Re: GG: calling all boffins

[Xavier Otazu <xotazu@AM.UB.ES>]

        Hello!

        Reading the Bradley message, a word come to my mind: ABSTRACTION.

        The scientist who most like music are, mainly, mathematicians and
physicists. Engineers, like computer scientists, are not so inclined to
love music. Why?

        I think the reason is ABSTRACTION.

        Mathematicians, physicists and scientific people in general, works
with abstract concepts. The least abstract and more 'applied' scientists
are engineers.

        As Bradley tells, performing music is like realizing in the true
world your ideas about the concepts and abstracions present in the musical
score. When peforming a musical work we want to tell: it really works!
When performing we are working like engineers, and we are trying to
realize abstract concepts. This would imply that engineers would be who
were more inclined to music than mathematicians or physicists. I think
this is not true because what we are realling seeking in music is the
concretion of the abstraction of notes and ideas. Perhaps when a
mathematician and a physicist is playing music, he/she is momentaneously
taking the role of an engineer.

        Therefore, mathematicians, physicists, engineers and scientists in
general are inclined to music, but the first are the ones who are more
inclined to and the more close to the 'conceptual' and 'abstract' idea of
music.

        I think this is really close to the publication I posted in my
first e-mail about kids studying music and their scientific skills. The
study speaks about abstract concepts and their manipulation.


Cheers

Xavier



On Wed, 2 Oct 2002, Bradley P Lehman wrote:

> I guess that makes me a...what?  I had an undergraduate major in
> mathematics, and for most of my career (and currently) I'm employed as a
> software developer.  Intricate logic and problem-solving are my daily
> bread: building (or untangling!) deeply nested structures of shape and
> detail, data relationships and meaning.
>

[...]
> dynamics of real life: flexibility is a key to success.  Interpretation of
> a design spec is quite a bit like interpretation of a musical score: there
> are always many, many layers of information that are not made explicit,
> and the programmer/player has to peer into all those spaces to come up
> with something that really, REALLY works.  A completely literal approach
> to the facts doesn't cut it; something will come up to challenge an
> unstated assumption or a change in the configuration, and a literal
> approach collapses.  The more completely rational something is, as a goal,
> the more the slightest irrationality will come along and ruin it.
>