Music, the Social Mind, and Language

Thirty-first LACUS ForumUniversity of Illinois at Chicago, July 28,

2004

William L. Benzon

An Exercise in Speculative Engineering

1. Brain-to-Brain Communication2. Neural Life in the World3. Music and Coupled Oscillation4. Collective Decision5. From Synchrony to TOM6. Vygotsky & Development7. Poetry as Musical Language?

1. Brain-to-Brain Communication:

A Thought Experiment

Long-Term Storage

CPU

If the brain were a computer . . .

Working RAM

Moving patterns of bits from place to place.

• Point-to-point connections, end-to-end

• Isolated signal paths• Bit patterns have an identity that is

independent of location in the system

• Locations are labeled (addresses)

Digital Computers

• “Wire” brain A to brain B directly– neuron to neuron

• Assume physical problems are solved

• Two problems remain– Correspondence– Source identification

Direct Connection

Correspondence Problem• How do you identify which neuron

in brain A corresponds to which neuron in brain B?

• This is possible for small nervous systems– e.g. C. elegans, 959 cells, 302

neurons • Not possible for large nervous

systems

Source Identification• How does a neuron distinguish

between native and foreign signals?

• Neural signals do not have source and destination codes.

Therefore . . . . • Direct communication between

nervous systems would result in incoherent noise.

• Though one can imagine that, in time, people might learn how to interact with specific others through such a channel.

Questions . . . . • What does this suggest about

interactions between brain regions?

• What does this suggest about the “standard” computer analogy?

• What does this suggest about meaning?

Reset . . . . • Interpersonal communication

cannot be thought of as sending signals through a wire.– Even if the “wire” consists of millions

upon millions of neurons.

• Let’s start from a beginning . . .

2. Neural Life in the World

External World

Neural Net Internal Milieu

Life in Two Worlds

External World

InternalMilieu

A Simple Animal

Meaning is in relationships.

Lamb, S. M. (1999). Pathways of the Brain. Amsterdam, John Benjamins B. V.

External World

Fred

Internal Milieu

NS

CNS

Spot Spot

JoanJoan

Self in the World

Fred

External World

NS

CNS

Spot Spot

JoanJoan

Self and Other

Fred

NS

CNS

Spot

Fred

Joan

Fred

3. Music and Coupled Oscillation

Coupled Oscillators• Pendulum clocks (Huygens)

– a purely physical device, no symbols• Fireflies

– mediated, but still no symbols• Self-organizing, no leader

Strogatz, S. H. and I. Stewart (1993). "Coupled Oscillators and Biological Synchronization." Scientific American (December): 102-109.

Bi-modal Clapping• Hear individually, act collectively• Desynchronized, and loud• Synchronized, not so loud• Two values:

– Enthusiasm for performance– Group solidarity

• No leader

Néda, Z., E. Ravasz, et al. (2000). "The sound of many hands clapping." Nature 403: 849-850.

Jamming• Things happen• The some things happen again• Group memory

– holophony: Longuet-Higgins• Well-coordinated interaction• No leader necessary

Longuet-Higgins, H. C. (1987). Mental Processes: Studies in Cognitive Science. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.

Musicking Creates Social Space

• The group of individuals are closely coordinated in a common activity.

• They become a coherent individual actor.

• As far as we know, apes do not synchronize.

Benzon, W. L. (2001). Beethoven's Anvil: Music in Mind and Culture. New York, Basic Books.McNeill, W. H. (1995). Keeping Together in Time: Dance and Drill in Human History. Cambridge, Harvard University Press.

4. Collective Decision

Baboon Travel: Their Problem• Where does the troop move next?• Each has some preference.• They all know the territory, more

or less.• How do they coordinate their

preferences and knowledge?

The Problem

?World

Geoffrey

Terence

X

X

Hans Kummer: • Younger adult males and their

groups at periphery.• Pseudopods protrude and withdraw

again.– male faces in some direction

• Older male from center of the troop struts toward one of the pseudopods.

• The troop moves out.

Baboon Travel: Solution

Kummer, H. (1971). Primate Societies: Group Techniques of Ecological Adaptation. Chicago, Aldine • Atherton.

?What are They Doing?

Troop

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

5. From Synchrony to “Theory of Mind”

Interaction Synchrony• William Condon• Films of people interacting

– adults and adults– neonate and adult

• Neonate’s body movements track adult voice.– very slight phase lag

Condon, W. S. (1986). Communication: Rhythm and Structure. Rhythm in Psychological. in Linguistic and Musical Processes. J. R. Evans and M. Clynes, eds. Springfield, Illinois, Charles C Thomas • Publisher: 55-78.

Synchrony = Society• Autistics and others have trouble

with synchrony.• Does synchrony have any function

or is it just some arbitrary characteristic of interacting humans?– We don’t know– But . . . .

Possible Value of Synchrony• Segment the speech signal

– where are the boundaries?• Read faces (TOM)

– people are in relative motion– visual system moves as well– synchrony eliminates one factor from

this relative motion

Synchrony & “TOM”• TOM not a theory in any robust

sense– inference beyond the information

given

• Synchrony ≠ TOM

• Synchrony as enabling condition for TOMBaron-Cohen, S. (1995). Mindblindness. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.

Parkinson’s & Synchrony• Disorder of Motor Control

– dopamine deficiency• Music helps Parkinsonians• Even late stage

– immobile patients become mobile by synchronizing with music or with others

Sacks, O. (1990) Awakenings. New York, HarperPerennial.

Interactional synchrony binds ego and alter into a single intentional system.

Just as musicking makes a group of individuals into a coheren individual.

6. Vygotsky & Development

Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and Language. Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press.

External World

child

Internal Milieu

NS

CNS

blanket blanket

Child

mommom

World and Nervous System

Inner and Outer• Signals flow from point to point• The route can be entirely inside

the nervous system• Or it can travel through the

external world• Thus we might have:

– FUNCTIONALLY inside– PHYSICALLY outside

Physical World

CNSblanket

Child

CNSblanket

Mother

Ablanky

Ablankyspeak hear

Rblankyhear

mom

blanket

“blanky”

mom

Mother-Directed

Bloom, P. (2000). How Children Learn the Meanings of Words. Cambridge, MIT Press.

Physical World

CNSblanket

Child

Ablanky

speakhear

Rblanky

blanket

“blanky”

Child-Directed

Physical World

CNS

blanketblanket

Child

Ablanky

Rblanky

Inner-Speech

Now we can “walk” in one another’s

cortex.

7. Poetry as Musical Language

Constituency in “Lime-Tree Bower”

1

2

3

4

5 1.1111.1121.1211.1221.1231.2111.2121.221 2.1112.1122.1212.1222.1232.21 2.22

1.11 1.12 1.21 1.22

1.222

2.11 2.12

2.21.1 1.2 2.1

1 2

LTB

beginning end

Benzon, W. L. (2004). Talking to Nature in “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison. Unpublished ms.

Lines and Constituentstopic

subtopicsubtopic

line line line line

topic

subtopicsubtopic

line line line line

CONSISTENT

INCONSISTENT

Constituents in “Kubla Khan”

KK

1

1.31.21.1

1.211.221.23 1.311.321.111.12

2

2.2

2.212.222.23

2.1

2.112.12

2.3

2.312.32

fountain sunny pleasure domecaves of ice

Paradise

Benzon, W. L. (2003)."Kubla Khan" and the Embodied Mind, PsyArt: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts, November 29, 2003, URL: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/2003/benzon02.htm

Rhyme in “Kubla Khan”And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seethingAs if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,A mighty fountain momently was forced:

GGH

171819

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burstHuge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Of chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:

HII

202122

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and everIt flung up momently the sacred river.

FF

2324

Perhaps . . . .• Poetry externalizes the sound of

language so that it becomes a surrogate for the external world.

• LTB is organized so as to emphasize continuity of narrative consciousness.

• Rhyme in KK introduces an element of predictability into the poetic act in compensation for its lack of narrative.

Shareability• Jakobson on the poetic function of

language • Bateson: redundancy in primitive

art• Freeman: neural “alignment” during

ritual

Jakobson, R. (1960). Linguistics and Poetics. Style in Language. T. Sebeok. Cambridge, MIT Press: 350-377.

Bateson, G. (1972). Steps To An Ecology of Mind. New York, Ballentine Books.Freeman, W. J. (2000). A Neurobiological Role of Music in Social Bonding. The Origins of Music. N. L. Wallin, B. Merker and S. Brown. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press: 411-424

Neural Alignment

One-Liner

• The music IN language creates the social space through which people coordinate meanings and intentions THROUGH language.

the end