| |
Main
Date: 20 Aug 2006 12:33:11
From: oriel36
Subject: Music and intuitive astronomy
|
Tolstoy's encounter with the music of Beethoven was such that it
forced him to act rather than just be another consumer of the
music,create something better to love is the call of all genius and in
an endless chain this continues.
The parallels with astronomy are sufficient to post an excerpt from the
Kreutzer Sonata,the insights which compelled a Kepler or a Galileo
following Copernicus was the sheer energy of the change in
perspective,not as a firm conclusion but as exciting working
principles.Astronomy as an exercise in optics is fine but it leaves no
indication of the heritage which emerges from satisfying working
principles based on physical considerations.
""A terrible thing is that sonata, especially the presto! And a
terrible thing is music in general. What is it? Why does it do what it
does? They say that music stirs the soul. Stupidity! A lie! It acts, it
acts frightfully (I speak for myself), but not in an ennobling way. It
acts neither in an ennobling nor a debasing way, but in an irritating
way. How shall I say it? Music makes me forget my real situation. It
transports me into a state which is not my own. Under the influence of
music I really seem to feel what I do not feel, to understand what I do
not understand, to have powers which I cannot have. Music seems to me
to act like yawning or laughter; I have no desire to sleep, but I yawn
when I see others yawn; with no reason to laugh, I laugh when I hear
others laugh. And music transports me immediately into the condition of
soul in which he who wrote the music found himself at that time. I
become confounded with his soul, and with him I pass from one condition
to another. But why that? I know nothing about it? But he who wrote
Beethoven's 'Kreutzer Sonata' knew well why he found himself in a
certain condition. That condition led him to certain actions, and for
that reason to him had a meaning, but to me none, none whatever. And
that is why music provokes an excitement which it does not bring to a
conclusion. For instance, a military march is played; the soldier
passes to the sound of this march, and the music is finished. A dance
is played; I have finished dancing, and the music is finished. A mass
is sung; I receive the sacrament, and again the music is finished. But
any other music provokes an excitement, and this excitement is not
accompanied by the thing that needs properly to be done, and that is
why music is so dangerous, and sometimes acts so frightfully.
"In China music is under the control of the State, and that is the way
it ought to be. Is it admissible that the first comer should hypnotize
one or more persons, and then do with them as he likes? And especially
that the hypnotizer should be the first immoral individual who happens
to come along? It is a frightful power in the hands of any one, no
matter whom. For instance, should they be allowed to play this
'Kreutzer Sonata,' the first presto,-and there are many like it,-in
parlors, among ladies wearing low necked dresses, or in concerts, then
finish the piece, receive the applause, and then begin another piece?
These things should be played under certain circumstances, only in
cases where it is necessary to incite certain actions corresponding to
the music. But to incite an energy of feeling which corresponds to
neither the time nor the place, and is expended in nothing, cannot fail
to act dangerously. On me in particular this piece acted in a frightful
manner. One would have said that new sentiments, new virtualities, of
which I was formerly ignorant, had developed in me. 'Ah, yes, that's
it! Not at all as I lived and thought before! This is the right way to
live!' " TOLSTOY
|
|
| |
Date: 21 Aug 2006 06:58:34
From: John Carruthers
Subject: Re: Music and intuitive astronomy
|
oriel36 wrote:
> The usual screed<
Gezz, ad hominem notwithstanding, please;
take your meds, practice those social skills, go out and get that
life.
1000 + posts since September on the same subject !!??
A bit obsessive non ?
jc
|
| |
Date: 21 Aug 2006 10:19:29
From: oriel36
Subject: Re: Music and intuitive astronomy
|
John Carruthers wrote:
> oriel36 wrote:
> > The usual screed<
>
> Gezz, ad hominem notwithstanding, please;
> take your meds, practice those social skills, go out and get that
> life.
> 1000 + posts since September on the same subject !!??
> A bit obsessive non ?
> jc
It rarely happens that an entire facet of human endeavor suffers an
assault for so long and astronomy,particularly heliocentric
astronomy,has weathered that empirical assault quite nicely.Waiting for
the appropriate tools such as contemporary time lapse footage,the great
reasoning of Copernicus and Kepler can now be easily understood.
The experience of seeing how the faster Earth overtaqkes the slower
moving outer planets opens up that world that was almost destroyed by
Newtonian empiricists and like Tolstoy's experience of Beethoven's
music,the Copernican insight makes all things new.
300 years of your obsessive hobby and not one of you can affirm that
the Earth rotates at 15 degrees per hour precisely without the need for
an external reference,300 years of justify celestial sphere geometry
and for what !.
Lower your head to the ground as is your miserable condition or turn
away from the simple series of images that demonstrates how planetary
heliocentric motion is seen directly from an orbitally moving Earth.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0112/JuSa2000_tezel.gif
None of you must be parents,for nobody could look at their children and
knowingly put them on a road to indrination just because of some
funding or false merit issue,personally I could not care less for any
of that.What I do care about is finding those people will to make an
effort,even the smallest one,to promote the original reasoning of
Copernicus and perhaps the later refinements.
|
|
