Updated Cunt

Ooo! I was asked for an update on my previous post. So here's a list of how well I kept up with those:

1. Okay, haven't been so good about tracking the cycles. BUT I am paying a lot of attention to the phases of the moon and the tides.
2. Um, yeah...I have a hard enough time finding anything over here, much less trying to find alternatives. But I'm going to look into non-massive-corportation stuff when I get back home.
3. Only the medicines mandated by my psychiatrist, no caffeine (!), and little alcohol.
4. No published stuff yet, but I am writing again. Hadn't written anything in a long, long time. Feels good to be back on the horse.
5. Hehe. Of course this is the one that I've fulfilled. Yep, might be uncomfortable to converse with me sometimes.
6. I buy from small stores as much as possible.
7. The downloading is going well! I recommend Limewire.
8. Am definitely more mindful. I feel like some spy or something, constantly aware of my circumstances. Also looking out for other women. Girls gotta stick together.
9. Yeah, don't watch TV anymore.
10. Yay, I'm doing this one too! Google Reader feeds save my life.
11. So far, haven't gone to one...
12. No chess playing, sorry.
13. Haven't had a telemarketer call to do this to. Jehovah's Witness', here I come! Okay, maybe not. Maybe just the Pentecostal that keeps accosting me in the park.

So, that's fair to middling. Not great, but progress.

Music: the greatest cultural denominator

Music is the lowest common denominator among people. Every culture has music in some way, shape or form. There are so many cultural barriers: religion, language, climate, food, political and economic systems, just to name a few. Music is an expression of primal emotion, first and foremost, and as such can be recognized and empathized with just as emotion is. I feel it is as critical as eating, an opinion shared by ethnomusicologist Thérèse Smith: ‘It is exhilarating to discover that music has as many meanings and contexts as there are cultures and subcultures, and, moreover, that it is a fundamental and essential human activity – not something frivolous or “extra” as it is often considered in the West.’[1]

People have been making music for as long as they have been calling themselves people, presumably. The “dawn of civilization” is usually set somewhere around 10,000 BCE, but I’m not talking about civilization. I am talking about people. About humans. The “agricultural revolution” might have done great things for the population size of humanity, but in the long run, I believe it has doomed its partakers to extinction. That, however, is a subject for another day. Music surely had its start long before people began organizing themselves into villages and growing all their own food, just as speaking and dancing did.

At that time, scores of thousands of years ago, music would have been passed on aurally and orally, a practice which in some cultures is maintained to the present day. Although some form of musical notation has been available in some cultures for thousands of years, many cultures remain non-literate to the present day, or they find aural/oral transmission advantageous for any of a number of reasons. For example, the Celtic druids required that their music be passed on in this way, so that no written record might get out to those not ready for it, and as stone-singing (a method of dressing and moving stone through the use of complex harmonic choirs: one explanation for the construction of Stonehenge) is part of the mythic legacy surrounding the druids, this practice may well have been pragmatic.

Personally, I find aural/oral transmission to take more skill than following notes on a page. It also lends itself better to improvisation and dynamic growth of the art. After being actually exposed to what people trained aurally/orally can do, I feel that this type of training is certainly not inferior to classical training, as some people are wont to think, but instead may even surpass it and they certainly can supplement each other with astounding results.

But when you learn something in that way, so the memory of it is inside you, not printed externally, it becomes part of your very being in a way that is somehow more vital. Thus ingrained, the music becomes more integral to the culture as well, that is, it becomes part of a sense of cultural identity and tied to other aspects of the culture. This is perhaps why music is often so much a part of religion, because religion is inexorably linked to cultural identity as well.

Culture itself can be defined as a transmission of a way of being sustained over time. Musical culture would then involve transmission of musics to the next generation and beyond. Because there wasn’t a neutral and reliable source of “how things were” a generation or more ago before the advent of recordings, the sense of “the tradition” that is present in many modern musical cultures was probably not the same issue it sometimes is today. If preserving the tradition was an issue in times past it would have a different cast, as one would have to rely on people’s memories of memories – who would you believe, and how would you solve conflicting reports? Recordings themselves present particular problems, as the cultural situation entire cannot possibly be reproduced, and they lose much along the way, a concern expressed by Smith: ‘If through transference a piece of music survives only as sound, devoid of meaning, its interest is severely reduced.’[2]

Irish traditional music is noted (or notorious) for attempting to strictly hold to tradition, for having respect for old music, sometimes treating as ancient what is certainly less than two hundred years old. Each part of the tradition seems to have this attitude to one degree or another, but sean nós singing, with its very name meaning “old style” takes the concept of upholding the tradition to another level.

However, producing a meaningful and universally accepted definition of sean nós seems to cause its own problems. Somhairle MacGill-Eain has described it in this way: ‘that ineffable fusion of music and poetry, in which the melodies seem to grow out of the words and be a simultaneous creation.’[3] I find this to be a rather observant and apt description for several reasons which should become clear as I describe the sean nós singing tradition.

Because sean nós is a style of singing, the songs contained within range from slow airs to love songs to humorous and bawdy tunes. The songs are in Irish, and the melodies display the rhythm and metre of the Irish poetry to wonderful effect. There are often nonsense syllables, especially in the chorus. Many of the songs date from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, although that is certainly not a requirement, and often the poet and/or composer are not known. This era in turn probably owes a great deal to the bardic tradition of the centuries before.

Usually, the song would be sung before an audience who already knows the words and the story behind the song, however the singer still often relates the údar an amhraín (source of a song) before performing.[4] Sean nós would have been a welcome and appropriate addition to any community gathering, from weddings to funerals to house parties. Although the singer usually affects a more or less detached air while singing, the lyrics themselves and the subtleties of performance create a strong bond between singer and audience.

Instead of using “dramatics” or emotional singing, the singer uses spontaneous and improvised variation to convey expression. Such variation might include ornamenting the main melody, changing the rhythm to suit mood and audience, and phrase management.[5] The consonants l, m, n, and r are often sustained to show phrasing, and are sometimes even slipped in extraneously to signal the end of the phrase. Although the improvisation is entirely up to the singer, there are certain general regional trends which can be recognized by the observant listener, the more distinctive ones being those from counties Galway, Donegal, and Waterford. Finally, the singing is unaccompanied.

Like the rest of Irish traditional music, sean nós was in danger of dying out as the gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) areas of Ireland dwindled. Upon the founding of the Conradh na Gaeilge (Gaelic League) in 1893, preservation and cultivation of interest in the Irish language started to get promoted through the arts. There are now many sean nós competitions, one of the most prominent being Oireachtas na Gaeilge.

It is often difficult for the “outside” listener to appreciate sean nós because it differs in many key ways from the classical style. No dynamics or vibrato, and the use of a bare (and sometimes nasal) voice are common complaints. These qualities make sean nós all the more appealing and engaging for me. Because it is so different from what I am used to, I want to immerse myself in it until it feels like a second skin. I feel fortunate to be able to take a course in sean nós this term, as witnessing a performance in its natural situation and participation are two of the best ways to come to know a music. I sometimes fear that in these days of globalization, less mainstream aspects of cultures may fall by the wayside. Exposing myself to novel and distinct things is my way of coping. I can only hope that many others of my generation and generations to come will feel the same so that precious things like sean nós singing remain a part of the global culture quilt.

---

[1] Thérèse Smith, p. 25.

[2] Thérèse Smith, p. 23.

[3] in Companion, p. 336.

[4] Fintan Vallely

[5] Ibid.

Resources

Smith, Thérèse, ‘The Study of Oral Traditions of Music,’ 2001, in Éigse Cheol Tíre Irish Folk Music Studies, ed. Hugh Shields, Nicholas Carolan, and Thérèse Smith (Dublin: Mahons) vol. 5-6, 17-28.

Vallely, Fintan, 1999, Companion to Irish Traditional Music (Cork: Cork University Press) 336-344.

Cunt will change my life. I hope.

Borrowed the book Cunt by Inga Muscio from a friend Tuesday night and finished it yesterday. It gave me so very much to think about. There are now so many lifestyle changes I want to make. This is similar to the way I felt after I finished all of Daniel Quinn's books. And so, to make sure I don't forget how I feel right now, I'm going to go through the book and summarize what I want to do, what changes I want to make.

1. Get a lunar calendar and start figuring out how my cycles relate to the cycles of the moon.
2. Check out the possibility of using sea sponges, the Keeper, or at least tampons not produced by huge corporations.
3. Stop depending on medications so much. For headaches, for abdominal pain, for...everything.
4. Publish a zine...if I figure out that I have anything to say.
5. Stop being embarrassed about talking about menstruating, masturbating, sex, etc.
6. Go to independent grocers, bookstores, etc. or at least buy products from independent producers.
7. Rent/download music, movies, books by men. Buy the ones by women.
8. Start being more aware of the situation I am in. Be more mindful. Look out for other women. Take a self defense course or two?
9. Stop watching TV.
10. Start taking the responsibility to find out what's going on through independent news sources.
11. Stop going to movies with rape scenes in them. If I do accidentally, demand my money back and tell them why.
12. Start playing chess.
13. Tell telemarketers I don't speak English.


Books/Websites to read:
Sex for One: The Joy of Selfloving, by Betty Dodson
A Language Older Than Words, by Derrick Jensen
guerillagirls.com
guerillanews.com
buzzflash.com
commondreams.org
americaheldhostile.com
moxiemag.com
bamboogirl.com
alicemagazine.com
zmag.org
aviva.org
grrrlzines.net
dgarts.com
bookhousecafe.com
eveseye.com
bloodsisters.org
thekeeper.com
adiosbarbie.com
thelunapress.com
coopamerica.org
responsibleshopper.org
diysearch.com
worldwidewamm.org


Books to Buy:
Cunt. Obviously.
A New View of a Woman's Body: A Fully Illustrated Guide, by the FFWHC

Esse est Percepi

In this paper I first intend to give Philonous/Berkeley’s perceptual relativity argument with regard to the mind-dependence of matter, and then present Hylas’ argument involving the veil of perception, that is, the concept that mind-independent objects cause mind-dependent ideas and these ideas resemble the objects in some way. Next I will put forward Philonous’ response to this, in particular the principle ‘nothing is like an idea except an idea.’ Finally, after describing how Locke would respond to this series of arguments and counter-arguments, including a summary of his representative theory of perception, I will explain which view I find the most appealing and which I find the easiest to defend.

Philonous presents the definitions of sensible things and sensible qualities nearly in the same breath. Sensible qualities, he says, are those qualities which are immediately perceived by the senses and sensible things are either just sensible qualities or a combination thereof.[1] At first, Hylas wants to say that immediately perceived qualities are sensible things but it was soon pointed out to him that no regular object is a sensible quality by this definition. For example, when looking at a ball on the table, we would not think that it was a spherical object sitting on a plane without intervening interpretation. We would instead see just a sea of color of various shades and tints, with no way to evaluate the patterns in the colors. The word immediately here is used in contrast to mediately. Something is immediately perceived if it is directly perceived - if no intervening reason or evaluation gets in the way. Philonous uses the example of letters in a book; the shapes of the letters are immediately perceived, but their meaning is mediately perceived.[2]

Philonous uses an argument from perceptual relativity to support the mind-dependence of matter. Mind-independent objects can exist without having to be perceived but mind-dependent objects must be perceived to exist. Berkeley describes a situation in which a person has one hand colder than the other and a water bath with a temperature between those of the hands. ^[3] The person sticks each of their hands into the water, and to the colder hand the water seems hot, but to the hotter hand the water seems cold. The water has not changed, however; and because the water seems different to each of the hands, but has not changed, the water must be mind-dependent. The principle he is attempting to prove with this argument is that sensible things exist in our minds and only in our minds. You could argue that it is only the perceived qualities of the water that have changed, but since all experience of objects is mediated through perception, starting along this line of argument will not get you anywhere significant if you are going to play by the rules of an empiricist.

Here Philonous stands with the conclusion that matter is mind-dependent, but Hylas counters that only the ideas of matter are in our minds, and that these mind-dependent ideas are caused by mind-independent matter. For example, in the situation presented by Philonous above, the water itself would have temperature, but the mind would have the ideas of hot and cold. (This specific use of the word ‘temperature’ is perhaps a bit stronger than Hylas would have it, but I don’t think it is necessarily a stretch in the wrong direction.) Our perceptions are relative and vary because they are mind-dependent, but the objects that cause them are not – although the perception of the temperature of the water may shift, you would agree there is still water because the perceptions resemble the object closely enough.

Philonous thinks this resemblance business is a little on the liberal side. Even by Hylas’ admittance, ideas are malleable and impermanent, while objects are autonomous and permanent.[4] How can these two fundamentally different sets of attributes apply to things that are supposed to resemble each other? As mentioned above as a mere aside, perception mediates all experience, so even if the two opposing types of things managed somehow to resemble each other, we would never be able to know about it because we can only get to know the objects through the ideas.

As if this were not enough, Philonous goes on to present Berkeley’s principle that nothing is (or can be) like an idea except an idea.[5] Because nothing can be perceived without invoking ideas, it would seem that whatever invokes the ideas is not an idea, and furthermore, is nothing like an idea. Although there may be more to his argument than this, I couldn’t find it and I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with what I feel to be a rather bold statement about the nature of ideas.

Locke uses the terms ‘quality’ and ‘idea’ slightly differently than Berkeley does. For Locke, qualities are in objects and ideas are in minds. There are two kinds of qualities: primary and secondary. Primary qualities are inherent to objects; they cannot be separated; one example is extension. Secondary qualities are powers of the primary qualities to provoke various sensations in the perceiver; examples are color, smell, and taste.[6]

Locke has a representative theory of perception wherein all (simple) ideas are caused by qualities and some of these ideas resemble the qualities, namely the ideas we have of primary qualities.[7] The earlier relation of temperature versus hot/cold as applied to the perceptual relativity example is an accurate summation of Locke’s views as well. This theory is similar to Hylas’ objection to Philonous’ perceptual relativity argument. Locke’s just goes a little further and specifies the circumstances in which ideas resemble and do not resemble objects.

I don’t think Locke would accept Philonous’ statement that nothing is like an idea but an idea. Locke holds that we cannot invent simple ideas ourselves, the only place to get those is through perception and those simple ideas are a fair representation of the actual objects. Locke also believes in the veil of perception, but I think the key here that makes his argument a stronger reply to Philonous than Hylas’ is in his attribution of ‘powers’ to the objects. Instead of saying that some - since no rhyme or reason is given here the overall effect is that they are random – ideas resemble the object and some do not, Locke gives a system by which to analyze our perceptions: primary versus secondary qualities.

Even though Locke’s response would be better than Hylas’ was, I don’t think Berkeley would accept this reply as satisfactory. Locke does provide a better account of why some ideas would resemble the object and some wouldn’t, but Berkeley still wouldn’t think that ideas and objects were closely enough related that they could resemble each other at all. This strikes me as being another presentation of the mind/body problem. Ideas and objects are fundamentally different, so how can they interact? Berkeley solves the problem by saying that objects/bodies don’t exist.

Despite their disagreements I think you could combine Locke’s and Berkeley’s views without being disloyal to either of them through the addition of God – and actually the combination ends up being rather similar to Malebranche’s view of occasionalism. Everything is a mind or is in a mind (an idea), but the ‘objects’ exist in God’s mind, with the veil of perception then being not between objects and minds but between God’s mind and the minds of everyone else. However, even if you liked Locke and Berkeley so much that you wanted to combine their views on perception, Occam’s razor should get in the way.

I feel, like I think many people today do, that Hylas’ substance dualism (the existence of two essentially different types of things, minds and matter) is far more acceptable to me instinctively. It may not be the most reasonable way to feel, but there is still a little bit of a stigma for me with the effect of ideas seeming sometimes (at least somewhat) to be imaginary and that if everything was to be a mind or an idea, then it would be imaginary.

On the other hand, I can talk myself into accepting Berkeley’s view, at least intellectually. Being a solid supporter of finding (and hopefully accepting) the simplest explanation, the fact that Berkeley can do away with the mind/body problem is very satisfying. One objection I had been turning over in my mind was that what if, sometime in the future, we were to encounter sentient beings who had experiences (and scientifically persuasive proof) of the existence of extra things - phenomena, dimensions, whatever – of which we had no experience. These things would have existed before we were aware of them; how then could they exist although we had no experience of them? Obviously you would have to expand your definition of a ‘mind’ as time went on and as experience warranted to make your views as accurate as possible. Because I find Berkeley’s view to be the most logically appealing, that makes it the most defensible position for me as well.

---

[1] Dialogues p 416

[2] ibid. p 416b

[3] PHK p 475b

[4] ibid. p 432b

[5] ibid. p 432b-433a

[6] ECHU p 286b

[7] ibid. p 287

Time lies, a dead mayfly on the windowsill

It should be very possible to get all philosophical about spring break, especially when one is at work and extremely bored. In essence, I'm getting paid to go off and write this philosophical treatise (Hey, it's St Patrick's Day, my illusions can party a little). Would that this made me a professional philosopher. And so I look around, searching for inspiration. Various parents with reluctant students in tow mill around aimlessly, except for the determined few that walk forcefully down the center aisle. At least somebody knows where they're going. Am I just jealous? Or am I simply angry that this is looking more like a journal entry than a blog post? Fresh start.

I feel as if I am in a state of constant self-betrayal. I loathe boredom, and yet I subject myself to it week after week for a few measly dollars. I soothe myself with promises that it isn't forever and I do need the money. The grey matter oozing out my ears pays no heed to the murmurings, though. What can I do, oh what can I do, oh what can I do, oh what can I do ... chantingchantingchanting, never stopping, never caring, slowly dying, without knowing. But I know everyone feels this, and for the uneducated young there are not many options more attractive than this. The pay is decent for what the work requires, and not stressful. Lovely. This has been an excellent fresh start. But who am I to question the leadings of the Muses?

The post runs short as the whine flows freely.

I will leave this as a testament to the petty trials of the not-yet-full-time philosopher.