I’m not very religious at all but I do understand what the OP is describing.
Art is (allow me some leeway here) about connecting between people (or groups of people). And that connection, when made well, is powerful to the human psyche. Very powerful.
Hearing a piece of music that speaks to you, or seeing a painting, or what-have-you can place one in a space of connection with a greater group of humanity. And most people enjoy that.
Heck, you can see it in performers who seem to transcene the stage. When they connect with the audience as a whole the entire thing becomes greater than it was. Fred LeBlanc (of Cowboy Mouth, which most of you have never heard of) and Bill Clinton are both particularly good at this. And you can see how it lifts them when it happens.
IME, the right vibrations often make me feel close to the Divine
I’m hangin’ with Siege and the OP on this one. I love music, I love God, and it’s my own personal belief that God gave us music to uplift the spirit. So here’s a great big Thank God for music!
I don’t believe in God, so you’re barking up the wrong tree. However, I don’t quite get those kinds of “explanations.” Artificially replicating the chemical processes behind feelings don’t really explain them at all… it’s just observing the physical reactions that make up emotions, it doesn’t explain them, anymore than explaining the notes and durations of a piece of music explain why some noise is music.
The feelings that the music brought on in you, Hernia, were created by Tina Turner. Unless you’re of the opinion that Tina Turner is god (and she might be; it’s as good a theory as any other) then crediting her accomplishment to god is pretty damned rude.
If I spent weeks writing, honing, perfecting a song that expressed a visceral, complex emotion, and then crafted a performance of the song that fit the message beautifully, only to have someone come along and claim that the accomplishment wasn’t my own, I’d be pissed.
Art is an effective means of communicating emotions between one human being and another. Giving god the credit for creating a piece of art is devaluing the work of the artist.
Ah, here’s another baffling post. Perhaps you can tell me what you are trying to say. Are you taking a position in this “great debate,” and what is it?
Are you familiar with Leibniz’s Gap? I think blasphmer’s comment is pertaining to something in that vein.
Any time one tries to reconcile experiential phenomena with the physical neurochemistry that science uses to explain it, there seems to be a disconnect (a gap) between the two that many people (dualists) interpret as proof that there is something transcendent and unusual about the mind.
Or maybe I’m misinterpreting the situation entirely…
Thanks, nameless… that’s interesting, and I’m curious to look it up now. Much more helpful than “you mean there’s a GAP???”
I think the several posts I quoted recently are posts among old-time dopers who have a lot of inside jokes about debates that come up a lot… it can be a little mystifying to a newby.
Okay. The mind/body problem is a classic exercise in philospohical debate that attempts to reconcile the experiential aspects of a particular stimulus (in this case music) with the physical (neurotransmitters and positron emission tomography and such). I am a materialist, a.k.a. reductionist, a.k.a. monist–my position is that there is nothing special about the mind, and that it is a side effect of the neurochemical processes that occur within the body. I think that music is in no way a “proof” of God’s existence–rather, it is a remarkable illustration of the human brain, it’s complexity, and the extent to which we do not understand it.
The whole discussion thus far reminds me very much of the mind/body problem, which is rather intractable.
For someone who believes in God, I can see how music would have the effect it does on the OP. Music is a powerful force – emotional, moving, inexpressible in any other way.
For me (an avowed atheist), music is evidence of the limitless capability of human creativity. Yesterday, while at work, I listened to a Bach violin concerto, the moody “space music” soundtrack for the game “Homeworld,” and The Police “Message in a Box” collection. I marvel – no, I worship – the diversity and the power of the human creative spirit. It is truly capable of anything.
Certainly, it can be said that music can give anyone something to believe in. What that is depends on the listener… that’s some of its power.
Thanks again, nameless. I’ve read William James extensively, and none of this is new to me… I just wasn’t sure what your position was. I agree with you, and I believe my previous posts may have lead people to believe otherwise. I was merely saying that in my life, the closest thing I come to “spirituality” is aesthetic “rapture,” not that Beethoven makes me believe in God, but that there is something transcendent about it that approximates a religious experience… hence I also mentioned I have the same feeling when listening to the agnostic spirtual (as I see it) by Iris Dement, the song “Let the Mystery Be” (I get misty every time I hear it).
Whether or not they can see how the nuerons fire or replicate it hardly explains the bigger WHY… anymore than a baseball scorecard indicates what was fun/enjoyable about the game. I don’t quite get what I am supposed to understand by the information… William James new that religious and emotional experience was physiological, but didn’t stop there and think he’d settled how to live or how to be happy.
My teacher once said that because Pi and e (2.718…) were so prevalent in all of mathematics, it suggests some higher power. I thought that’s kind of stupid, since we can prove all of the places it shows up. I like to think of it as merely the logical following of accepting axioms as true.
