Ray, (REH) <<<< You have my apology. That was a shot from the "gunnysack" as they say over here. If I didn't call you on the Musical history mistakes then I shouldn't have brought it up again in this unrelated issue. I apologize. >>>>
You are man enough to apologise and I hope I am gentleman enough to accept it -- which I do. I sound off on all sorts of subjects on FW, but I hope I always make it clear from the context, implicitly or explicitly, when I am giving my own opinion or being factual. I am certainly giving only my personal opinion whenever I talk about music and music history because I am only an average practitioner in this wonderful art -- a basso indifferentio in fact -- and only became a publisher of choral music by way of a thank-you to the gods for the intense pleasure it awoke in me relatively late in life -- something I could so easily have missed out on. But instead of commenting on your message for the moment, let me dwell a little on the Arts, and relate them, in fact, to the three main processing areas of the cortex. It bears a great deal of examination. I have never come across any exegesis on the matter but I find it most interesting. The three main processing areas of the (rear) cortex are the body-senses, auditory and visual. The auditory area obviously gives rise to music, the visual gives rise to the graphic arts (including sculpture, architecture, etc) and the body-sensory to dancing. The body-sensory is also importantly involved in music and graphic art in obvious ways (controlling the vocal chord, manual dexterity, etc). This leaves three other important arts -- literature, philosophy and mathematics (since Gödel the last must now be considered such). These all concern conceptual precision to a high level and are the result of derivations and associations between the three main processing areas. (For our purposes, I am excluding the sense of taste and smell, which are primitive senses whose processing areas not to be found in the cortex.) I suggest that literature and philosophy are so close in their conceptual make-up (verbal precision) that for present purposes I'll conjoin them as literature only. So we have five principal arts -- dancing, graphic arts, music, literature and mathematics. (I have ranked them here in what I consider to be the order of the intellectual ability required of their highest level practitioners, but this is by the way.) This is where the story becomes interesting (in my view) -- although I am now going into a sort of no-man's land where fact and hypothesis combine. The five arts mentioned above are principally the products of the rear cortext. The results of these are transferred to relatively small parts of the frontal cortex where precise instructions for their performance (writing, singing, body movements, etc) are formulated and the motor strip instructed. (It is these smaller parts of the frontal cortex which are also to be found in other mammals.) This still leaves some sizeable areas of the frontal cortex which, so far, have not been found to be dedicated to any particular function (with the exception of the 'Broca' area which organises the order in which words are uttered or written to make grammatical sense), although I'm not au fait with recent research and a great deal more may be known now. The chief characteristic of the frontal cortex is that it is supremely involved with novelty perceptions or concepts -- that is, which have not hitherto been adequately dealt with by the rear cortex. The frontal cortex is also richly endowed with messages from the deeper and evolutionarily older parts of the brain to do with emotions, so it is also involved with the important matter of controlling raw emotions in considering future actions in order to act in a civilised way. The frontal cortex is concerned with novelties and with problematical actions which are not able to be dealt with efficiently by the rear cortex. It is the final arbiter in difficult circumstances. To generalise, the frontal cortex is concerned with planning *future* actions (and, implicitly, the selfish expectations therefrom). Novel stimuli, future actions and expectations (and preventing raw emotions from having too much sway) is what the frontal cortex is engaged in, even though its specialist areas (with the exception of Broca's) are as yet ill-defined. Dwell on these for a moment, and you will see that the frontal cortex is deeply involved in precisely those areas of man's activities which are controversial and which, in extremis, can give rise either to great civilisations or, on the other hand, colossal bouts of savagery and warfare. I speak of: Religion and Philosophy (future states of being after death) Politics and Economics (future institutions of well-being for oneself and one's children) Science (discovery of new perceptions, their understanding and future practical possibilities) The rear cortex is at its busiest when considering normal actions in the here and now which can be dealt with relatively efficiently. The frontal lobes are at their busiest when considering novelties, problems and future actions. I don't consider homo sapiens to be a unique species, but we are a species with an awful lot of frontal lobes! Here endeth my second Brain Tutorial, or should I call it Brain Controversial. That's it, Ray. Shove that in your metronome and poke it. I've used up all my pre-dogwalk time, and during it I will read the remainder of your message. Keith ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________
