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<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=green@webster.sk.ca href="mailto:green@webster.sk.ca">Greenwich</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=smt-talk@societymusictheory.org
href="mailto:smt-talk@societymusictheory.org">List: Society Music Theory</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Monday, April 25, 2011 9:04 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Humans and Computers -- Was: Aesthetics of
Computer-Generated Music</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3> <FONT
size=2><STRONG><EM>"A person who won't read has no
advantage <BR> over one who
can't read</EM></STRONG>.<STRONG>"</STRONG> --Mark Twain</FONT><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3> Simply put,
there really is no serious qualitative difference between humans and machines.
Only minor ones.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> A machine can be thought of (as I
think of them) as extensions to the senses -- this may include the body itself,
and may even include the body politic.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3> As a
result, the evolution of machines are a part of the continuation of general
human evolutionary processes.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3> A few
examples: The microscope, telescope, and even eyeglasses, are extensions of the
eye. They are evolved, and can become an integral part of individual humans, or
at least part of specific communities of humans (e.g., scientific
researchers).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3> The
telephone is an extension of the voice and of hearing. AND SO ON.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3> In the
tiny world of music composition, computer-generated-music is the use of
computers as an extension of the brain, its ability to calculate, or to more
speedily do that, and then that is applied by the program's inventor,
depending upon how viable the program is, to composing music (or composing
crap). </FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3> The
failure of some programs to compose anything worthwhile is like any other failed
"mutation" that didn't "take."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3> The
method by which that evolution takes place -- being by "external" machines,
with "on-off" buttons, rather than by DNA and chromosome changes, is just one of
those "minor" (but important) quantitative differences between humanity and
machine-dom. AND -- that difference is more and more destined to become
less and less "external."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> Taken on a global scale, the human race literally
changed itself by "growing" inventions and mechanization worldwide,
as it also does with social inventions and revolutions. These can all be
redefined as an aspect of a broader idea of biology -- <U>especially as we
increase the ability to manipulate and create internal DNA capacities</U> and
properties where none existed before. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3> It's
better to undertsand something by changing paper definitions, than fail to
understand, by continuing any flawed or overly limited definition -- such as was
often done before, when defining who is human and who is not. Or when defining
which was the central body in the solar system.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3><EM><STRONG> -- Bob Fink,</STRONG></EM></FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>retired musicologist
(Saskatoon).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><STRONG>More info:
See:</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><A
href="http://www.greenwych.ca/cm-ad.htm">http://www.greenwych.ca/cm-ad.htm</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>or</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><A
href="http://www.greenwych.ca/sb-ad.htm">http://www.greenwych.ca/sb-ad.htm</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><FONT
size=2><STRONG><EM>"A person who won't read has no
advantage <BR> over one who
can't read</EM></STRONG>.<STRONG>"</STRONG> --Mark
Twain</FONT><BR></DIV></A></A></FONT>
<DIV align=justify>----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=mwmorse@bell.net href="mailto:mwmorse@bell.net">Michael Morse</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=nombraun@telia.com
href="mailto:nombraun@telia.com">nombraun@telia.com</A> ; <A
title=smt-talk@societymusictheory.org
href="mailto:smt-talk@societymusictheory.org">smt-talk@societymusictheory.org</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, April 24, 2011 7:48
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Smt-talk] Aesthetics of
Computer-Generated Music</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
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As always, Martin Braun gives us much to explore and think about!<BR><BR>>
In philosophy it is today common to examine concepts like
"conscience",<BR>> "self", and "free will" using data from
neurophysiology.<BR>> <BR>> This would suggest that one day also the
field of music theory will discuss<BR>> issues around its central concepts
of "tonicality" and "modality" using data<BR>> from
neurophysiology.<BR>><BR>> Martin<BR><BR> Although the computer
music skeptics in the discussion may seem to have assumed it, it is
interesting that no one here has insisted much on an essential, in all the
resonances of that word, distinction between man and machine. This may be in
part due to post-modern assaults on the notion of the human. And perhaps we
all know too many machines too well to buy a grand or quasi-theological
contradistinction any more. That said, from what I have seen so far, the hoary
positivist assumption that data is data, language is language, regardless of
the medium, has also been advanced with a bit more diffidence than once upon a
time. <BR><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>....SNIP</FONT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>