Uh, is this a music thread or a theological debate? I'm confused.

 

There are many potential theoretical grounds for considering music as a mediator for the unification of science/math and theology. Music and theology have a deep connection if only through the vast quantity of liturgical music. And music and science have a rich relationship via the science of acoustics. Accordingly, the theoretical unification of all three (music, science and theology) is not an impossibility: and in fact may have a significant quantity philosophical utility.

 

Yes, we have no plantains.

 

A less romantic view: the weak anthropic principle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

 

Please excuse the typo: "THORY OF EVERYTHING" should be replaced by "THEORY OF EVERYTHING"

 

The dynamics of the Universe, in the view of many who are versed in music and sci/math, is considered to be the performance of a cosmic abstract symphony.

 

Er... no. The dynamics of the Universe looks like this. A symphony looks like this.

Both are wonderful human creations. END OF THE ANALOGY...

 

The REAL Jupiter Symphony.

 

Notions of Cosmic Symphony Defenestrated ~ Film at Eleven

The REAL Jupiter Symphony.

zOMG, You mean Bach is not the sound of the music of the spheres, that 18th century north European counterpoint is not the perfect mirror reflection of how the universe works? I am in tears and just shocked. What is there then left to believe in?

Lol. Yeah -- kinda blows all the romantic notions and concepts of our scale, harmonic series as a law to obey for 'good harmony,' and sense of form and order right out the window, huh?

 

Yes, in the view of those who support the anthropic principle the fine tuning, and all of the consequences that follow from it, is unremarkable! But then what is remarkable?

 

What indeed? Don't commit the inverse gambler's fallacy:
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Suppose a man walked into a room and saw someone rolling a pair of dice. Furthermore, imagine that the result of this dice roll is a double-six. The man entering the room would commit the Inverse Gambler's Fallacy if he said, "You've probably been rolling the dice for quite a while, since it's unlikely you would get a double-six on your first attempt."
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But of course, the double-six is just as likely (or unlikely) on the first throw as on any other.

 

But this was just one episode of the virtually infinite space - time continuum that was made possible by a Universal Governing Equation. Many theoretical physicists imply the existence of such an equation by their search for the mathematical formulation of a THORY OF EVERYTHING.

But we already have an Universal Governing Equation for the space - time continuum... it's called Einstein's equation. Here you have it:

Possibly, the space - time continuum will not play any role in a theory of everything, since it's believed it's some kind of emergent thing from more fundamental concepts.

 

General Relativity (represented mathematically by a system of ten independent non-linear, second order partial differential equations) is not the Theory of Everything that is being sought. Einstein realized this in his life time and sought to unify electromagnetism and gravity (which for a long time were thought to be the only fundamental interactions in nature). Most theoreticians believe that Einstein failed in his quest to unify gravity and electromagnetism.

Now it is known that the weak and the strong nuclear forces are also fundamental interactions. The study of these forces fall within the domain of Quantum Mechanics: which relies heavily on statistics and probability. Einstein famously rejected quantum mechanics by stating that "God does not play dice". Nevertheless, Richard Feynman (Nobel Laureate) and others expanded quantum mechanics into the first quantum field theory: Quantum Electrodynamics. It should be noted that the accuracy of the theoretical predictions of QED have since been experimentally verified to a higher level of precision than the predictions of any other theory including those of General Relativity.

The Standard Model has been very successful in unifying three of the fundamental interactions: electromagnetism, the weak and the strong forces. It has also had a high level of theoretical predictive success. General Relativity is the odd man out. String Theory is a potential theoretical umbrella that could cover all of the four known physical interactions but the math involved is exceedingly difficult.

One of the entries on the proverbial bottom line is that GR or the Standard Model (or both) has to be modified or be incorporated as part of an even more general theory in order for theoreticians to arrive at the unification of all of the four known forces. In consideration of the fact that the Standard Model has a much greater experimentally verified predictive power, GR might be the logical candidate for revision.

It must be remembered that the Law of Universal Gravitation formulated by Isaac Newton (who made seminal discoveries in both math and physics) stood at the top of the theoretical heap for 200 years or so until it was succeeded by GR. Science must not let institutional inertia prevent it from moving on to theoretical models that are even more sophisticated than that of GR, if experimental evidence provides a need to so. And it must be remembered that experimental technology has significantly advanced since the time of Einstein. He, or any other human being, could not possibly formulate a theory that would adequately predict the behavior of a natural physical interaction that is unknown to him.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/192787738/Strings-in-Dimensions-Numbering-Ten-and-the-Strings-of-a-Violin

 

Aleazk, you seem like the person to ask. I saw a news story the other day that said recent background radiation measurements had pretty well proven that there was an inflationary period shortly (very shortly!) after the big bang. Any idea about this?

 

Aleazk, you seem like the person to ask. I saw a news story the other day that said recent background radiation measurements has pretty well proven that there was an inflationary period shortly (very shortly!) after the big bang. Any idea about this?

My layman's non-Aleazk / non-physicists take on it?

Inflation and poverty have both been with us from the first dawn

 

The Universe is clearly more finely tuned than the orchestra I played with this past weekend...

 

Just persevere and make the decision to graduate to an orchestra with more precision and with much study and a little luck you can be the one who will conduct!

 

In space no one can hear you scream

In space no one can hear you scream

 

Should have made this a poll:

1. Big Bang
2. Infinite Power and Intellect
3. I don't know

 

The first two are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

 

Yes, I know all that. I was pointing out some imprecisions in the wording of your OP.

But this was just one episode of the virtually infinite space - time continuum that was made possible by a Universal Governing Equation. Many theoretical physicists imply the existence of such an equation by their search for the mathematical formulation of a THORY OF EVERYTHING.

You talk about an Universal Governing Equation of the space - time continuum. I took that as an equation for the space - time continuum. And in that case, we already have one, general relativity and its equations.

I see now that you are talking about some Universal Governing Equation in a hypothetical theory of everything, not just space - time. But even in that case, I also have my doubts, since the differentiable manifold model for spacetime (the "continuum") is very likely just a macroscopic approximation, as you even notice in your comment. I don't think there will be any spacetime continuum in a theory of everything. I wouldn't have used the term spacetime continuum in the context of a theory of everything, since the term immediately implies classical conception about spacetime and the asociated classical theories (i.e., general relativity). Unless, of course, you think that the spacetime continuum is a fundamental concept even in a (quantum) theory of everything.

 

How can you not love that face? And 6 - 3 = 6… I'll take it.

But really, a brilliant chap. Always have been a fan.

 

How can you not love that face? And 6 - 3 = 6… I'll take it.

View attachment 39482

But really, a brilliant chap. Always have been a fan.

Einstein was my scientific hero until I discovered John von Neumann and his formulation of quantum mechanics via quantum logic. Most people would say Dirac was the man in relation to the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics. He was an intuitive genius, but I think the title should go to von Neumann.

 

Einstein's views on music: https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/albert-einstein-on-music

 

I see he wasn't a fan of modern music. That's a surprise, actually.

 

Einstein may have been a genius in his own field but his views on music were narrow minded. I don't understand his criticism of Debussy's work.

 

Please remember that these are views from 75 years ago...actually I can see the "lacking structure" comment -- Ravel had him all beat in that department. Einstein criticizes Schubert on the same grounds...

 

Hey, it's Einstein. He's allowed to be a bit shallow in some places. He's like the Mozart of science.

 

Sometimes the universe feels a bit more like this

 

For me, at that time and place, the juxtaposition of pleasant stimuli for all five of the senses in addition to my intellectual appreciation of the cleverness of the lyrics of the song was something that was very special.

It looks like I omitted one of the 5 senses by leaving out taste. But with tongue firmly in cheek I suppose that I can say that I was referring to taste in music (Sinatra, classical, semi-classical, etc.) as opposed to ordinary taste.

 

Thus Spake Dr Sheldon Cooper...

 

..........Ahhhhhhhh.

 

This thread has gone way over my head.

 

This thread has gone way over my head.

that's the universe for you....

 

Andrea Di Paolo ~ Das Universum

Rued Langgaard ~ Music of the Spheres

 

Perhaps in another universe, atonal music is the norm and on their internet threads, pioneering tonal music advocates are subject to revulsion and ridicule.

 

According to some multiverse theories, the are an infinite number of universes where only Webern and Boulez are played in concerts, and fans of tonal music are lynched in the streets.

 

Are you a physicist, aleazk? You really seem to know your stuff. I'm impressed.

 

Western classical music, as it developed this "harmonic function in time" aspect, became less centered, less "droney," and more varied and moving. In contrast to Hildegard von Bingen's exquisite drone-chants, notice how Beethoven is quite the opposite, always having a "thrust" or forward-momentum in his music. Bach, too: his sequences of V-I-V-Is fly by so fast, always in constant harmonic motion.

Yet, something had been lost: Bach is religious music, but where had the spiritual centeredness of Gregorian chant gone? What happened to make this music go from static roots, with no movement, to a restless, constantly shifting progression of chords away from, and returning to, a key center? It was "developing," becoming more elaborate, but to what end? What did this development and elaboration of music reflect, if not a change in Man and his outlook?

The Baroque, and the Age of Enlightenment are perhaps the answer. As science developed, and we learned that our Earth was not the center of the universe, and thinking developed, a new emphasis on the "nobility of Man" emerged, leading to the gradual loss of power by The Church, then Kings and nobility, then finally, Democracy, and the Rise of the Common Man.

Man was more conscious now, more cerebral. He did not need to submit to the drone's power like he used to; he wanted to actually do God's work, and dominate and conquer his world, in the name of God.

Besides that, the "drone" had always been associated with "primitive" Eastern and foreign musics. Western Man was an active, moving, conscious man, and his developed harmonically restless and moving music reflected this. There was no need to sit in front of a candle, sing droney chants, and "lose one's ego in submission to God." We had bigger fish to fry, and our new harmonic juggernaut would aid us in spreading the glory. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Onward, Christian soldiers!

The drone was now seen as what it always was: a dark, sombre vision bordering on nothingness: the cessation of will, stillness, quiet, meditative, lacking movement. Perhaps a little too close to the heretical, forbidden "nothingness" of Eastern religions and rogue, uncontrolled "spirituality." Too close to the Devil!

Now, Western music had become elaborate, full of detail, magnificent in form. Quite a bit of conscious cerebral effort was needed to follow these long developments; not a task for the zoned-out monks who chanted their way to ecstacy.

So here we are in the 21st century. What has happened since Gregorian chant appeared? A lot of harmonic development, that's what, finally culminating in the late-Romantic chromatic wanderings of Schoenberg, Strauss, and Mahler.

So, as in my other blog about the "universes" of music, we see that Man's attitude toward his world, himself, and his God, have shaped his expressions of it, through his art.

All of this still holds true today. The same listeners who complain bitterly about Serial music, almost always reject Minimalism as well, even though Minimalism is very harmonically rooted, almost simplistic. Perhaps it is too much a return to the old "drone" of chant; not enough movement, too "boring" for today's developed Western man. Also, too repetitious, too "primitive," too likely to induce trance-states (in the case of early Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Terry Riley), and too closely associated with Eastern thought, and its associated drone, evoking ego-death, leaving a black void in the center of its listeners' being, leaving room for The Devil to jump in!

Heresy!