Subject: Re: the origin of music?
From: John Croft (mfmxhjcc@fs1.go.man.ac.uk)
Date: Thu Jan 11 2001 - 18:59:06 EST
on 11/1/01 23:30, I. Sterling at yitzchok@u.washington.edu wrote:
> Hi John.
Hi Isaac. Nice to hear from you again.
> On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, John Croft wrote:
>
>> 50 000 year old flutes are neither surprising nor evidence of any hardwired
>> specialisation, since they date from well after the biological evolution of
>> humans ceased, and well after the development of language (the most recent
>> big evolutionary step),
>
> according to purely anatomical evidence; the exact emergence of language
> in homo sapiens is a point of contention.
Yes, I must admit I'm relying on received here -- nonetheless I do think it
was probably the most recent major development in the evolution of homo
sapiens sapiens (and a relatively late one at that compared to other
adaptations), and the it probably predates anything we can properly call
musical.
>> upon which much of musical ability is parasitic.
>
> This looks like pure conjecture. I concede that it is true (for
> example) that occurence of amusia commonly coincides with aphasia,
> suggesting some correspondence between musical and lingusitic
> abilities. However, I'm not aware of any evidence that conclusively
> demonstrates that musical ability presupposes linguistic ability. If you
> are, please enlighten me.
No, I'm not: as I clicked the "send" button I contemplated adding "probably"
or "arguably" to that sentence, but my neurons didn't fire quickly enough to
do so in time. What I would say, however, that, taking into account the
maxim of my favourite Yorkshireman, William of Occam, calling into service
some aspects of linguistic ability is a better explanation of our certain
parts of our musical competence that than the (unwarranted, in my opinion)
postulation of a music module or some such innate specialisation.
> always a pleasure to tangle with you John.
And with you, Isaac.
Best
John
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