Music appreciation and the computational mind

[Anselm33]

There have been several threads about mentality as possibly a computational process. Thinking about this, I am curious about the following. Could one build a computer that would appreciate music? I am thinking about my own experiences with music; to give just two examples, hearing “Amazing Grace” and knowing the history of the composer of the lyrics and how the verses apply to me; hearing Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, and going back 70 some odd years to hearing/seeing this in Fantasia, and knowing that was my kind of music.
It would be interesting to get comments from both computationalists (if there be such a term) and anti-computationalists.

 

[Pieman333272]

Well, you could give it AI which allowed it to judge music based on tempo, notes, genre, etc. But then it would only be categorizing, not appreciating the music it “likes”. I guess if you wanted to, you could make it “lean” to certain sounds when played on the computer, (it would “listen” by the music playing on its OS) like give folk a lower rating and electronica a higher one. Interesting question.

 

[bschneid]

I do not understand this topic very well. Seeing as all computer programs are based on parameters I can’t see a computer thinking for itself? Now to my knowledge no one has invented true artificial intelligence. Are yall debating on whether it would be possible at one point in the future for computers to have human like understanding?

 

[Anselm33]

I do not understand this topic very well. Seeing as all computer programs are based on parameters I can’t see a computer thinking for itself? Now to my knowledge no one has invented true artificial intelligence. Are yall debating on whether it would be possible at one point in the future for computers to have human like understanding?

That’s what I was trying slyly to put forth, that it wasn’t possible, but I’m willing to hear other ideas about this.

 

[bschneid]

Ahh I see. Well Protobiologists have theories about how non-living matter can evolve into living matter. Most of these theories however have been refuted. Even if this is possible they have no way of explaining how something with no genetic code can develop genetic code, that is understandable. I do not know a lot about how DNA works but from my understanding written in the code are the “motivations” or goals for the organism. For example the necessity for an organism to reproduce. I think this innate code boggles scientists since we can’t create it from scratch?

So I think the only possible way for us to have something that can appreciate music would be to build a cyborg

 

[reggieM]

This got me thinking about a few more similiar things:

1. Could a computer appreciate the religious expression in a Mass by Tallis or Bach or Schubert? Could the computer determine if there was a “sense of the sacred” communicated in any art form?
2. Could a computer reflect on its own sin (moral faults), and determine what it should do to repent and repair it’s sinful behavior?
3. Could a computer recognize the divine quality of the Gospels? The truth of the resurrection? The sacredness of human life (and the transient value of a computer)?