Have been listening to a melodious Malayalam song..So captivating...but so is the Korean song - Gangnam style...
Music is beyond languages..It is purely about rhythm...or should I say "Symmetry"?
Why is that humans like music? Let’s take that question - probably many other living things are attracted to music. Stories abound how plants grow better listening to music etc...But let’s try to understand a simpler question...
Why human do’s like music?
I happened to listen to a documentary on people with autistic disorders, but having special abilities in
Math’s or music or art...Couple of these savants were very interesting... There is one savant who is able to do big mathematical calculations by not even performing them consciously...He sees shapes and colors for numbers which eventually merge into a different shape which is the answer to his calculation
The word amazing...doesn’t even qualify to describe this
There is another Savant who is able to play any piano based music he had listened once and there is another blind and mute savant who started playing piano overnight. There are also many savants with amazing photographic memories...
Why is it that shapes, music and math’s come so naturally to us...In many cases it seems like the desire or ability for math’s or music or art is inbuilt into our brains..
There is another savant story- albeit from an article, not from the BBC documentary, about a pair of savant twins. They communicate in numbers and eventually it was noticed that all of those numbers were primes
All these beg the question? Why is that the interest or ability or appreciating for music/math’s/painting built into our system?
Everything any living being does, is eventually a handiwork of evolution.
One thing common in music or math’s or art is the inherent symmetry...in some cases obvious or in some other cases a little less so
So, we seem to be interested to symmetry...But why so?
Probably because we are symmetric!
Almost all the species seem to have left- right symmetry
I read about this in an article...as to why there is left -right symmetry
To understand this, first we have to understand the rationale of asymmetric design in us.
Our top and bottom are asymmetric. For any reasonably fast moving land animal this is the case. Because we need our foot to help us in locomotion and also help us to stand against gravity
So, this asymmetry is an output of gravity and need for movement - i.e., physics and food...two things I enjoy
We also have front to back asymmetry..This is the case of any relatively fast moving animals. We need one end to see predators or preys or to look out for mates (Probably some humans would have wanted eyes at the back also for this :) ). Anyway evolution gave us eyes at the front only, for this purpose, probably taking into consideration the cost and processing power required in maintaining an eye .So, a tree with no eyes and no means to run,ended up with just the top to bottom symmetry
Now..It leaves us with just one kind of symmetry...left -right...And here, ho, we are symmetric ( at least externally). So are, seems most of the living beings...
Why is this so?
This could be to save the extra coding required in our DNA for building any left-right symmetry. We don’t seem to require any left -right symmetry as there no strong horizontal forces in our planet. Our magnetic forces are very weak to have influences any left-right asymmetry.So, we are left - right symmetric..and hey, this symmetry is beautiful
Many studies have indicated that more symmetric people are thought to be more attractive..Not just by grown up people, who could have been prejudiced by social and other considerations, but by even small babies. Babies tend to look at symmetric babes!
So, love for symmetry is into us...again why is this?
Because - in the end all our likes and dislikes are tuned by a million years of evolution just to pass our genes. That’s the whole purpose of any living being...just survive enough to pass your genes...Raw but the ultimate truth
So, more symmetric implies, a better coded DNA...Better DNA has a better survival chance and hence we love it! So, our love for symmetry is - shall I say an intelligent design of the evolution :)
Hence love and processing ability of symmetry is inbuilt into the brain...
This might explain why we have so much of natural appreciability of math’s or music or shapes..
Not a very convincing line of thought :)
