There’s this girl I’ve been dating. Whenever we’re driving in my van, she connects her phone to the speaker system and plays music. Nothing abnormal here, you may say. And in fact, this would seem like a normal exchange but that between each song, she turns down the volume until she can see what song is playing next and then turns it back up (sometimes having skipped through a few songs, sometimes not). When I asked her why she does this – especially because I’m her boyfriend and thus already know what kind of music she listens to – she replies that one can never be too careful; music says a lot about a person, you know.
Today’s culture puts particular value in music. Music, especially in an individualist culture as our own, has become, in many cases, a manifestation of one’s character: the very definition of their personality. For this reason, when discussing musical preference, many become impassioned and supremacist regarding their jam. In essence, if you ask someone what music they listen to, you may as well ask “who are you?” or “what are you about?” and this will elicit a long, drawn out response about their favorite music and why it is better than any other. In fact, I’ve heard it said: if you can’t share your music with someone, you have no business even talking, presumably because if you can’t make your personality known to a person, there’s no reason to carry on any relationship whatsoever.
In This Is Your Brain on Music, Levitin attempts to discover exactly why music holds such a prominent foothold in our lives. Before working through this, he has to define his variables, so to speak. He first clarifies what music is:
The basic elements of any sound are loudness, pitch, contour, duration (or rhythm), tempo, timbre, special location, and reverberation. Our brains organize these fundamental perceptual attributes into higher level concepts – just as a painter arranges lines into forms – and these include meter, harmony, and melody. When we listen to music, we are actually perceiving multiple attributes or “dimensions.” . . . . The difference between “music” and a random or disordered set of sounds has to do with the way these fundamental attributes combine, and the relations that form between them. When these basic elements combine and form relationships with one another in a meaningful way, they give rise to higher-order concepts.
–Daniel J. Levitin
This notion of the combination of elements can be intriguing. To note: it really is astonishing that “The eardrum is simply a membrane that is stretched across tissue and bone. It is the gateway to hearing. Virtually all of your impressions of the auditory world come from the way in which it wiggles back and forth in response to air molecules hitting it” (Levitin 100). Clearly, we do not have to think about interpreting sound waves and neural codes to hear. Therefore, the combination of each and every neuron and axon, filament and tissue, and hair and air particle is much greater than simply the sum of its parts. To debrief, when everything comes together, a new concept emerges, very similar to how music comes about with the perfect combination of pitch, contour, etc.
* * * *
Let’s talk about ants. Ants are a prime example of how order and community can come out of lesser individuals, proving that “the whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its parts” (Johnson 63). Ants follow scents produced by other ants and by food or predators. One would think that, with this occipital sense, ants would be smart, knowing goals and clearly being able to tell their way, or at least listen to other ants’ beckoning. These ants, though, are individually stupid, as put by Dr. Debra Gordon of Stanford University (“Emergence”). She says that for hours at a time, two ants could carry the same piece of branch or food back and forth, never tiring or questioning their acts – just going in circles. They have no leader: contrary to a factoid that the queen ant dictates other ants’ actions and goals, the queen’s job is simply to populate the colony. What, then enables colonies of hundreds of stupid ants to be so successful? How can ant hills become so incredibly complex and intricate without a specified architect, per se? The answer lies in a concept that is difficult to explain, the same reason our brains can comprehend sound and that music comes into existence: we call it emergence.
Thinking about it, a single concept which can be reduced and explained entirely as the sum of its parts is hard to come by. Only in incredibly simple things is this possible. For instance: dirt. Dirt is a combination of mineral particles, rock, and organic matter (“How Dirt Is Made”). However, even for something as simple as this, an argument can be made that when a particular combination of the above materials is achieved, the very concept of dirt is created, though this ventures beyond the colloquial use of “emergence.” Where we can see this play out in a more common sense is in that anything which is at all fascinating has some sort of life – which in and of itself is emerged. For example, when speaking of anything meant to be enjoyed and speculated (beyond the minimalism artistic movement), “[nothing] would be fascinating if the problems which arise out of the irreducible and inner differentiation between its production and reception could be reduced entirely in terms of formulae or models” (Zwirner 42). In short, for anything to be interesting, it must have emerged properties, such as pitch and contour in sound, which surface from tempo, timbre, ect., as mentioned above.
Going beyond the physical sense of emergence – though there is certainly more to be said on this – we can apply this nearly universal concept to our relationships and communications as humans in a societal world. On our own, we are each stupid – or at least useless. In attempt not to disregard personal achievement, allow me to clarify. It is completely impossible for us humans to live separately from each other and achieve anywhere close to what our race has. Cities, for example, would be nonexistent. Modern buildings – or infrastructure at all – would be impossible. Automobiles and the internet – unfathomable. The only reason any of these – and many, many more – are even within the realm of possibility is that humans have learned to connect. We get married, have friends, form relationships, make business deals, negotiate, and come to terms – all with other humans. Each of these enables our race to advance in ways never otherwise possible. Getting married – or otherwise – allows us to reproduce. Having friends allows us those people to talk to when the going gets rough and an extra backbone for when we need it. Relationships aid in any kind of interaction, from just being friendly to making treaties between countries. Business deals and negotiations allow for hiring people, which in turn, allows for the improvement of infrastructure, technology, etc. and channels contracts which build our cities. Looking at it like this, the three C’s of business – well, really anything – ring crystal clear: Connections, Connections, Connections.
One thing we have on the ants: we can think. Everything ants do is 100% instinctual. For whatever reason – call it God or some form of evolution – we are equipped with brains that allow us to rationally think about pretty much anything. We’re the only species I can think of that’s written books on topics from astronomy to mathematics to history to psychology – or just books period. The fact that even as primal a species as ants can use emergence to its benefit suggests that we humans can do the same (and all the more!). In fact, we have. Really thinking about it, one can realize that every single achievement of mankind, from the building of the pyramids at Giza to putting Neil Armstrong on the moon, was a collaboration of many minds. No matter how many geniuses were involved or how incredibly creative each was, it would be quite impossible for any to do it alone. In this sense, we certainly have done more than the ants’ ant hills, which are impressive and complex, though still pitiful in comparison.
My doctor apparently thinks it his duty to doctor my entire life, not just my body. For instance, in addition to the many medical questions one would expect to be asked when going in for a checkup (e.g. how have you been feeling? or any soreness in your arm after the shot?), I am also asked what my future will be like and my collegiate plans. Very generously, he has offered multiple times that if I should ever decide to go into medicine, I need only to call him to get an internship. This aside and most importantly, he asks what programs I’m in and what people I’m meeting. He knows, after all, that connections are the real driving force of industry, the economy, etc. Without necessarily knowing the word, my doctor pushed for me to take advantage of emergence. Similarly, when admitting students into college, admissions officers look to see if they are involved AKA how many connections they have. This is probably extremely frustrating to students with a 4.0 GPA but are otherwise very withdrawn. But the job of admissions officers is to recruit students who will, in many years, make that school look good and be wealthy enough to make sizable donations to their Alma mater. Colleges understand that making connections, even more so than straight GPA, is what brings success and recruit accordingly. They, too, encourage students to take advantage of emergence.
One thing to keep in mind about emergence is that it is a principle – a law of nature, so to speak – similar to gravity, one might say. Clever as we humans are, we have learned to manipulate gravity. For example, if I wanted to lift a 1000 pound object, I would not have to manhandle it on my own, or even draft a bunch of friends. I might use a pulley and counter weight, and thus use gravity against itself, making my job much more manageable. Similarly, we can learn to manipulate emergence. Basically, this includes anything which draws people together and encourages the spreading of ideas and talents. In fact, we have come up with a few ways to spur emergence: living in cities, the internet, and group projects, to name a few. The question then becomes what can we do to greater use emergence to our advantage as humans? We can teach the importance of groups in our schools and put incentives on collaboration in the business world. We can also push for a more global economy, using talents and resources from around the world, and encourage our countries’ leaders to join forces when attacking the problems of our world – from terrorism to climate change. As much as an individualist society like that which we have in the US spurs creativity and imagination, such an emphasis on individualism actually inhibits emergence from flourishing to its full potential. We teach children to think for themselves and be independent, where emergence relies heavily on teamwork and collaboration.
While there are certainly advantages to individualism (thinking outside the box, self-reliance, etc.), we must not forget what built the tallest sky scrapers or invented cars: teams of people all working together to fill plans laid out by countless collaborators. We should, therefore, while still encouraging freedom of thought, teach – as best as possible – the ability to work together with others. In fact, it takes every single piece of the inner ear to give us sound, and every element of that sound working together to give us music because when they all come together perfectly, the pieces create something far greater than themselves, and using this principal, we humans can and will stay well ahead of the ants.
Works Cited
“Emergence.” RadioLab. Web. 10 June 2015. <http://www.radiolab.org/story/91500-emergence/>.
Figallo, Cliff. Building the Knowledge Management Network Best Practices, Tools, and Techniques for Putting Conversation to Work. New York, NY: John Wiley, 2002. Print.
“How Dirt Is Made.” How Dirt Is Made. Web. 10 June 2015. <http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/j/e/jea4/geoglec10.html>.
Levitin, Daniel J. This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession. New York, N.Y.: Dutton, 2006. Print.
Verwoert, Jan. “Emergence: On the Painting of Tomma Abts.” Tomma Abts (2005): 41-48
A School Blog for Andrew Perabeau 