Hi, List
I quoted:
> << those lesions "may have DAMAGED
> specific circuit relevant for the integration and apreciation of musical
> material >>
and Doris commented:
> Unlike their use of "Gain,"
> their use of "damage" may be more precise. The damage causes rewiring of
the
> circuits, right, as the brain attempts to compensate for the loss of it's
> proper circuitry?
Hey, Ms. Goodwill ;-), don't you think YOU are compensating for THE DOCTOR'S
loss of proper circuitry?
If his patients' elusive circuit that's 'relevant for the integration and
appreciation of musical material' was damaged as alleged, and they started
liking pop music, the conclusion should be that their enjoying of pop music
is due to their being unable to 'integrate' ( what's that word doing here?!)
and 'appreciate' musical material, what is completely self-contradictory,
since they have actually STARTED APPRECIATING pop music, which IS musical
material.
I think they may be completely wrong in their interpretation. I'll give you
an example:
My older brother wasn't much into music until some years ago, when I gave
him my old portable CD-player. He used to reprimand me for spending so much
on cds ( as you must know, cds in Brazil are pretty expensive ). Nowadays,
if he listens to whatever song it is that he likes he HAS TO buy the cd. He
has me search the web for the band's and song name, and he can drive a long
way to a big cd store just to look for that specific cd. And then, if he
finds out it's s a cover, he sets sail to buy the original one! He's got now
about 900 cds, which is, for the American standard, like buying 2,000
cds!!!!!
My brother hasn't had any brain damage ( or so I suppose! ). The cd-player
was the only variable, but maybe it generated electromagnetic fields that
damaged specific circuit relevant for the integration and apreciation of
musical material.
>
> I particularly enjoyed their disclaimer about enjoying Italian pop music
did
> not indicate frontal lobe damage! he he he!!!
It sure does! That was the allegation that I really couldn't buy! :-)
>
> Give these contradictions an applied linguistic slant, Caio. Perhaps the
> researchers' report was in Italian. Just who processed it for the
Reuters
> release?
Possibly, but I don't think so. Although doctors insist that depression can
only be treated if using Prozac-like medication, research has shown that
it's not necessarily true ( 'talk therapy' can change hardwiring ). And I
had a hard time during a "Behavior Genetics' class at the university, when a
famous biochemist here said that humans were naturally violent and only
civilization compensated for that. In an uncivilized environment, like in
the past, humans were necessarily violent. I said his argument was
completely stupid ( in fact, I said questionable, but stupid was what I
meant! ) , since I could turn it the other way round and say that humans
were intrinsically peaceful but an uncivilized environment made us violent.
He stared at me a little bit puzzled and continued his pseudo-scientific
blah-blah-blah. He must think the first Christians adopted their new
peaceful religion just to be 'overtaken' by the lions' rage, in a
masochistic version of that preference for violence.
It's like that experiment where many rats had a certain gland extracted
the so-called gay gland ) and started to function as 'females' in the
colony. They just didn't explain what made the intact males be sexually
interested in male rats with a scar on the head! That could be called the
gay gland, or the fetish-deactivating gland, or the passive-rape gland, or
the rear-sensitivity gland, whatever!
The point is that the scientific community has decided that behavior is
genetically determined or influenced, and they won't change their minds just
because of some 'old-fashioned' Occam's razor principle...hehe
Best regards,
Caio Rossi
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