The brain is not the mind, any more than the organ of listening is the inner ear.
Studies conducted at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in 2014 concluded that large numbers of people preferred pain, specifically an electric shock, to being alone with their thoughts.
Such conditions of mind, culturally reinforced, as they are, by everything that stigmatizes mysticism, spirituality, and the uncanny, are unnatural, even dangerous. Clearly, what is called transcendental vision, and even the simple daydream, reflect human perceptions and potentials, and not abnormal, morbid realities.
In contrast, sound art composed to enhance listening imagination can evoke the contemplative states, as described by Boethius, that illuminate consciousness and unburden perspective.
The composer will do well to remember the essential qualities and purposes of art, and especially their incalculable value to humanity.
Studies conducted at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in 2014 concluded that large numbers of people preferred pain, specifically an electric shock, to being alone with their thoughts.
Such conditions of mind, culturally reinforced, as they are, by everything that stigmatizes mysticism, spirituality, and the uncanny, are unnatural, even dangerous. Clearly, what is called transcendental vision, and even the simple daydream, reflect human perceptions and potentials, and not abnormal, morbid realities.
In contrast, sound art composed to enhance listening imagination can evoke the contemplative states, as described by Boethius, that illuminate consciousness and unburden perspective.
The composer will do well to remember the essential qualities and purposes of art, and especially their incalculable value to humanity.
