Continuing to read Wonderland and enjoying it. Here is what the author says about the origins of music:
I suspect music first emerged not with a need but with a difference: an unusually resonant sound happened to emerge out of the structure of some hollow object—a reed or a bone—creating a tone just different enough from the ordinary cacophony of the world that the ear took note. The sound wasn’t meaningful yet, or laden with the kind of emotional overtones that humans now associate with music. It was just new. And like the unusual shade of Tyrian purple, because the sound was new, it was interesting, worth repeating, worth tinkering with.
Made me think about novel things in today that we tend to find "interesting, worth repeating, worth tinkering with" . The Internet of Things came to mind. At first it was about industrial use cases, fault and failure detection (as well as prediction). This was a realm far removed from the the world of Alexa in a child's bedroom serving the role of a robotic friend. Perhaps the idea of things connected and communicating with each other was like music in paleolithic times. We wanted to do more and different with the concept and here were are.
I suspect music first emerged not with a need but with a difference: an unusually resonant sound happened to emerge out of the structure of some hollow object—a reed or a bone—creating a tone just different enough from the ordinary cacophony of the world that the ear took note. The sound wasn’t meaningful yet, or laden with the kind of emotional overtones that humans now associate with music. It was just new. And like the unusual shade of Tyrian purple, because the sound was new, it was interesting, worth repeating, worth tinkering with.
Made me think about novel things in today that we tend to find "interesting, worth repeating, worth tinkering with" . The Internet of Things came to mind. At first it was about industrial use cases, fault and failure detection (as well as prediction). This was a realm far removed from the the world of Alexa in a child's bedroom serving the role of a robotic friend. Perhaps the idea of things connected and communicating with each other was like music in paleolithic times. We wanted to do more and different with the concept and here were are.
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