... But at any rate, the intellect becomes more and more refined the more we observe, test, observe, test?

[Jay Norem]

Okay but it's the chicken or the egg deal. Which came first spirituality or religion? I would have to say religion, beginning with the first priest or witch-doctor or shaman of whatever. They were the ones who explained the universe to the tribe, and somehow came up with rituals the tribe could observe in order to be more succesful at survival.
I'm convinced that there is no such thing as spirituality except in the many ways people use that term to express something they feel inside themselves. I am either convinced of something or I'm not, and I arrive at being convinced by questioning and thinking. Being convinced doesn't mean that anything has been proved to me, it just means having arrived at a workable concept.
The one big thing I am convinced of is that our minds and how we apply them are who we are and largely what our universe is. And there just isn't any room in my mind for anything that doesn't have a practical application in my universe. This approach keeps my mind open to new possibilities of concepts that could apply, and thereby to continue to develop as a thinking human being.
Maybe humanity needed spirituality at some far-distant point in its history, but to me it's something that should have gone the way of the sacrificing of virgins.

[Noj]

Thoughts are our essence. Even if energy cannot be destroyed, it does not think without a living brain to conduct synapses. No living brain, no thoughts, no person. Souls, spirits, and the afterlife offer no hint of existing.

Years ago, a friend of mine was involved in a terrible accident with head injuries. His physical being survived, but he is mentally and physically handicapped now. Even though there is still a man with the same name, the person I used to know no longer exists, because his thoughts and memories no longer exist. Our beings, our thoughts, are fragile enough to cease existing even if our hearts keep beating.

[papsrus]

But religion is not founded on evidence - it is founded on faith.

Yes, exactly. But often when one gets into a discussion about faith, people who are believers will begin to point to evidence, usually historical in nature (and usually quite shaky evidence at that), that they tout as a factual basis for their beliefs. They usually completely ignore contrary evidence, of course, and do so because it's evidence that doesn't support their beliefs. It doesn't support what they already believe.

This process of relying on evidence to support your beliefs is fine, but in the end it ain't all that reliable as a method for rational thought. Simply put, there's no way to empirically test your spiritual beliefs.

Of course, I could be proven wrong tomorrow. :light:

[papsrus]

Ah, I think I see where the divergence between how you and I view things is coming from.

You would state that a hypothesis is tested in order that a "new and improved hypothesis" might be arrived at. Basically, until the "new and improved" is disproved or otherwise outmoded, it stands as a representative of our current understanding of the "world". Correct? And it stands to reason then that we currently "don't have a clue" as compared to what we might know in...say...150 years?

If I'm understanding you correctly, then you must think that those who came in eras before ours had a quite inferior understanding of the objective world, correct? After all, you did mention the whole forest vs. space travel thing... But at any rate, the intellect becomes more and more refined the more we observe, test, observe, test?

Yes. Of course, there are scientific explanations that stand the test of time. We used to think the world was flat. We now know it is not. It's likely this explanation will not be disproved. We used to think the Sun revolved around the Earth. We now understand it's the other way around. This too is not likely to be disproven. So certain "facts" emerge and we begin to understand things more completely.

So we do "have a clue." We are simply refining our clues as best we can.

[Bev Stapleton]

Yes, exactly. But often when one gets into a discussion about faith, people who are believers will begin to point to evidence, usually historical in nature (and usually quite shaky evidence at that), that they tout as a factual basis for their beliefs. They usually completely ignore contrary evidence, of course, and do so because it's evidence that doesn't support their beliefs. It doesn't support what they already believe.

This process of relying on evidence to support your beliefs is fine, but in the end it ain't all that reliable as a method for rational thought. Simply put, there's no way to empirically test your spiritual beliefs.

Of course, I could be proven wrong tomorrow. :light:

I quite agree. Much of the supposed 'evidence' for the divinity of various religious leaders is flimsy in the extreme.

Now that is equally true of historical evidence for early times and some pretty mighty deductions are built on precious little substance (the dinosaurs, life in Mesolitic Europe etc).

But historians are trained to reevaluate their conclusions in the light of fresh evidence (something they too find hard if they have built a career on a particular hypothesis); I don't see too many of those seeking the historical evidence for supposedly divine beings giving up their hypothesis when the evidence doesn't fit.

It's made to fit.

[Bev Stapleton]

I'd argue also that we today have a far greater objective understanding of the world than those in the past. The sum of knowledge can fluctuate over time - there was a huge loss in the European world post 400AD - but we seem to be streets ahead of any previous era.

All this Dan Brownian ideas of the secrets of the ancients makes for great potboilers but doesn't stand up to much investigation. There's an almost romantic desire to believe that somewhere there exists a body of knowledge and understanding that has been lost and that we can find again. Thus those endless pseudo-historical best-sellers that create fantasies from flimsy evidence. I'm old enough to recall Eric von Daniken's books claiming that the earth was settled by people from other planets!

However, possessing superior knowledge and scientific understnding might give you the tools but it doesn't give you moral superiority. You only have to think of some of the uses science was put to in the 20thC to realise that, morally, we have no reason to feel superior to our ancestors.

[papsrus]

I quite agree. Much of the supposed 'evidence' for the divinity of various religious leaders is flimsy in the extreme.

Now that is equally true of historical evidence for early times and some pretty mighty deductions are built on precious little substance (the dinosaurs, life in Mesolitic Europe etc).

But historians are trained to reevaluate their conclusions in the light of fresh evidence (something they too find hard if they have built a career on a particular hypothesis); I don't see too many of those seeking the historical evidence for supposedly divine beings giving up their hypothesis when the evidence doesn't fit.

It's made to fit.

Bev, are you familiar with Sir Karl Popper, a brilliant mind at the London School of Economics. (Died in 1994).

He has written extensively about scientific theory. Fascinating stuff. He also had a good deal to say about political science, the failure of Marxism and psychoanalysis. He was a brilliant man who was able to put things in terms that the layman could understand.

[Bev Stapleton]

Bev, are you familiar with Sir Karl Popper, a brilliant mind at the London School of Economics. (Died in 1994).

He has written extensively about scientific theory. Fascinating stuff. He also had a good deal to say about political science, the failure of Marxism and psychoanalysis. He was a brilliant man who was able to put things in terms that the layman could understand.

I know the name but not his writing.

I'm currently half way through Richard Dawkins 'The God Delusion', which just confirms my prejudices. A bit overlong and laying on his arguments with a thick trowel.

[papsrus]

I know the name but not his writing.

I'm currently half way through Richard Dawkins 'The God Delusion', which just confirms my prejudices. A bit overlong and laying on his arguments with a thick trowel.

I would recommend to anyone who is interested any of the following books by Popper. The first two are more political in nature, and well worth reading given the current political climate. The second two speak to the nature and limits of science and the scientific method. This guy was truly one of the great minds of the last century.


* The Poverty of Historicism, 1936
* The Open Society and Its Enemies, 1945


* Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, 1963
* Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, 1972

It's been a long while since I've read these myself. So I'll take my own advice. :)

[Jay Norem]

I'm sure there is beauty and elegance in the world of fixing engines. But even more so in the process of creating music.

Any constructive, non-toxic thing that one does though practice, skill, and self-seeking enjoyment can have have beauty and elegance in it. The beauty and elegance are human, and are not restricted to any one type of task or endeavor. There is nothing more beautiful and elegant than a human being enjoying his work for his own sake.

[Slant]

Simply put, there's no way to empirically test your spiritual beliefs.

You are quite right that a "spirit" will never be seen under a microscope. However, from a macroscopic point of view, the spirit of this statement is seriously flawed. Are you saying this becuase you know it to be fact, or are you saying it because you have heard other people tell you this? For instance, I beleive in sound. Have I ever seen it? Nope. Air? Same deal. In fact, there's a whole slew of goodies that are not known in a physical way (I mean beyond air, sound, etc.), and everyone, everyday, takes them as given. These are normal rational people, mind you.

We used to think the world was flat. We now know it is not.

You know, I've searched for proof of this "theory" and have always come up flat. Here's the deal: if you are at sea and moving away from an object, that object will slowly dissapear below the horizon. Why? Arc. Are we to swallow the childish notion that our ancestors had no idea of this fact, or couldn't otherwise explain it? I feel confident that there is no way to empirically test the idea that we think we know what people in that past did or did not know. I also feel confident that people back in the day could imagine the world as flat and would have gotten a big laugh of it. I mean, just think of it from a perspective point of view (no pun intended)!

But this is beside the point. The point is that objects and their respective names are not as science currently understands them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking modern investigations at all. I'm just saying that there are 2 sides to every story, and today we have a major lack in 1 of the 2.

[papsrus]

You are quite right that a "spirit" will never be seen under a microscope. However, from a macroscopic point of view, the spirit of this statement is seriously flawed. Are you saying this becuase you know it to be fact, or are you saying it because you have heard other people tell you this? For instance, I beleive in sound. Have I ever seen it? Nope. Air? Same deal. In fact, there's a whole slew of goodies that are not known in a physical way (I mean beyond air, sound, etc.), and everyone, everyday, takes them as given. These are normal rational people, mind you.



You know, I've searched for proof of this "theory" and have always come up flat. Here's the deal: if you are at sea and moving away from an object, that object will slowly dissapear below the horizon. Why? Arc. Are we to swallow the childish notion that our ancestors had no idea of this fact, or couldn't otherwise explain it? I feel confident that there is no way to empirically test the idea that we think we know what people in that past did or did not know. I also feel confident that people back in the day could imagine the world as flat and would have gotten a big laugh of it. I mean, just think of it from a perspective point of view (no pun intended)!

But this is beside the point. The point is that objects and their respective names are not as science currently understands them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking modern investigations at all. I'm just saying that there are 2 sides to every story, and today we have a major lack in 1 of the 2.

Ooooooo-K.

Just as a bit of house cleaning: I believe sound waves are measurable, as is the atmosphere. Neither requires blind faith, so to speak, to understand that they exist or to know their properties. ... Anyhoo. ... carry on.

[Bill Robinson]

(1) I think spirit preceded religion. It's each person's birthright; then came religion. You almost have to think of it this way in order to be tolerant of other religions. (2) Religion should make the person a better person and Enhance their spirituality; It should promote life & love; if it doesn't, it's useless or harmful to others. (3) Sometimes religions deal with what happens to us after we die; I consider this unknowable and therefore irrelevant. (4) Religions that base everything on the written word are missing the point if they don't deal with real human issues. Scriptures have been used to justify various forms of oppression of other humans. (5) If the Buddha gets in the way of your enlightenment, then kill the Buddha. (6) We know the wind exists, not because it is visible, but because we can see its effects (grass waving) or feel it on our skin. Like moiré patterns, what if the mind is a pattern that seems to exist, but at its component core is nothing? Does the "spirit" exist apart from this?

[Jay Norem]

(1) I think spirit preceded religion. It's each person's birthright; then came religion. You almost have to think of it this way in order to be tolerant of other religions. (2) Religion should make the person a better person and Enhance their spirituality; It should promote life & love; if it doesn't, it's useless or harmful to others. (3) Sometimes religions deal with what happens to us after we die; I consider this unknowable and therefore irrelevant. (4) Religions that base everything on the written word are missing the point if they don't deal with real human issues. Scriptures have been used to justify various forms of oppression of other humans. (5) If the Buddha gets in the way of your enlightenment, then kill the Buddha. (6) We know the wind exists, not because it is visible, but because we can see its effects (grass waving) or feel it on our skin. Like moiré patterns, what if the mind is a pattern that seems to exist, but at its component core is nothing? Does the "spirit" exist apart from this?

Quick answer: No, the "spirit" does not exist apart from that or anything else, for the simple reason that "spirit" does not exist. It's a made up idea that goes way back to when people were really stupid.

[Slant]

(1) I think spirit preceded religion. It's each person's birthright; then came religion. You almost have to think of it this way in order to be tolerant of other religions. (2) Religion should make the person a better person and Enhance their spirituality; It should promote life & love; if it doesn't, it's useless or harmful to others. (3) Sometimes religions deal with what happens to us after we die; I consider this unknowable and therefore irrelevant. (4) Religions that base everything on the written word are missing the point if they don't deal with real human issues. Scriptures have been used to justify various forms of oppression of other humans. (5) If the Buddha gets in the way of your enlightenment, then kill the Buddha. (6) We know the wind exists, not because it is visible, but because we can see its effects (grass waving) or feel it on our skin. Like moiré patterns, what if the mind is a pattern that seems to exist, but at its component core is nothing? Does the "spirit" exist apart from this?

Bill,

This thread is obviously growing old. I wanted not to return to it, but this post is very astute. You have obviously given this subject more thought than the average cat. Your statement at no. 3 reveals that you consider things to be "knowable" only when they are finite and have definite quality. Is that correct? If so, I would offer that there is another consideration of things to be had that is not part of the finite, but it is nevertheless "knowable". This "side of things" is served by that part of you known as Intuition. This is to be distinguished (for conversation's sake) with Intellect, but really they are two sides of the same coin. Unfortunately in this day and age we all hail Intellect and squash the very spirit of Intuition. But...we know that it's there, especially in the moments when we are alone and something is troubling us. Few people, I have observed, take the time to develop both sides of their character.

Your wonderful statement at no. 6 skirts the very foundation of this entire thread. By intellectual means we know only effects! Causes are put to the back burner, quite simply because they will never be known by intellect alone, and therefore we are unable to represent them nicely on our little charts and graphs. We, of course, have names for what we like to think are "causes": gravity, electricity, heat, energy, etc., etc., but ultimately we know not what these things are in themselves. We know what they do and how they function under normal circumstances, and we can (thank the spirit) use them to our advantage, but in reality we know nothing of the essence. An old Greek philosopher said to his pupil: A thing moved needs a mover, does it not?

I am quite surprised to find that many musicians around here seem to consider themselves atheists. Music, by its very nature, is an intuitive art form. Most of us even talk a big game about being able to "feel" the vibe when we're jamming at the club. I guess many still cling to the idea that a spirit is some sort of anthropomorphic form that haunts the attic at night. Worse still, we ascribe our meager notion of it to people that have come before us. Too bad.

[Bill Robinson]

Slant; I'm glad you're on this wavelength. I am reminded of the Sonny Boy Williamson tune "The Unseen Eye". I know there is a non-cognitive 'intuition' as you call it; whether or not it exists apart from this mortal coil is something I am wrestling with. I heard Melssa Etheridge say that she became aware of her 'spirit' while undergoing chemotherapy, and that as her physical being withered, this observer part of her remained untouched and constant. Whether or not it would still exist if death came is something we will never know. I wonder if this essense is physical in any way, like magnetic, or if it is completely ethereal. William Burroughs had an interesting idea that the soul was magnetic, and that when we dropped the bomb, the large magnetic pulse released caused "absolute soul death", in which the victims had no hope for any sort of re-incarnation or afterlife, because the pulse caused total death. He has some other creepy ideas concerning Egyptian beliefs, talked about in Bill Laswell & Material's "Seven Souls". Even Frank Zappa, hard-core rationalist that he was, speculated about this whole subject when faced with his own mortality. It may take something like that to shake Jay Norem up. I don't think any of this qualifies me as a 'deist', but look around you: it appears that the 'spirit' can be killed or covered up, thus proving in my mind that there is something there. 'Back when people were really stupid' implies that we have somehow evolved; yet sane, rational men invented the hydrogen bomb, and now we can completely destroy the world. How is that progress? Is it possible that we, in this modern age, have lost touch with our 'spirit' , and are automatons bent on our own destruction?

[papsrus]

(1) I think spirit preceded religion. It's each person's birthright; then came religion. You almost have to think of it this way in order to be tolerant of other religions. (2) Religion should make the person a better person and Enhance their spirituality; It should promote life & love; if it doesn't, it's useless or harmful to others. (3) Sometimes religions deal with what happens to us after we die; I consider this unknowable and therefore irrelevant. (4) Religions that base everything on the written word are missing the point if they don't deal with real human issues. Scriptures have been used to justify various forms of oppression of other humans. (5) If the Buddha gets in the way of your enlightenment, then kill the Buddha. (6) We know the wind exists, not because it is visible, but because we can see its effects (grass waving) or feel it on our skin. Like moiré patterns, what if the mind is a pattern that seems to exist, but at its component core is nothing? Does the "spirit" exist apart from this?

Interesting post. Can't say I disagree with too much that you've stated, most of which seems to address the shortcomings of organized religions in defining or nurturing spirituality.

Here's a question: Can an atheist be moral? Can an atheist know right from wrong? And if he or she can know right from wrong, and can live a moral life, of what use is spirituality in this regard?

To your point No. 6 -- It depends on what you define as the mind's "component core." Clearly, the mind exists. Whether or not we understand it's "component core" is another question.

[Bill Robinson]

I think that Man knew it was wrong to kill before the commandment was issued to Moses, but making this a 'scriptural proof' has its problems. The justification for Hiroshima was that in the long run, it saved more lives on both sides than it took, which is a variation of the 'self-defense' scenario. If a murderer broke in and was going to kill your whole family, I'm sure many Christians would agree that to kill in this circumstance is justified, but still a sin. Many scriptures, such as Leviticus, are quoted as proof that 'to lay with another man' is sinful, to justify the denigration of gays; what they fail to mention is context. The Levite jews were being assimilated by the Babylonians, and to retain their cultural identity, had various laws pertaining to beard trimming, diet, etc; elsewhere it says that on the sabbath, no campfires are to be lit, and no pork products can be touched. This could easily be interpreted to mean that you can't barbeque (fire) on Sunday, or watch football (pigskin). I think morals are independent entities, and are not necessarily tied to religion. Salman Rushdie is a good, moral atheist, and look at the death threats he received. I don't claim to be an Atheist; I do not deny and cannot prove or disprove the existence of God. I don't think spirituality is tied to morality, either. Spirituality to me means the best you can be, with a reserve other than pure mind or cognition. I get a very spiritual feeling when I hear Bach's organ music, and that has nothing to do with its association with Christianity; it's just something that came thru the music from him. At the same time, I'm not going to deny Bach's Christianity or ignore it or say it can't be taken into consideration; art must be understood in its context. As with the earlier Coltrane post, I get the same spiritual thing from his later work, and I think Coltrane was 'spiritual', but I'm not going to deny that or ignore it. Many great works of art came out of religions and spirituality; let's forget the Spanish Inquisition for now. I have addressed shortcomings of religion because most of us seem to be intimidated by it. It should be there to enhance our lives, not make us submit. This is my opinion. We will submit to our 'higher selves' when that is uncovered. As Jung said, "I would rather be whole than good." Now: "Clearly, the mind exists." Hmmm...you've never questioned this? Where is this mind? Can you show me? This "mind" seems just as insubstantial to me as "spirit" does to Jay Norem. Minds can be re-progammed, molded, what about amnesia? Is the mind physical, just a cluster of brain cells like the other poster said whose friend was injured? Are you talking about your brain? When you go to sleep and don't dream, where did this mind go?

[papsrus]

^ I was referring to the brain and the cognitive activities that take place there.

[Bill Robinson]

A white rat learns to run a maze, a quite complex one, in order to get his reward. The rat has a mind, apparently. He's going through all kinds of cognitive processes. His little brain is an amazing computer filled with all sorts of associations, triggers, stimuli, learned behaviour...so is this the mind? What does the rat do with his mind, what is its purpose? It's a survival tool, obviously. I'm saying that what we call 'mind' is a complex set of behaviours and responses. This is what it looks like Noj and Jay Norem are saying. Is this all we are? Just a sophisticated, more highly complex white rat? I'd like to think that we can tap in to something more, in this life, right now. Spirituality is now, to me. I'm not talking about after you die. I'm not talking about religion, either. And there are better examples of humanity expressing a spiritual sense than the snake handlers pictured earlier. Their beliefs are derived from a literal reading of the Bible. This snake handling and tongues has to do with the trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; supposedly, although an enigma & paradox, these are all the same. This 'Holy Spirit' can be manifest by tongues, according to Jehova's Witnesses. It seems to have an exhibitionist and dramatic component, which some may feel is necessary; maybe it's a cathartic experience. David Byrne was fascinated by this phenomenon, and used it artistically. Are these sorts of things like self-flagellation really necessary? To each his own. I want to express this sense artistically, myself. I like what Jay said, that there is nothing more satisfying than watching a person at work, doing what they love to do. This reveals a faith in humanity, that humanity is inherently good. The "original sin" concept, and the expulsion from the garden paints humanity in a bad light from the start. It's like, we are both good and evil, why put us down for what we are? The whole point of "A Clockwork Orange" was that Humanity was 'given' free will by the Creator, if you want to couch it in religious terms; and when that choice is taken away, as it was conditioned out of Alex, we become degraded and lose our dignity. Remember the topless girl walking towards Alex, and he reaches up to touch her and is reduced to a retching, quivering mass, by his experimental "conditioning". There is some bad psychology inherent in religion, for sure. Being spiritual, to me, means having healthy vitality, and positive love, and it's here and now. Looking around at the events going on, I wonder if L. Ron Hubbard is right; people's spirits have been hijacked by aliens from another galaxy. Now that's a "jazz religion" isn't it, with Chick Corea and all.

[Alexander]

Interesting post. Can't say I disagree with too much that you've stated, most of which seems to address the shortcomings of organized religions in defining or nurturing spirituality.

Here's a question: Can an atheist be moral? Can an atheist know right from wrong? And if he or she can know right from wrong, and can live a moral life, of what use is spirituality in this regard?



Atheists are not a group, and so it is not possible to generalize about them (us, seeing as I'm one of them). The only thing that all atheists have in common is the fact that we do not believe in any gods. Otherwise, we are as diverse a group as any. We have all sorts of political convictions (I'm a socialist, but I know many atheists who would make William F. Buckley look like a pinko) and diverse personal values. So you can't say, "All atheists are moral" or "all atheists are immoral." Some of us are very moral (I actually pefer the term "ethical"), while others are very immoral. For myself, I am a very ethical person. I take great pains to be honest in my dealings with others (although I also subscribe to the "House Doctrine" that "everybody lies," myself included) and I try my very hardest to be kind.

Recently, for example, I used a drive-through at a fast food place and didn't get my debit card back. I didn't notice until I looked for it the next day while grocery shopping. When I retraced my steps, I realized what must have happened. I called the restaurant, and learned that they had kept the card in their safe (I've worked in retail, so I know that this is SOP). Now, remember, it was the drive-through clerk to forgot to give me the card back, and all they did was follow proceedure and keep it until I called. But I was grateful for their efforts, so on my way to pick it (the card) up, I bought a package of chocolates and gave it to the clerk who gave me my card back, urging her to share it with the entire staff. As I walked out the door, I heard her say to one of her co-workers, "What a nice guy!" I'm sure she would have been surprised to learn that the same man who made this unselfish gesture is also an atheist.

I don't think that spirituality has anything to do with morals or ethics. It has everything to do with maintaining a healthy society. It is in the best interests of the whole group (which can refer to a family, a workplace, a neighborhood, a city, a country, or the whole of humanity) that we (as individuals) are honest, that we do not kill one another or steal form one another, that we drive (somewhere near) the speed limit, and that we don't act on our basest insticts in general. This benefits us each as individuals, so you can argue that by acting ethically, we actually act out of an enlightened self interest. I don't want to have to fight my way through marauding hoards on my way home from work each night, so I'd better do my part to make sure that said hoards do not exist. For most of us, this is simply a part of the socialization process as we grow up. When we're young, we are incapable of seeing other people's well-being as being connected with our own. Look at a bunch of small children standing in line. You see a lot of cutting, people jockying for position, and arguments about who's first and who's last. As we grow up, we come to realize that standing quietly and waiting our turn makes for a less stressful experience while waiting in line. The desire to have a less stressful experience comes first. The realization that our own behavior can effect the behavior of others comes later. The idea that "good things come to those who wait" or that "the last shall be first" comes only after the desire for a more orderly society has been thoroughly ingrained in our social conciousness. Before long, this becomes "the Golden Rule," and people start to think that the only reason that people are nice to each other is because God to them to do so. They mistake the effect for the cause.

John Donne (one of my favorite poets, and a man of god) said it best: "Every man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind." Ethical behavior is a two way street: I act for the good of the society because it is in my self interest to do so. Society, in turn, takes care of me though things like fire departments and police departments. Such behavior isn't limited to humans, btw. Many animals (bees and ants, for example) help one another, and through their actions create an orderly and effective colony, which in turn cares for the individual insect. It's only our big human brains that make us think that we are special and that an invisible man who lives in the sky cares enough about us that he wrote down some special rules just for us.

Incidentally, despite some claims, the Ten Commandments are not the basis for Western Law. About half of the Commandments (the common-sense ones like killing, stealing, etc.) date back to Sumeria and the law of Ur-Nammu (not to mention the code of Hammurabi, who most historians acknowledge as the model for Moses, and the code of the Nesilim). The rest (the ones about graven images, having no other gods, etc) are effectively useless as laws (we certainly don't follow most of them. Or do you observe the rule about not drawing pictures of fish?) and really only existed to keep early Hebrews under Theocratic rule.

We have laws because we are social animals, not because god said so.

[papsrus]

^ So, if I read you right, you're saying that ethical behavior is a learned behavior. And it is similar, though more advanced, to the white rat's behavior described in the above post. ... I would agree with this.

We are taught to behave certain ways because, as you said, it is to our mutual benefit.

[Bev Stapleton]

The issue I have with spiritual is that it is a word that once had a specific meaning - pertaining to the spirit, something beyond the measureable, material body - and is now used by different people to mean different things. You can see that on this thread alone.

Yet how can 'John Coltrane was deeply spiritual' have any real meaning when everyone is telling us what they have decided what spiritual means?

I accept there are a zillion thing in the universe that we do not understand. I'd agree that the mystery of our responses in those zones of incomprehension can often be some of our most powerful experiences.

But I'm far from convinced that those experiences take place in a separate, supra-bodily place requiring the use of such a religiously loaded term as spiritual.

Through the ages all sorts of mind-altering substances have been celebrated for their powers to help us to a 'spiritual state'; it's not hard to measure how that illusion is all down to chemicals.

In the end it boils down to the fact that some need there to be something supra-material to explain life's mysteries and to maintain them; others are content that those mysteries are just the places science has yet to (and may never) reach.

If you fall in the latter group phrases like 'John Coltrane was a spiritual person' just sound like hokum. 'John Coltrane believed in a world beyond the material and his music was partially driven by a desire to understand and experience it'...that I can live with. Acknowledges the unproven nature of this spirituality and the fact that its existence is not something commonly accepted, therefore not an effective means of evaluating a musician's importance.

We can all admire Coltrane's passion, musicality, innovation etc because we share common language in those areas; but when reviews or articles make a fuss about his spirituality we're dealing with a classic weasel-word.

[edrowland]

The issue I have with spiritual is that it is a word that once had a specific meaning - pertaining to the spirit, something beyond the measureable, material body - and is now used by different people to mean different things. You can see that on this thread alone.

Humpty Dumpty: When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.

Alice: The question is, whether you can make words mean so many different things.

Humpty Dumpty: The question is: which is to be master - that's all.


Yes, it's a religiously loaded word. But what would you use instead? What *is* the word for that part of mind formerly known as spirit, that thing that doesn't neccesarily survive the death of the body, but is otherwise pretty much indistinguishable from spirit in the regliously loaded sense of the word? When you subtract all the religous nonsense, that cluster of feelings, and behaviour arranged around the word "spiritual" still survives, and has meaning and value even in a godless world. What do you call it? What is the word for embracing that glorious complex of hormones, and instinct, and hardwired behaviour that's left over when rational intellect is excluded?

In my personal experience, there is a glorious state of hormonal, hard-wired bliss that comes about from doing all the things that the people formerly known as spiritual did (excluding, only, the parts about having to believe in irrational things).

"Mindful" just doesn't cut it (and entirely misses the intended meaning, anyway).

[Bill Robinson]

If 'spiritual' meant beyond, immaterial, then the newer sense in which I used it still does, as 'beyond cognitive', but I can't fully explain it, except to say that when I get this sense, it's of being part of something which is beyond the boundary of my individual 'ego' or self-image, and as a consequence, a feeling of 'connectedness' with the rest of the world. This is what happens before religious dogma, and I feel it's my birthright. It can be taken away, or covered up, or transformed into dogma, or scared out of a person, so I feel a need to recognize it as something unto itself. I don't know what the part about mind-altering substances was in reference to — I never read a Coltrane biography, so I don't know if he had become Muslim or had taken psychedelics, or was Hindu with Alice Coltrane or what...but it's there, and by the titles of the albums & tunes (A Love Supreme, Ascension, Stellar Regions, Seraphic Light, Crescent, the cover of 'Stellar Regions' in which Coltane is gazing upward into a light source, Alice Coltrane's albums, etc.) he obviously was trying to convey this. (I don't know who said he was 'deeply spiritual', I said simply 'spiritual'.) I like to keep my politics separate from religion or anything that smells like it, but the arts are not subject to that. In jazz, especially the late 60's, all sorts of transformations were going on, with Malcolm X, and other currents, that to ignore these sorts of things seems disingenuous. • As a closer, the newest physics string theories are now talking about 'hidden dimensions' that are just beyond our perception; and when you think about black holes and the like, this 'everything is physical' defense is beginning to look holier and holier(pun).

[Vic J]

I don't know if studying music leads to religious thoughts and feelings, spirituality etc. It is probably the other way around.

[Slant]

Atheists are not a group, and so it is not possible to generalize about them (us, seeing as I'm one of them). The only thing that all atheists have in common is the fact that we do not believe in any gods. Otherwise, we are as diverse a group as any. We have all sorts of political convictions (I'm a socialist, but I know many atheists who would make William F. Buckley look like a pinko) and diverse personal values. So you can't say, "All atheists are moral" or "all atheists are immoral."

It is likewise a mistake to assume that all Christians or Muslims or Jews or Hindus or Buddhists or Taoists (or etc, etc, etc) are an allied "group" within their respective subscriptions. Edrowland's positing of the Humpty Dumpty lines are right on the mark here. When a person says that s/he is a certain this or that, you immediately have the issue of interpretation on your hands. The same goes for the term "spirit", or ANY other term for that matter. One person understands it this way, while the next understands it that way. This lexical fact is where the doctrine of Tolerance finds its origin. For instance, take Alexander's caricature where he painted god(s) as "an invisible man who lives in the sky". Clearly this displays that his understanding of things spiritual is rudimentary at best, and indicates that he may not be able to separate outward displays from underlying principles. I am forced to conclude that I'm unable to communicate with him on any semblance of a rational level if this indeed represents his true understanding (no offense, Alexander, but we simply have completely different viewpoints).

[Slant]

The issue I have with spiritual is that it is a word that once had a specific meaning - pertaining to the spirit, something beyond the measureable, material body - and is now used by different people to mean different things. You can see that on this thread alone.

Bev,

Are you under the impression that there is an authoritative, definitive meaning for any term?

[engelbach]

For instance, take Alexander's caricature where he painted god(s) as "an invisible man who lives in the sky". Clearly this displays that his understanding of things spiritual is rudimentary at best, and indicates that he may not be able to separate outward displays from underlying principles.

Whew, that's a harsh and narrow interpretation of what Alexander obviously meant as a touchstone in making his point about supernatural beliefs in general.

It's irrelevant to atheists whether belief in the immaterial is confined to a literal "god in the sky" or some other wider supernatural power ("May The Force be with you"). All such beliefs are unfalsifiable, i.e., untestable, and thus have no value to an atheist in studying the nature of physical reality.

In Alexander's posts I see strongly held opinions (with which I largely agree), but no misinterpretation of what you call "things spiritual."

And I see no basis at all for concluding that he is not "able to separate outward displays from underlying principles." If you hold this to be true for him, you must hold it to be true for science.

[engelbach]

The only thing that all atheists have in common is the fact that we do not believe in any gods. Otherwise, we are as diverse a group as any. We have all sorts of political convictions (I'm a socialist, but I know many atheists who would make William F. Buckley look like a pinko) and diverse personal values.

Greetings, Brother (Comrade?).

And I thought I was the last surviving socialist here.

Well, we've outed ourselves now.

YFTR,
Jer

[papsrus]

Bev,

Are you under the impression that there is an authoritative, definitive meaning for any term?

I'm reminded of the infamous phrase: "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is." :gavel:

But, we can always consult the dictionary. Without generally accepted meanings, we wouldn't be able to communicate. ... I think. :wink2:

Of course, language, like anything else, evolves over time to reflect our constantly changing (evolving) world and our understanding of it.

[Bill Robinson]

Can we clarify what is meant by 'atheist' and 'agnostic'? It seems to my understanding of the terms that an agnostic, which I am closer to being, is saying that the existence of God cannot be proven or disproven, and an atheist is more actively denying the existence. Enlighten me. I can respect the Jewish concept that any conception or image of God is presumptuous; also, I find the the concept of the 'Golem' to be interesting; to me meaning a functioning entity, like an automaton, which goes beyond control. This brings to mind the idea of 'memes', as discussed in the history book "The Lucifer Principle" and the other book on Memes. These are concepts that take on a life of their own, so to speak, and is very relevant to the discussion of religion.

[Bev Stapleton]

Bev,

Are you under the impression that there is an authoritative, definitive meaning for any term?

Oh, I think we can share meaning on many things...although you can go to the post-modern extreme of denying all objective meaning.

It is possible to commonly agree on the elements that, say, Charlie Christian added to jazz. It gets much harder to explain why his music affects us emotionally.

But to make the leap from 'I don't understand why I'm so moved by Christian' to 'It must be because he touches a spiritual element' is one big leap. I'd go for 'It must be because science has as yet to uncover how our brain produces these ecstatic states when faced with music in certain circumstances.' Just as science has yet to reveal black holes or 'hidden dimensions'.

I might be wrong; a separate 'spiritual state' may well exist. But this has always been conjecture, supposition. I need it proven before I can give it credence.

In earlier times people sought medical cures through spiritual healing. A much smaller number of people would trust themselves to that line of curing today. Those who do pray, go to Lourdes etc base that decision on faith, not on proof. Again, speculation. And whether you accept that speculation depends on your own needs with regard to the existence of another world or state.

I have this discussion frequently with my sister - she is religious and talks about the spiritual dimension as being something she needs to make sense of the world. I need a 100% rationality.

When something is proven, then it can become a working criteria for common assessment.

[Bev Stapleton]

Can we clarify what is meant by 'atheist' and 'agnostic'? It seems to my understanding of the terms that an agnostic, which I am closer to being, is saying that the existence of God cannot be proven or disproven, and an atheist is more actively denying the existence.

That is how I understand the words:

Agnostic = doubts, is unsure, but does not rule out the possibility.

Atheist = completely convinced of the non-existence of God or a non-material world.

[Bev Stapleton]

What *is* the word for that part of mind formerly known as spirit, that thing that doesn't neccesarily survive the death of the body, but is otherwise pretty much indistinguishable from spirit in the regliously loaded sense of the word? When you subtract all the religous nonsense, that cluster of feelings, and behaviour arranged around the word "spiritual" still survives, and has meaning and value even in a godless world. What do you call it? What is the word for embracing that glorious complex of hormones, and instinct, and hardwired behaviour that's left over when rational intellect is excluded?

How about the illusory state?

A state where our brain's rationality breaks down for all sorts of reasons, creating sensations and reations outside of normal everyday life.

Quite useless practically, possible quite dangerous in deluding us; though equally possibly, highly beneficial in allowing us time out from the everyday world.

Certainly deeply pleasurable.

[Slant]

Can we clarify what is meant by 'atheist' and 'agnostic'?

a = not

gnostic = Gk. word gnosis = knowledge, therefore a-gnostic = (literally) "not knowing"

theist = Gk. word theos = God, therefore a-theist = (literally) "not-God-ist"

[engelbach]

I thought religion and politics were, as is the case on many other forums, no-nos on this one. Oh, well. No offense is meant herewith to anyone's personal beliefs. Some of my best friends are … and so forth.

While "atheist" literally means "godless," it in in effect a subset of "skeptic": if it can't be proven that something is so, there's no reason to believe that it is so.

Whereas "agnostic" — from, literally, "unknown" or "unknowable" — is to me one who hedges his bets; i.e., "Ultimate reality is unknown and will probably never be known."

Science maintains that while not everything might ever be known, nothing is unknowable as such.

Science is not agnostic. It doesn't say, "Since our knowledge is constantly changing, there is no point in accepting anything as established fact."

On the contrary, science does say, "We accept as established fact that which we have proved to the best of our ability; but we will continue trying to falsify that proof, and if we do so, we will change what we accept as established fact to fit the new proof."

Religion, of course, has, at least in its professed doctrines, no flexibility whatsoever.

A true atheist/skeptic is akin to a scientist. He accepts as fact that which has been proved and rejects that which has not. That does not mean that he is not willing to accept new ideas based on new proofs.

An agnostic, on the other hand, sits on the fence. He leaves himself open to any crackpot idea that comes along. "I dunno. Who knows? Anything is possible." It's an unstable position, of no value to science and technology — based on what we accept as fact — not to mention driving a car and tying a shoelace.

[papsrus]

I thought religion and politics were, as is the case on many other forums, no-nos on this one. Oh, well. No offense is meant herewith to anyone's personal beliefs. Some of my best friends are … and so forth.

There are some foot-stomping political discussions in the Current Events area from time to time. While it's also my understanding that discussions of religion are frowned upon here, I think what we're talking about here is "spirituality" in a much broader, sort of humanistic sense. And, frankly, aside from the odd smart-ass remark (I'm guilty) it's been pretty civil and interesting.

Science maintains that while not everything might ever be known, nothing is unknowable as such.

Science is not agnostic. It doesn't say, "Since our knowledge is constantly changing, there is no point in accepting anything as established fact."

On the contrary, science does say, "We accept as established fact that which we have proved to the best of our ability; but we will continue trying to falsify that proof, and if we do so, we will change what we accept as established fact to fit the new proof."

Religion, of course, has, at least in its professed doctrines, no flexibility whatsoever.

Well put.

[Bill Robinson]

According to my little on-line dictionary, an atheist is simply an unbeliever. That seems fair to me. And aside from scientifically proving what this ecstatic sense is, is a human thing called 'empathy'. I can understand the need to keep religious bias out of schools, etc, and I don't want to see anybody coming in with a religious agenda, but in a jazz forum we're talking art. There may be some other undercurrents going on here concerning spirituality. This brings to mind the concept of the Individual. If spirituality is a totally individual thing, like I think it is, although possible to empathize with because it is universally human, then it has nothing to do with religion. Religion, rather, is an after-the-fact expression of this state, if one chooses to dogmatise it, and an attempt to codify it and propogate it. Usually this propogation of any idea is an attempt to control people. What does a spiritual awareness have to do with controlling anybody? This reminds me of John Cage saying "Don't try to improve the world, you'll only make it worse." So in this sense, the individual is all-important. And in this sense, any religion should concentrate on making the individual better, not making pronouncements about who is a sinner. We are all the 'chosen people' in this light. So an atheist is also highly individualistic, as said earlier by the poster who didn't want to be grouped with others. There are Humanist organisations, though, which one could say provides an umbrella for this approach. And with Spinoza, Nietzsche, and others, there is a historical tradition; and with books coming out such as the one Bev mentioned, who knows? Maybe Atheism will become an organised 'anti-religion', with temples, budgets, political agendas, scriptures, etc (dry humour alert). I am reminded of Rothko's 'chapel' in Houston. Now there's an idea: do-it-yourself religion.

[Slant]

First of all, let me say that I'm happy to see that a discussion such as this can go on w/out major problems -- thanks to everyone for that. I'm pretty sure this same conversation on some other forums would have gone south a long time ago.

It's irrelevant to atheists whether belief in the immaterial is confined to a literal "god in the sky" or some other wider supernatural power ("May The Force be with you"). All such beliefs are unfalsifiable, i.e., untestable, and thus have no value to an atheist in studying the nature of physical reality.

In Alexander's posts I see strongly held opinions (with which I largely agree), but no misinterpretation of what you call "things spiritual."

And I see no basis at all for concluding that he is not "able to separate outward displays from underlying principles." If you hold this to be true for him, you must hold it to be true for science.

I think we need to state once and for all that "science" and "atheist" are two totally different things, and not necessarily dependent the one on the other. The way that I understand science's relationship to the God question is this: it doesn't even concern itself with it because the nature of the investigation falls outside of the borders of the scientific method (this has also been verbally stated to me by a few scientists themselves). It has neither proved or disproved the existence of deity(s). This, IMHO, appears to be due to the fact that science deals solely with objective phenomena AS objective phenomena (as distinguished from noumena). Now, whether science CAN actually prove to itself that a divinity exists is, IMHO, open to debate, but we must obviously wait for "evolution" (or revolution) to occur. Perhaps science doesn't currently have the know-how to set up the proper investigation, or maybe it does and as yet doesn't recognize it. One thing is for sure: the current way of dealing w/ the objective world won't get there.

If an atheist flatly denies the existence of God s/he does so of his/her own accord since there is no proof or disproof, scientifically speaking. They must, then, feel that they somehow "know" that there is no possibility of God. This would appear to be subjective knowledge (by my definition). It could possibly be considered deductive knowledge based on scientific investigations of the objective world to date, but this, IMHO, would be horribly short-sighted -- something akin to someone in the 18th or 19th century stating that an airplane will never fly. If, on the other hand, an atheist feels that disproof has been given, then let's see it once and for all, or let's at least have the method for disproof. This last statement should not be taken as an argument for the existence of God, but simply a statement pointing out objective fact.

[Bev Stapleton]

I tend not to describe myself as an atheist because the word has connations - however beyond the literal meaning - of hostility towards religion. I don't feel hostile towards religion (though, perhaps, to some of the ways it can manifest itself). In fact, I sometimes have to teach religious education.

Science may not have disproved the existence of a god (or spirituality) but it has no need to. The burden of proof lies with those who claim he (or it) exists.

If I claim Louis Stewart is a great guitarist because leprechauns taught him how to play at some Irish crossroads I cannot demand that sceptics prove me wrong. It's up to me to prove my claim to be true.

[Noj]

So, science and religion are (ought to be) at an impasse. Neither have any inclination to prove the existence of God. Scientists are not concerned, and the religious rely on faith rather than proof.

[JonR]

I am reminded of Rothko's 'chapel' in Houston. Now there's an idea: do-it-yourself religion.Anyone mentioned the Church of John Coltrane yet??
http://www.coltranechurch.org/

As a recent UK Guardian book review pointed out:
"...this belief proved rather costly when, in 1981, his widow Alice sued for 7.5 million bucks for copyright infringement."
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2189641,00.html

Someone's prayers went unanswered there, hehe.

[Bill Robinson]

I have thoroughly enjoyed this thread, and I'm seeing that different people are getting different things out of it—things about the subject, but also things about themselves and what they think & feel. I also am able to articulate some ideas about this subject that before had been more vague; the way a teacher learns by having to examine & articulate the processes they are teaching. Some of you are concerned with science; I myself have gotten the connection between Art and Religion. Coltrane, Rothko, Feldman, Cage, Bach—in a sense, all these artists were 'shamans' of a sort, recalling the earlier post which said religion came first, through the 'priests' or shamans to the people. Maybe it's expecting a lot for each individual to be a 'shaman' and have an individual awareness of the 'sacred'. There is organised religion for those who can only be followers (or have too much other work to do), and there is Art for whomever has the gumption to tackle being a player, or whomever wishes to be an audience to the act. Music, and all Art is sacred in that it expresses in a universal, non-dogmatic way this sense of belonging. Maybe the first shaman who ever experienced ecstacy did what came naturally—they sang, or drew a picture on the wall. Lest these shamans get too big a head, I am reminded of the scene in Oliver Stone's "Doors" movie, in which Andy Warhol gives Jim Morrison a fancy ivory-handle telephone and says, "Here, Jim, you can use this to talk to God." Morrison tosses it in to a dumpster the first chance he gets.

[Jay Norem]

Spiritual or religious movements have always told people the things they shouldn't do. Being a thinking human being exposes you to all the things you can do, the things you can achieve.
"Don't do this, it's a sin" is an example of the anti-human "sacred" flapdoodle that is meant to interfere with one's experience as a human being. What the hell is so wrong with just being a human being?
The thing is, just leave humanity alone, it'll work it out just fine, I am absolutely convinced of that through observation. Force humanity into the corner of believing something "or else," and soon you have the Nazi party, or the Christian church. (I hope that no one is offended by that last statement. I mean to offend no one.)
Of course, spiritual people will tell you that we're all lacking something, that we need to go out of our way to stop being dirty humans and try to achieve some higher level of sprituality, which is just another way of saying "Obey Me."
Life is full of mysteries. I like it that way. It teaches me that I don't have to know everything, or have everything explained to me. It makes life very interesting, and filled with wonder. Makes me think. Can you dig that?

[Egbert Souse]

Ooooooo-K.

Just as a bit of house cleaning: I believe sound waves are measurable, as is the atmosphere. Neither requires blind faith, so to speak, to understand that they exist or to know their properties. ... Anyhoo. ... carry on.

Tell me about it.
Having tuned pianos for 25 years, i realized long ago that if i can set the major third between the F and A below middle c at JUST the right beat rate (beat rate being an aural atmospheric measurement) for that piano (basically, they're all different), i can mentally go to Lala Land and the rest of the tuning process takes care of itself.
If i DON'T get it just right, it's an hour and twelve minutes of beating my brains out (and, just between you and me, it still doesn't come out just right (but fortunately, i get paid either way)).

Sometimes i can nail it and sometimes i can't.

That's my spiritual observation for the evening.

[JonR]

Spiritual or religious movements have always told people the things they shouldn't do. Being a thinking human being exposes you to all the things you can do, the things you can achieve.
"Don't do this, it's a sin" is an example of the anti-human "sacred" flapdoodle that is meant to interfere with one's experience as a human being. What the hell is so wrong with just being a human being?
The thing is, just leave humanity alone, it'll work it out just fine, I am absolutely convinced of that through observation. Force humanity into the corner of believing something "or else," and soon you have the Nazi party, or the Christian church. (I hope that no one is offended by that last statement. I mean to offend no one.)
Of course, spiritual people will tell you that we're all lacking something, that we need to go out of our way to stop being dirty humans and try to achieve some higher level of sprituality, which is just another way of saying "Obey Me."
Life is full of mysteries. I like it that way. It teaches me that I don't have to know everything, or have everything explained to me. It makes life very interesting, and filled with wonder. Makes me think. Can you dig that?100%.
The spiritual power trip you mention springs from fear of course. Many kinds of human fear and anxiety:

Help, we're going to die!
Help, who am I?
Help, where do I belong?
Help, the world's out to get me!
Help, nothing makes sense!

IMO, the spiritual impulse (if I can call it that) springs - individually - from a sense of wonder at nature, at cosmic beauty and immensity, but also from the hard-wired human compulsion (which has enabled us to evolve to rule the world) to see patterns in everything. We can't imagine how the world came to be as it is, unless someone - Someone - made it that way. Must be some powerful dude...
(The scientific impulse, of course, condemns such lazy non-thinking.)

The organised side of it, where people come together and share their fantasies of creation, origin, meaning, whatever, usually inspired by a charismatic leader, is down to social pressures. If people feel threatened by outside forces (natural, or from other people), they band together, gaining a sense of power from the group, which is increased if they can feel a sense of righteousness as well, that they are the ones "chosen by God", with exclusive access to the "Truth".

I think you'll find that the people with the strongest religious views, the greatest attachment to an organised religion (rather than a personal sense of "spirituality", however they define that) are those who feel a sense of persecution, real or imagined.
The deadly irony is that the stronger one's religious affiliation, the worse (the more "evil") the enemy becomes. The whole thing feeds on itself.
And if one is convinced one is going to heaven after death, no matter what - then what price human life?
Religions may begin as a kind of social "glue", a source of order and peace within one group, of essentially humanist laws merely underwritten by a "Creator"; but as soon as they rub up against another religion... sparks tend to fly. Both "truths" can't be right. "Peace" (freedom from anxiety) can only truly reign once the other group has been converted or obliterated.

So, while I agree organised religion has been used to keep people down ("don't worry about being poor, that means you'll go to heaven"), it wouldn't work so well if there weren't real fears and anxieties that it addressed. The problem - as with certain political and economic systems too - is that in times of stress or conflict, those anxieties can be deliberately pumped up in order to wage war, or for some other purpose of the ruling class.
:soapbox

Er, hang on.... isn't this supposed to be a music site...? :rolleyes:

[Bev Stapleton]

It's very easy for those of us who are not religious to dwell on the evils and misuse of religion down the ages.

But we should also remember the good it has done. I know a fair few deeply religious people, all of whom act out the side of their belief that requires looking after humanity. None of them has ever gone on Crusade or declared a fatwah; most of them give up time and money for those less fortunate than themselves.

I think of one in particular who, three years ago, gave up a high paid, high powered position as a head teacher to do voluntary work in a country in southern Africa. Yes, it's part of a Christian organisation with its work set in that context but what she does is primarily about improving educational standards.

Someone said above that we are wrong to stereotype religious believers in the same way that we are wrong to stereotype atheists. I've met a fair few annoying religious types, set on converting everything that moves; but the vast bulk of religious people I know (and I know a few very well) keep their beliefs to themselves whilst leading lives with exampls of selflessness that make me feel a little red-faced.

[Bill Robinson]

Back when the Catholic Church had more power is where we had our problems in the West; now secular law rules. Islam, however, does not separate religion from law, politics, or civic affairs. It is imperative that Islam, and for social problems, Christianity, reform themselves from within to keep pace with modern times and enlightened social attitudes towards women, gays, and other oppressed groups. I think you guys' attitudes are somewhat naive concerning human nature; there are some evil people out there, and some law or religion has to be in place to prohibit certain behaviours, not just oppress poor people. Now we have laws; but remember the old saying "you can't legislate morality"-or can you? I'm talking COMPLETE reform of Christianity and Islam, but the truth is, I wish there was no religion. Remember Lennon's words in "Imagine" and how radical that idea is.

[Bev Stapleton]

Back when the Catholic Church had more power is where we had our problems in the West; now secular law rules. Islam, however, does not separate religion from law, politics, or civic affairs. It is imperative that Islam, and for social problems, Christianity, reform themselves from within to keep pace with modern times and enlightened social attitudes towards women, gays, and other oppressed groups. I think you guys' attitudes are somewhat naive concerning human nature; there are some evil people out there, and some law or religion has to be in place to prohibit certain behaviours, not just oppress poor people. Now we have laws; but remember the old saying "you can't legislate morality"-or can you? I'm talking COMPLETE reform of Christianity and Islam, but the truth is, I wish there was no religion. Remember Lennon's words in "Imagine" and how radical that idea is.

Making decisions based on John Lennon lyrics! Now that is frightening! (sorry, I find Imagine horribly trite both lyrically and musically...like a Sunday School hymn).

I don't think it's up to anyone but the religions themselves to carry out reform.

But I do wish governments would distance themselves more. In the States you seem to have constitutional safeguards against religious dominance yet this doesn't seem to stop the impact of the religious right. In Britain religion is still woven into the state (automatic rights of consultation for bishops on key issues).

I wince whenever a major disaster happens and our leaders announce that their prayers and those of the nation are with the victims and their families. Probably as much as I wince when they declare how much the British public love the royal family.

[Bill Robinson]

Okay, if not John Lennon, then John Shelby Spong. And here's a question. You say look at the good in religion, but what if it is fatally flawed? For instance, after 9/11, the major mosques applauded the actions of the terrorists. How can this be in any way redeemable?

[philoxenos]

Tell me about it.
Having tuned pianos for 25 years, i realized long ago that if i can set the major third between the F and A below middle c at JUST the right beat rate (beat rate being an aural atmospheric measurement) for that piano (basically, they're all different), i can mentally go to Lala Land and the rest of the tuning process takes care of itself.
If i DON'T get it just right, it's an hour and twelve minutes of beating my brains out (and, just between you and me, it still doesn't come out just right (but fortunately, i get paid either way)).

Sometimes i can nail it and sometimes i can't.

That's my spiritual observation for the evening.

Egbert, I wish you could come and tune my piano.

[Bev Stapleton]

All I'm saying, Bill, is that people have drawn much good from religion alongside the bad that has stemmed from it.

I'm sure you'll find that after 9/11 most Muslims were horrified by what happened. And many of those who did applaud - in response to all horror the West has inflicted on them over the years - would have thought differently on reflection.

I suspect it's not religion so much as the institutional forms of religion that are the greatest causes of harm. But then I'd imagine that much of the world's ills stem from the distancing that happens when things become institutionalised.

I was brought up a Catholic - I'm still fighting that institution in my head 35 years after rejecting it. But it doesn't stop me recognising how the creeds of various religions can give believers a focus on things outside their own personal cravings. It's not something that is exclusive to religion - but religion seems to channel it well.

[Jay Norem]

I was brought up a Catholic - I'm still fighting that institution in my head 35 years after rejecting it. But it doesn't stop me recognising how the creeds of various religions can give believers a focus on things outside their own personal cravings. It's not something that is exclusive to religion - but religion seems to channel it well.

This surprises me, Bev. "Outside their own personal cravings." You mentioned earlier that a friend of yours is working to improve education in a third-world country. Why can't we include that in her personal cravings?
You see, when you talk about personal cravings it sounds like something base, compared to the "selfless" activities that some people engage in.
I think that personal cravings are what makes us great. Take away Coltane's craving to find his own line (his words) and would he gave been "Coltrane?" Cravings don't mean carnal or gluttonous or anti-social behavior. Cravings don't mean one is a sociopath bound for damnation. Cravings are what makes us build, create, wonder, doubt, produce. Cravings can give rise to the finest of human behavior, and yes, cravings can indeed lead to selfless acts.
I am aware that the Catholic church is a mighty adversary. But I fail to see how that institution, or any other religious institution, is channeling anything other than the age-old desire to profit from the control of humanity.

[philoxenos]

Back to music:

Music is temporal, and therefore by definition cannot be spiritual. However, music in its temporal dimension affects rhythmic capture of time and so offers a glimpse into eternity (where time does not exist). Whether or not this glimpse is true or not is really completely subjective. Nonetheless it is a type of spiritual experience.

Music cannot substitute for true connection with God whilst it can lead men to God and assist in the worship of God. This is certainly an achievement of many musical masters. Sincerity also counts, a commitment to aesthetically transforming the passage of time, but more so a balanced perspective of the place of music in our lives.

Some do make music god in their lives, especially those that go for the higher forms, as do some musicians. It is notable that Coltrane, Bach, etc. did not make an idol of their music although many of their listeners do. Instead, music served a higher purpose for these great composers.

Studying music does not lead to particularly deeper spiritual insight or understanding because the part of the brain that appreciates the spiritual aspect of music (if we can call it that) is pre-cognitive. Instead, studying music reveals the mind of the composer and the social/formal interactions of music as a product of culture.

Maybe we can say that for messiaen, studying bird-song was spiritual research, because of his belief in the creator of heaven and earth. At least he seemed to see it that way. In my experience, the best study for spiritual benefit is to study the Holy Bible that reveals the mind of God.

Next step if you are serious about your spiritual life is to join a church where the Bible is honoured as God's word - as you would want to join a group of musicians who play good music, to stretch the metaphor.

A good introduction to the God of the Bible is Kirk Whalum's album The Gospel According to Jazz Vol. 2. The basic spiritual message is presented in a credible way together with some truly outstanding music. It is a fruitful marriage of musical and spiritual concerns.

[Jay Norem]

maybe we can say that for messiaen, studying bird-song was spiritual research, because of his belief in the creator of heaven and earth. at least he seemed to see it that way. in my experience, the best study for spiritual benefit is to study the holy bible that reveals the mind of god.

"Kid, you really know how to kill a conversation, you know that?" Jack Nicholson in "The Last Detail."

[Tenorman]

Hi everyone,

Sorry to intervene at this point, but this thread was always in danger of skating over the edge into religious discussion, which by our very small number of rules is a definite No-no.

So, despite the title can everyone keep off the subject of specific religions please

[Bill Robinson]

Yes, music is now. Coltrane...do your stuff. We leave literal meanings behind now... 13 Geese float by...Miles Davis, his head down, inching his way in a circle, immersed in his trance...the drums are getting louder, more... this is poetry, don't grasp at scraps of meaning, let it stay open...don't break the spell...we take in the night, the darkness. Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, take me on your journey....Bye Bye.

[Jay Norem]

13 Geese float by...

They do indeed float, and they are beautiful, and they cause my heart to soar. It's October. They'll be leaving soon...they always leave around this time, to return in the spring.

[Egbert Souse]

Anybody know if my belief that every group of humans who evolved anywhere came up with some kind of music on their own is correct?
It's something i like to believe.

Whether it's true or not, it's a cheery thing for me to think that the same species that brought us that infernal internal combustion engine also has an innate need to create music.

If it wasn't for that belief, i'm sure i would have attempted to file a decree of divorce from my species decades ago.

[Jay Norem]

Anybody know if my belief that every group of humans who evolved anywhere came up with some kind of music on their own is correct?


Well I can't say that I KNOW that to be certain, but how else could music have been created?
Here's my theory: Someone, somehow, found different sounds by hitting on a log or something, and he realized that it sounded a lot like the things he heard around him, birds, tigers, the wind, the flowing river, whatever. BUT! Somehow, at some time, interpretation and self expression came in, which led to developing greater skill at playing the log. Then, someone found that by blowing into a hollow branch he could make some kind of weird sound that worked well with the log. After awhile, someone started singing along with the stuff that cat was blowing, and they started a band. Log, hollow branch and vocal. They were a sensation!
Then they heard another similar band but with a completely different sound, one that pertained more to their tribe's groove about things. "Whoa, these guys are great!" And, they jammed.
Word got around. Most of the kids, of course, wanted to play the hollow branch, but a few went on to master the log, and there were those who, through grunting in the only language that was available at the time, learned how to make cool lines by just singing, although they didn't call it that back then.
Each tribe had their own band, and these bands would compete once a year at the gatherings of all the tribes, the logs and branches became more sophisticated and difficult to play, the vocalists were starting to use actual words in the songs, the number of players in each band grew, if they could afford it, and soon, music as we know it was born.
Hell I don't know.

[Egbert Souse]

Each tribe had their own band, and these bands would compete once a year at the gatherings of all the tribes, the logs and branches became more sophisticated and difficult to play, the vocalists were starting to use actual words in the songs, the number of players in each band grew, if they could afford it, and soon, music as we know it was born.
Hell I don't know.

Then, the players of sophisticated logs and branches started transcribing what the original log, branch and vocal guys were doing and everything went to hell in a handbasket because there weren't any gigs, anyway.

Ok, ok...i'll go make some dinner now.

[Bill Robinson]

In the beginning, there was walking. And then, walking bass.

[Jay Norem]

Then, the players of sophisticated logs and branches started transcribing what the original log, branch and vocal guys were doing and everything went to hell in a handbasket because there weren't any gigs, anyway.


And that, my children, is where music teachers came from.

[Bev Stapleton]

"personal cravings."

By personal cravings I meant things like my desire to buy yet another CD or replace my car every three years whilst people stuggle to eat.

Religions are not exclusive in redirecting energies outwards into dealing with the wider world's problems (they can also become insular and obsessive on points of ritual); but most give some very clear guidelines about how to temper individualism and look outward to the needs of the wider community.

If I'm thinking of religion in the abstract all I see is ritual, control, power-struggle etc. But when I think of the people I know who are religious they are generally some of the most self-less.

Of course we can all point to the many cases of those who have claimed to give spiritual enlightenment only to amass huge fortunes and use their position to gain power over others. But I think that's a more generalised issue of power rather than religion.

[philoxenos]

After years of hiding the fact that the love is gone, the last child
moves out of the house and Mom and Dad announce that they're getting
a divorce.

The kids are totally distraught and pay for a session with the world's
most famous marriage counselor as a last stab at keeping their parents
together.

The counselor works for hours, tries all of his methods, but the couple
still won't even talk to each other. Finally he goes over to a closet,
brings out a beautiful upright bass and begins to play.

After a minute, the couple start talking. The therapist keeps soloing
on the bass and the couple discover that they're not actually that far
apart and decide to give their marriage another try.

The kids are amazed and ask the doctor how he managed to do it. He
replies, "I've never seen a couple that wouldn't talk through a bass solo."

[papsrus]

Returning to the theme of music and its connection to spirituality, it occurred to me that Anthony Braxton has said that he views the physical world as a conglomeration of "vibrational" entities. And his compositional approach, at least in part, tries to discover and exploit the relationships of these vibrations.

Thus you get his scores for multiple orchestras with simultaneous performances in different locations (in at least one case, different planets!), and how these performances might be viewed as a whole. His performance of a piece for 100 tubas, where various flanks of tuba players would march off in different directions, is an example of one of these compositions. As a listener, what you hear depends on where you stand in relation to the various segments of the marching tubas.

He also deals with things like "pulse tracks" in his compositions, and similar concepts, that focus on this notion of "vibrations."

This led me to think about various chants and musics directly associated with spirituality, and how they often seem to focus on vibrational rather than, say, melodic concepts. Think of "Om," Gregorian chants, even choral music.

Even the music of the black churches that had such a strong influence on Coltrane could reach such a fevered pitch that they would rise to the level mass chanting and screaming. (Although there's no doubt there were other strong influences on this music as well). These church musics of the rural South had a strong influence on Coltrane's late period, with his often primordial wailing on the saxophone, according to "The World According to John Coltrane."

Anyways, it's interesting to look at the relationship of certain chanting or vibrational techniques, and their use in creating a sense of transcendence.

^ Kind of an unfocused post, but ...

[Bill Robinson]

Yeah, the way Coltrane used that gospel music sounds similar to what David Byrne was doing (the re-release of "My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts" with Eno omits a track called 'Qu'ran' out of respect). I'll have to renew my exploration of Anthony Braxton. I had no idea his ideas were that far-ranging. I had an early solo sax release of his with number titles, and I thought he was all logic. You scientists out there are familiar with the electromagnetic spectrum. Light is a higher frequency than sound, and so on. In 'Lumpy Gravy' and 'Civilization Phase III', that's what Zappa's characters inside the grand piano are referring to by 'the Big Note". They say black holes may emit a super-low vibration of Bb. In a book on holograms, there is a chapter on 'holographic cosmology' which deals with interference patterns creating the 'super-hologram' we know as reality. Hello Walls. This pseudo-scientific aspect gives this discusson an air of credibility, doesn't it? Speaking of 'om', in my explorations into 'absolute pitch memory', I came up with the idea of locating each person's resonant om-note, by keeping an "om diary'. I did this every day while going in to work, since I am around pieces of tuned aluminum pipe. I tried to tune into the note that felt most comfortable in my chest and throat area, and this almost always turned out to be a B-flat; sometimes b, sometimes C, depending on the day. I'm sure everyone has a 'note'. Can anyone else find theirs?

[Slant]

Kind of an unfocused post, but ...

I don't think this is unfocused at all, except to say that ALL sound, whether "melodic concepts" are invovled or not, is vibrational. That's simply how sound effects the air, and what allows for the measurement of sound "waves". This is also how sound effects the body, since a huge portion of our bodies are made of air (that is, the medium on which sound travels). To put it another way, your body is a sound conduit.

Sound can be visualized in much the same way that we see a still pond of water move when an object is dropped in. That is, waves radiate outward from a disturbed center. The primary difference, of course, is that sound radiates spherically, and not restriced to a surface like water ripples are. By this type of analogy (i.e. air is more or less = to water) our ancestors arrived at the idea that sound moves in "waves".

If anyone thinks that this type of analogy is totally incredible, you should take a look at how airplane wings were initially conceptualized. Wing designs were held in flowing streams to see how they displaced the water flow. This gave an idea of how wings might effect the air. DaVinci was known to have done this experiment. The problem was one of propulsion more than lift.

[EdByrne]

Sounds ARE waves: Sine Waves. You don't have to make analygies & metaphores, since Robert Cogan developed Spectographic Analysis, with which you can play music into a computer program & it will show a literal visual graph of the sonic spectrum involved--as the music progresses in real time. This can be printed out and scrutinized as well. Skeptical at 1st, I'm a believer in its usefulness.

[Bill Robinson]

This thread may have opened up some touchy areas, so it's probably best to leave it.

[Alon Wolman]

well when we are listening to music, or playing it, one thing we are forced to do is listen. I think by relaxing our mind and focusing on listening, we are not just becoming closer to the music but everything else around us, and in that sense I think music can bring us closer to our self, our body, mind, emotions, and everything around us too. It's not rocket science or psychotic pseudo-babble. :)

[JoeNovice]

Anyone who has posted to this thread should read Schopenhauer, Hegel, Decartes, Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinous, Boethesius, and Nietzsche.

All wrote books/chapters on music and it's effects/affects.

Depending on your view of religion, music is a very interesting topic..... doesn't apply much to Jerry Farewell but works great with Albert Einstein, Aristotle, and Ghandi.

[JoeNovice]

By the Way...

Our bodies and all physical matter are similar to Sine Waves. Atoms vibrate or cycle (depending on your viewpoint) just like sound propagation (movement of air columns).

[Bill Robinson]

What do they call that, the "Santa Claus Effect"?

[JoeNovice]

What do they call that, the "Santa Claus Effect"?

Quantum Theory.... others (people grounded in metaphysics) may call it the basis of Western Philosophy or the evolution of understanding.

[Stackabones]

After years of hiding the fact that the love is gone, the last child
moves out of the house and Mom and Dad announce that they're getting
a divorce.

The kids are totally distraught and pay for a session with the world's
most famous marriage counselor as a last stab at keeping their parents
together.

The counselor works for hours, tries all of his methods, but the couple
still won't even talk to each other. Finally he goes over to a closet,
brings out a beautiful upright bass and begins to play.

After a minute, the couple start talking. The therapist keeps soloing
on the bass and the couple discover that they're not actually that far
apart and decide to give their marriage another try.

The kids are amazed and ask the doctor how he managed to do it. He
replies, "I've never seen a couple that wouldn't talk through a bass solo."

That's the best thing I've yet to read in this thread. Well, at least, I thought it was funny.

[gman1234]

By religious I mean spiritual.

Absolutely. In my case overwhelming feelings of gratitude to something greater than me or my mind. Absolutely.
But things of this nature are very subtle and deep.
Best way to engage spirit is not music.
Music is an auxiliary way to possibly experience higher consciousness, but it is no guarantee. Neither is religion, but it is the best place to start.
For spirit- humbly ask and perhaps you will receive

[Bill Robinson]

In my case overwhelming feelings of gratitude to something greater than me or my mind. Absolutely.

When you think about it, everything else in the world adds up to being "greater than me or my mind", because we are a limited bubble of individuality, as a consciousness separated from it.
To open yourself up to these possibilities will lead to a transcendent "spiritual" awareness, but this doesn't necessarily mean that there is a bigger "entity" or power out there. We don't necessarily have to consider "it" to be an entity, even though it is greater than us. It could come in any form; another person, an animal, plants, an atmosphere, a place, etc.
Yes, I feel grateful to be a part of it all.
Perhaps we as humans have an innate need to conceive of the "higher power" as an entity with anthropomoid characteristics. This seems to be the historical trend, anyway. I am reminded of the Ray Milland horror-suspense movie "X: The Man With The X-Ray Eyes", in which he gains the ability to see through walls. Soon, the power increases to the point that he is incapacitated, because he sees through everything. At the end, he sees all the way to the end of the universe, and sees a gigantic eye staring back at him. Needless to say, he had seen too much.

[Bill Robinson]

If you had a bio-feedback machine hooked up to your brainwaves, and then triggering a MIDI keyboard, then "religious thoughts could lead to music", a reversal of our original thesis.

[Clifford D]

So are tonsils.

I made history with my tonsils.

[Bill Robinson]

Norem Quote:
Originally Posted by Poetic dreamer
spirituality is inside all of us
"So are tonsils."

I made history with my tonsils.

Indians have a very pragmatic approach to "spirit": they say firewater is the "spirit-killer".
Now that they've seen that bum on the street who has killed his spirit, does that give the skeptics out there who say that "there is no spirit" or that it can be compared to more mundane things, something to think about?
Surgeons have gone into the brain, and no spirit was found there.
We can't prove the existence of spirit, but we know when it has left.

[NewJazz4Mike]

When you think about it, everything else in the world adds up to being "greater than me or my mind", because we are a limited bubble of individuality, as a consciousness separated from it.
To open yourself up to these possibilities will lead to a transcendent "spiritual" awareness, but this doesn't necessarily mean that there is a bigger "entity" or power out there. We don't necessarily have to consider "it" to be an entity, even though it is greater than us. It could come in any form; another person, an animal, plants, an atmosphere, a place, etc.
Yes, I feel grateful to be a part of it all.
Perhaps we as humans have an innate need to conceive of the "higher power" as an entity with anthropomoid characteristics. This seems to be the historical trend, anyway. I am reminded of the Ray Milland horror-suspense movie "X: The Man With The X-Ray Eyes", in which he gains the ability to see through walls. Soon, the power increases to the point that he is incapacitated, because he sees through everything. At the end, he sees all the way to the end of the universe, and sees a gigantic eye staring back at him. Needless to say, he had seen too much.


I find spiritual discussions kinda thought provoking. The ideas that you raise about a "higher power" especially. Consider that the proof of a higher power might exist as much in the receiver of that power as in the source. We can't see the higher power, but we can observe its effects. For example, if a destitute and desperate man seeks spiritual support and then gets some benefit from that experience (as many people do) to transcend their situation - can we say with certainty that there was no actual support provided? Or is the effect on him proof of the higher power? Perhaps such personal experiences are merely more attuned to a power that other more sceptical types may be insulated from, or maybe not even insulated from, merely insensitive to. Who's to say? It reminds me of music; I've heard people say that certain artists don't "move" them, although that same artist "moves" countless other people.... clearly the power to move is present, but is just not perceived by all. Maybe it's that way with spirituality - one just needs to be "plugged in". Maybe it's not "one size fits all"? I recall an analogy to that effect - that God's love, or grace, or spiritual support, etc., is like the ocean - virtually infinite. The amount we draw on spirituality is limited only by the size of the vessel. If we go with a thimble, we only draw a thimbleful, if we go with a bucket, we can draw a bucket full, etc. We are the determining vessel.

BTW, although not a professional musician, I certainly detect spirituality in listening to music... and in its effect on me. It may come from the inherent design of the music, or by the effect it has on the listener (same concept again). I also sense it powerfully in the very human endeavor to strive, to create, and seek beauty and greatness. And as with music, I also detect the overpowering sense of a higher power in the study of mathmatics or science. That's where it gets interesting for me - the nexus of spirituality and science.

:shrug:

[Bill Robinson]

Nice post, NewJazz4Mike.
The thing that always gets me is this: we can't prove the existence of God, nor can we prove the existence of our own souls, or even "our own experience". Our experience is invisible to each other; we can only infer, not prove it, and can never experience another's experience.
That hits pretty close to home, doesn't it? So we are totally separated from each other. Only through empathy, or love, can we begin to "infer" the other's experience.
And once a loved one dies, you then realize that they are indeed separated from you. No doubt, this must be one of the primary reasons for the existence of religion; to ease the pain of the death of a loved one, and a wish for another realm beyond this one, a realm of pure spirit.

After looking at the abject bum in the gutter, mentioned earlier, is it not a noble aspiration to want a realm that exists beyond this gross physical world?
The only way we will ever get any closer to that realm, while we're in this one, is love.

[1/2 Baked, Not Fried]

That's where it gets interesting for me - the nexus of spirituality and science.

Newjazz, here's one I read recently that might be up your alley:

http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides/covers/0553381059.jpg

Destructive Emotions: how can we overcome them? - Daniel Goleman

It's basically a first hand account of an intellectual "summit" between the Dalai Lama (and some of his top Buddhist scholars) and Western psychologists, neuroscientists, and philosophers which addresses, essentially, the intersection of science and spirituality. Apparently, the Dalai Lama is quite interested in science, and organizes these types of "summits" relatively regularly, i.e., every couple of years. Anyway, fascinating stuff.

[NewJazz4Mike]

Newjazz, here's one I read recently that might be up your alley:

http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides/covers/0553381059.jpg

Destructive Emotions: how can we overcome them? - Daniel Goleman

It's basically a first hand account of an intellectual "summit" between the Dalai Lama (and some of his top Buddhist scholars) and Western psychologists, neuroscientists, and philosophers which addresses, essentially, the intersection of science and spirituality. Apparently, the Dalai Lama is quite interested in science, and organizes these types of "summits" relatively regularly, i.e., every couple of years. Anyway, fascinating stuff.


Now that you mention it, I do recall reading somewhere about the Dalai Lama's appreciation of science.... I think Carl Sagan talked about him in his book "Varieties of Scientific Experience". Sagan, coming from a purely scientific background and yet with a powerful search for spiritual answers, seems the diametric opposite of the Dalai Lama. It's interesting to me how the same destination is approached from different directions. Sagan's book, btw, was fascinating - he's a profound spiritual seeker, but very critical of blind belief, especially in (unscientific) religious scriptures. He also goes very deep into that question of the anthropomorphization of God that Bill Robinson mentioned before.

Hey, I just did a search of Sagan and the Dalai Lama and see that they've actually had dialogues on these thoughts for years:

http://cornellsun.com/node/24523

Anyway, thanks for the recommendation. I'm going to send for it. I've got a flight out to SLC in a couple of weeks, and have been thinking of what to bring along to read on the plane. This sounds perfect.

[Bill Robinson]

If you chant "anthropomorphization" over and over, you will obtain an enlightened state.

[Viljanderi]

Newjazz, here's one I read recently that might be up your alley:

http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides/covers/0553381059.jpg

Destructive Emotions: how can we overcome them? - Daniel Goleman

It's basically a first hand account of an intellectual "summit" between the Dalai Lama (and some of his top Buddhist scholars) and Western psychologists, neuroscientists, and philosophers which addresses, essentially, the intersection of science and spirituality. Apparently, the Dalai Lama is quite interested in science, and organizes these types of "summits" relatively regularly, i.e., every couple of years. Anyway, fascinating stuff.

This is a very interesting subject.

I would also recommend Dalai Lama's book "The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality". It deals with the same subject.

There is an area between a blind fate in an antropomorphic god and total "scientific" reductionism. Both as a buddhist and a biology student I'm constantly seeking that area, which I believe holds the Truth.

-Viljanderi-

[catatone]

When you think about it, everything else in the world adds up to being "greater than me or my mind", because we are a limited bubble of individuality, as a consciousness separated from it.
To open yourself up to these possibilities will lead to a transcendent "spiritual" awareness, but this doesn't necessarily mean that there is a bigger "entity" or power out there. We don't necessarily have to consider "it" to be an entity, even though it is greater than us. It could come in any form; another person, an animal, plants, an atmosphere, a place, etc.
Yes, I feel grateful to be a part of it all.
Perhaps we as humans have an innate need to conceive of the "higher power" as an entity with anthropomoid characteristics. This seems to be the historical trend, anyway. I am reminded of the Ray Milland horror-suspense movie "X: The Man With The X-Ray Eyes", in which he gains the ability to see through walls. Soon, the power increases to the point that he is incapacitated, because he sees through everything. At the end, he sees all the way to the end of the universe, and sees a gigantic eye staring back at him. Needless to say, he had seen too much.

I think the latter horror movie recollection gets close to one of the innate needs for an anthropomoid God; the need to put an end to the endless explanatory regress that only causes more anxiety for many about the purpose and origins of the universe. It is in a sense the need to not know, lest the knowing somehow be too much as it was for this character. God therefore is what we put in place of the 'mystery' our uncertainty and the gaps in our knowledge.

Intelligent Design and creation science is a latter day attempt to put a pseudo-scientific gloss on such anthropomorphic notions.The idea being that 'all things that move need a mover' as one poster suggeted. But the problem with that is the question who created the prime mover? Given that such an entity would need to be at least as complex as any of its/his/her creations then the odds against it/him her being the origin of everything are astronomically high.


The other reason is of course that we want to allay our anxiety by feeling we are at the centre of this unknown purpose and what better way than to conceive of ourselves as somehow closest to God in nature or even appearance. All this is probably not how things are. Such tendencies are the product of child-like thinking in many ways: teleology, the need to infer purpose behind all things is a childhood trait and is the source for all these 'what is this for?' for questions kids fire at you all the time. Perhaps the answer is finally that the universe is without any decipherable meaning and always will be for us; which is not to say that some benign order beyond our comprehension doesn't exist. Just that it will forever elude our grasp.

You begin to wonder what we would do with such knowledge even if we had it given that our moral sense hasnt kept pace with intellectual advances thus far. The dualistic idea of our separation from nature and the primal source of life expounded in theology has only led us to dominate nature with our instrumental rationality rather than work in harmony with it.

[CoyotePalace]

A fine book dealing with this thread's subject matter:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71KZT9VB8ML._AA240_.gif
Hazrat Inayat Khan-The Music of Life

Highly recommended!

[Bill Robinson]

I think the latter horror movie recollection gets close to one of the innate needs for an anthropomoid God; the need to put an end to the endless explanatory regress that only causes more anxiety for many about the purpose and origins of the universe. It is in a sense the need to not know, lest the knowing somehow be too much as it was for this character. God therefore is what we put in place of the 'mystery' our uncertainty and the gaps in our knowledge.
Intelligent Design and creation science is a latter day attempt to put a pseudo-scientific gloss on such anthropomorphic notions.The idea being that 'all things that move need a mover' as one poster suggeted. But the problem with that is the question who created the prime mover? Given that such an entity would need to be at least as complex as any of its/his/her creations then the odds against it/him her being the origin of everything are astronomically high.
The other reason is of course that we want to allay our anxiety by feeling we are at the centre of this unknown purpose and what better way than to conceive of ourselves as somehow closest to God in nature or even appearance. All this is probably not how things are. Such tendencies are the product of child-like thinking in many ways: teleology, the need to infer purpose behind all things is a childhood trait and is the source for all these 'what is this for?' for questions kids fire at you all the time. Perhaps the answer is finally that the universe is without any decipherable meaning and always will be for us; which is not to say that some benign order beyond our comprehension doesn't exist. Just that it will forever elude our grasp.

I'm going to play "Devil's advocate" for a moment, and defend the possibility of God.
God could be the prime mover, because He is infinite and transcends the limitations of time and origin, of beginning and end. Remember, if He is infinite and created everything, that would include Time. That would be one of His creations, too, if he created everything.
I really come closest to accepting the idea of "God" after reading about the Jewish idea of God, which is supposedly the same God that Christians use. In the Jewish concept, God cannot be conceived at all by us, because He is infinite, and beyond us. They don't even utter His name, "Yahweh", which can only be written, and even that word is a substitute, as I understand.
So if God created Time and temporality, and black holes, and paradox itself, there's no argument that can poke holes in that, if, indeed, God exists, which all hinges on faith and belief, not argument. Case closed, unresolved.

The song by Bruce Cockburn, from "In the Falling Dark", called "Lord of the Starfields":

Lord of the starfields
Ancient of days
Universe maker
Here's a song in your praise
Wings of the storm cloud
Beginning and end
You make my heart leap
Like a banner in the wind
O love that that fires the sun
Keep me burning
Lord of the starfields
Sower of light
Heaven and Earth are
Full of your light
Voice of the nova
Smile of the dew
All of our yearning
Only comes home to you
O love that fires the sun
Keep me burning.

I think those lyrics are beautiful.
So the concept of God could be flexible enough to include modern ideas about the universe in its immensity, if one so desired, and this would be an expanded version of creationism which did not conflict with science and evolution. I suspect this would not go over with existing religions, to say that evolution was part of God's creation.
In the end, I see Man's attempt at defining or conceiving of God to be futile; so we would have to conclude that we must take what we can get.
Infinity is a two-way street. Should we call it "God" if it is in every particle, spread throughout everything large and small?
It seems ridiculous to even talk about something that is infinite, or try to name it, much less theorize about its workings.
But, we are part of this whole thing. Where do we fit in? And if we are part of it, shouldn't that give us some way of knowing about it?

[philoxenos]

That's a beautiful song Bill. How are the words set to music?

One of the interesting things about music is that it is both time-bound and somehow escapes time or creates it own time, like the time of the now we experience as improvising musicians, or the experience of timelessness one can experience listening to music of the highest order.

In the Jewish and Christian belief, God created time as well as everything else, creating us in His image to be creative too. Creating music is in a limited and human sense equivalent of "creating time" maybe?

[Bill Robinson]

Thanks for the positive response, Philoxenos. I'm always a little worried when I post on this thread, owing to the subject matter, so I try to measure my words carefully.
Bruce Cockburn is a Canadian acoustic player/singer who has been around since the 70's. "In the Falling Dark" is one of his earlier albums.
There is some jazz influence evident on the songs, as they use a stand-up bass, and Don Cherry does a guest appearance on the song "Silver Wheels", which is about looking out a bus or train window as it speeds down the highway, with constantly changing images.
He's a Christian, as is obvious from a few references in his songs, but he is very subtle about it, and never shoves it down your throat. He also includes political imagery, and just pure poetry.
The song "Lord of the Starfields" uses one of my favorite sonorities, a minor chord with an included raised fifth, as in C-Eb-G-Ab. You'll hear it if you listen to the song.
http://www.amazon.com/Falling-Dark-Bruce-Cockburn/dp/B00006LLNB/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1205073507&sr=1-9
The idea of God as creator no doubt comes from Man's drive to create. The Hindus also include Shiva, the destroyer, as destruction is also a necessary part of things: the decay of organic material, death of bacteria, shedding of leaves to make room for renewal and new growth, and so on.
I think that since "God" is infinite, which includes small as well as large-scale things, "he" is in everything. So this makes the idea of a "separate" entity which is separate from creation a little suspect. But now I can be accused of pantheism, or animal worship, etc.
We as humans relate to other people as entities, so I guess that's the way we are hard-wired; thus the conception of God as "entity" arose. The Buddhists seem to have gotten beyond this.