Choose to Move

This is a response to Keane's question, "When we roll the dice to extricate ourselves from choice; do we consider the choice to roll (the dice) as having weight?"

If I understand your question correctly (as you intended it to be understood), I would definitely consider the choice to roll the dice as a weighty choice.
Before making the decision to remove myself from choice, I would actively explore what I would consider as the possible outcomes of choosing the options other than not choosing. Deciding not to exercise any of the options leading to one of the possible outcomes of my choice would occur under the weighted examination of my cognitive and ethical systems. I can list three viable reasons why I would choose to extricate myself from choice.
One would be that I have insufficient knowledge to exercise the best choice (ignorance of subject matter) AND the object of choice holds little value to me. Examples: color of phone, computer, key ring, car, etc. - material objects rate low on the value scale relative to living being or the ability of environment to sufficiently meet my needs.
The 2nd reason would be that I have insufficient data to choose well (other living beings involved - I can not accurately predict their response) and I would find any of the potential outcomes interesting. This is what I regard as my experiment position - wait to see what the other being's move will be, and re-examine situation with new data.
The 3rd reason has the greatest weight. I find no acceptable choice, so I choose not to choose any of the options presented to me. While this path of inaction has an element of experimentalism in it, it is often accompanied by a sense of fatalism or resignation.
Choosing not to proactively exercise our option of choice is radically different from operating out of a position of choice-lessness, which can be a weight upon our heart, our mind, or our soul.

Silence, Music, and Disorganized Sounds

Our class discussion of what music is and is not, and what silence is and is not, led me to think more about the noise made by my cats and dogs. My lab does not howl/sing like Pup. I believe some breeds are more natural howlers/singers than others are. Pup is very musical, he sings on key when he is expressing happiness or sadness. However, after class I realized that there are times when he is attempting to relate to another four-legged, his vocalizations sound disharmonious to me. I believe this happens when he’s unsure of how he should be feeling, or he’s not fully certain about a situation – for instance when he sees, or meets, other dogs that he can’t get a clear read on – either because we’re driving by them, or they are communicating in barks, not howls. I have noticed that both my dogs are likely to start barking in respond to other dogs barking, and that if the barking gets faster and raises in pitch, then they answer in kind. I find this disharmonious noise to be disorganized sound, and definitely not music. I have seen dogs whip themselves into frenzy through this activity. I know Cesar Millan would say they are in an unbalanced state. The dogs are communicating their unbalanced state through their disorganized sound.

My Question:

Can we create music, which is endurable to others, when we are in a very unbalanced state? Or, like dogs, can we only create disorganized, disharmonious sound from an unbalanced state?

Themes in the Philosophy of Music

In declaring 4’ 33” as a musical piece, I think Cage is attempting to redefine art as music. He says, “I think music should be free of the feelings and ideas of the composer” (p. 14). Yet isn’t music, in its primacy, an effort in communication? Music’s power to move all hearing beings, figuratively and literally, is universal and biological. Music’s emotive power has its origins in the feelings and ideas of the composer, its power resides in the shared experience between source and receiver. What Cage is proposing we regard as music, really is the reverse of what music is.

My Question:
“If true silence did not exist in nature, then the silences in a piece of music could be defined simply as as ‘sounds not intended’’ (p. 12). Is Cage claiming that everything and anything that is not “true silence” is music?

Unique/quirky ways of categorizing things and music.

Response to Keane’s Question: What are some personally unique/quirky ways that you categorize things (including music)?
I wrote “Category and Chronological Challenges” because I am unable to discover how I categorize things beyond how something makes me feel. Every thing that is, vibrates at a particular frequency, which resonates in a particular pattern. I believe I categorize things according to my response to its vibration. I believe I am translating my response to the resonance as a feeling.
Those things I dislike cause a feeling of dis-ease, contraction, limitation within me. If I can’t change the station or remove myself from that environment I will close down, separate, shut myself off from the experience. I avoid music that provokes a feeling of extended disharmony within me.
Some things life exposes me to are only tolerable to me, but offer opportunities to acquire more knowledge of them, myself, or others with whom it becomes a shared experience. If I have the resources, I will stay and tolerate it as long as is socially required, or until I have gained as much from the experience as I believe is possible for me at that moment in time. Many pieces of music on the radio and television shows fall into this category for me.
Many other things tug at my previously accepted notions of reality of the thing, its purpose for existence, why I, or other beings, respond to it the way we do – again an opportunity to know more or more fully of the thing, myself, others, the world. These opportunities create a feeling of excitement within me and a recognition of enjoyment in the process of learning. Some things make me feel happy, some things provide a sense of expansion, growth. I like the feeling that occurs when I recognize a change in my perception, my point of view. I also enjoy the feeling that occurs from riding a current of expansion. Classical, meditation, rock and roll, and heavy metal, are a few of the genres of music that create that expansive-feeling ride for me.
I like being entertained. I like feeling energized. I find the involved stories within the lyrics of some folk music, ballads, ethnic music, jazz, musicals, operas, hip hop, and country music very entertaining. I find the melody and rhythm of a lot of rock and roll, heavy metal, some reggae, swing, jazz, concert, and big band music energizing. I enjoy the repetition in complex, extended music as found in In A Gadda Da Vida by Iron Butterfly and I Won’t Do That by Meatloaf. I find the combination of complexity, anticipation, and repetition stimulating, and therefore enjoyable.

My Question: Are there things that exist (other than mathematical or physics concepts) that we categorize, and to which we don't have some degree of emotional response?

Response to Keane’s Blog - Knowledge as process of experiential learning in Theaetetus

Keane said, “Plato seems to be saying that we know that we do not know but also that we must keep deliberating and discussing because stillness of the body and mind are detrimental to learning.” I am curious as to how you might relate this to Eastern meditation practices that actively seek stillness of the mind and body.
My understanding of these Eastern practices is that stillness of body and mind allows union with the Divine. In fact, stillness of mind is considered a prerequisite for experiencing the oneness between a human being and Everything. It is said that in a state of oneness, everything is known.

In a state of “oneness”, seeking is replaced by being. Might we consider this state of oneness (considered our true nature) where we remember all that we forget while operating under the illusion of our separateness, the opposite of “a shift from recollection to experiential learning?”

If all human beings were able to achieve and maintain a state of “oneness”, would the goal of this unity acknowledged become existence solely for the purpose of existence? Or is there an inherent evolutionary component in all existence? If so, is there a process other than seeking knowledge to record the evolution? Does observing/ acknowledging/ recording change replace the learning process, the seeking knowledge process? Would this state of existence eliminate a need for knowledge because knowledge can only exist in a perception dependent state of separateness? Would it be eternal like the Forms, but evolving instead of their changelessness?

Is the acceptance of separateness/difference/distinctiveness, a requirement for the existence of knowledge in Socrates’ and Plato’s world?
Is there a difference between knowledge and knowingness?
What is the goal of the distinct species known as humankind?
Would the former species of humankind existing perpetually in the state of oneness with the Everything have any goals? What might they be?

Your Blog elicits many questions from my separated mind. Am I chasing or following knowledge, or bouncing futilely against illusion?