TED Community » Al Smith

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I'm passionate about

life in general. It's awesome.

An idea worth spreading

The connection between the physical world and the world of music. Vibrations of strings reflecting moods such as happiness (major scale) and sadness (minor scale.) Music is a philosophy in of itself for it describes our deepest emotions and yet has no specific dogma attached to it. Every religion in the world uses music in gaining a connection to a higher consciousness, and that kind of experience is, to me, lacking in our society.

Talk to me about

Any given subject that you believe is the "truth," because we all have different definitions of what truth can be, and the more discussion there is, the closer we can come to actual universal truths.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +0.50 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +1

  A comment on Talk: Robert Gupta: Music is medicine, music is sanity

  Feb 19 2012: One of the major connections I have found is that all religions, major or minor, use music in their worship of a greater divine idea. Music, regardless of religious intent, makes us feel "something" and that is translated so clearly through theories we can understand. Like a major scale is related to us feeling happy or minor scales making us feel sad; music connecting us to memories and inspiring movements based on peace.
  
  In a religious studies class, I learned that there are 4 qualities to religious establishment:
  
  Ritual
  Text
  Prophets
  The Divine Unknowable
  
  These combine to make a person aware of some kind of greater self (and even that description is misleading because it is only a basic understanding.) And if we look at the way music has been adapted into our lives, we have the ritual of listening to our favorite songs to feed our desire for art, the text of lyrics that act as a sign pointing at the moon; something that tells the story of the way to the real ideal, prophets in our favorite artists that elevate their understanding of music to the next level, be they famous or not, and of course the great philosophy of the universal "you just can't put it into words, man."
  
  One of my favorite stories is of Buddha and the sitar player. The Buddha came across a man stringing his sitar one string at a time, and this triggered a realization of the middle way, in which the harmonious balance of not too tight and not too loose made the string vibrate beautifully. And maybe that is why we love music so much, because it is harmonic and vibrational perfection.
  
  Phew, long-winded, but I love music, and it's awesome to talk about!

• A reply on Conversation: What do religions all have in common?

  Sep 11 2011: thumbs up :)

• A reply on Conversation: What do religions all have in common?

  Sep 10 2011: But sure enough, there is an experience to be had on the individual level that doesn't necessarily require others.
  
  I don't think it is about what we "call" a religion; a sign pointing at the moon is irrelevant if you feel the moon is there, it's about the initial feeling of a single person that drives that motivation to come together with others and say "hey, I think there's something to this!"
  
  and ps, my professors would kill you for using wikipedia as a source lol

• A reply on Conversation: What do religions all have in common?

  Sep 10 2011: First off, I don't think it matters what I personally believe, or what you personally believe, since my arguments are simply the flip side to your arguments in the interest of discussion. And comments like "Listen to the news lately?" and "you must believe this?..." come on now
  
  The point of naming those few wasn't because they were men or the fact they died, but simply to show that a multitude of different cultural backgrounds and experiences still result in a universal commitment to nonviolence. Too often, we are bewildered by the fact we give people power, and they abuse that power. Power is a natural thing to seek in the animal world, from which we are not entirely separated, and yet we act surprised when politicians are corrupt or religious leaders are going against their own words. Religion is not the cause, but merely one of the latest avenues mankind has made for themselves in order to control. When a person wants to feel safe, they will gather in tribes of people who think like they do, or have the same viewpoints as they do, it's natural. And as we encounter different ideas, we panic as if those ideas are an immediate danger to our own selves.
  
  When religion gets to a point where an ideology needs to fight another ideology over who is more "righteous,"; that's not religion, that's mob mentality. Even those strongly against religion should see the benefit in how it makes us all connected, even though primal tendencies still arise here and there.
  
  If one is really into science over religion, if there is such a distinction really, I would ask what does science look like without religion? If there were no people looking towards the heavens and imagining what could possibly be, there would be no scientists, or theologians, or philosophers in general. You can't have one without the other, because it's all just the quest for knowledge in the metaphysical sense.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: What do religions all have in common?

  Sep 10 2011: Well at the same time, many people of strong religious convictions are the best examples of nonviolence, i.e Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus classic (before the fundamentalist extremists,) It seems that religion produces yet another example of the duality of everything, in that it produces people of hate and bigotry looking for power in the most "animalistic" of tendencies, and that religion results in philosophers of compassion and truth, and through knowing this kind of absolute example of everything righteous with the world, one can become a symbol of divine grace.
  
  In many ways, being a "fence sitter" puts you in the harmonious center of it all, which is juuuuuuuust fine

• A comment on Conversation: What do religions all have in common?

  Sep 10 2011: One of the major connections I have found is that all religions, major or minor, use music in their worship of a greater divine idea. Music, regardless of religious intent, makes us feel "something" and that is translated so clearly through theories we can understand. Like a major scale is related to us feeling happy or the opposite of minor scales making us feel sad; music connecting us to memories and inspiring movements based on peace.
  
  In a religious studies class, I learned that there are 4 qualities to religious establishment:
  
  Ritual
  Text
  Prophets
  The Divine Unknowable
  
  These combine to make a person aware of some kind of greater self (and even that description is misleading because it is only a basic understanding.) And if we look at the way music has been adapted into our lives, we have the ritual of listening to our favorite songs to feed our desire for art, the text of lyrics that act as a sign pointing at the moon; something that tells the story of the way to the real ideal, prophets in our favorite artists that elevate their understanding of music to the next level, be they famous or not, and of course the great philosophy of the universal "you just can't put it into words, man."
  
  One of my favorite stories is of Buddha and the sitar player. The Buddha came across a man stringing his sitar one string at a time, and this triggered a realization of the middle way, in which the harmonious balance of not too tight and not too loose made the string vibrate beautifully. And maybe that is why we love music so much, because it is harmonic and vibrational perfection.
  
  Phew, long-winded, but I love music, and it's awesome to talk about!

• A reply on Conversation: What subjects do you think you should be taught at school nowadays?

  Sep 9 2011: Isn't it a little bit difficult for children to make decisions for themselves when the world that is taught to them is already figured out? I'm all for presenting children with the most up-to-date knowledge our world can provide, but to say that philosophies based on speculation shouldn't be included in teaching is robbing a younger generation of what it means to be a philosopher.
  
  When you talk about teaching a child rational thinking, what is that based on exactly? How do we come up with the rules that we all abide by? Do not kill? Even though all of animal nature is based on a kill or be killed attitude? We as humans have the ability to have morality, but saying that is all there is and that we cannot be connected to an outside, sometimes seemingly irrational universe is not the kind of mentality I would like to send to another generation.
  
  Sometimes irrational thoughts transfer to groundbreaking achievements, and even science admits there is no end to the knowledge we can extrapolate from reality, so maybe thinking outside the box is just what matters most.

• A reply on Conversation: What subjects do you think you should be taught at school nowadays?

  Sep 9 2011: My high school in MA had a 40 hour community service requirement for graduation. Sure, it is forcing what 'should' be a voluntary experience, but for many like myself, it was the first step regardless of wanting to or not.

• A comment on Talk: Jennifer Lin: Improvising on piano, aged 14

  Sep 9 2011: How is it uninspired to make a song based on the randomness of numbers? I think that's genius!
  
  The thing about random sequences of notes is that we assume they will be out of sequence, and therefore, not traditionally "beautiful." But as you heard, there are pockets of organized chaos, which sound just amazing, thus proving the "inspired" qualities of the piece.
  
  Uninspired thinking looks at the world and prefers to stay confined in things we can immediately understand, and for a lot of people that's normal because it is safe. We love safe. It's being different that initially triggers inspiration.
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Tim Harford: Trial, error and the God complex

  Aug 20 2011: I find Hartford's relation of trial and error to expectations of our elected officials really interesting, for when was the last time we heard a politician say "we may not succeed in our ideas, but we'll give it a shot." Too many times we go for an all or nothing approach to our philosophies and end up fighting each other.
  
  But of course one has to think, are public policies too important to be left up to trial and error? Applying the willingness to try out new ideas was one of the reasons FDR's public works projects worked out for the betterment of the US, and surely today, social security and medicare are seen as staples of a functioning society when in their time they were experimental.
  
  But moving on from the political headache I'm sure we all have nowadays, let's not be afraid to try new ideas when they present themselves. Any idea can become the next great idea.