Interesting… I think I’ll have to add that to my book list. (Like I need more books!)

Thanks.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Scruton’s book (in Chapter 5) discussed this as the difference between “representation” and “expression”. The stuff that we consider to be poetry, music, and art all involves indirect “expression” of something that we can feel and be moved by, through the work of art. He develops this argument leading up to the example of Schubert’s Wintereisse, which is a supremely moving expression of love lost. Someone could simply write “A young man was heartbroken”, which would be “representational” instead of “expressive”, and would be hardly as moving.

It’s why, I think, C.S. Lewis preferred metaphor and story, and gave up on the expository/logical argument later in life.

Joshua, could you expand on that Scruton comment, or give a bit more context? I’m not quite getting it.

While I and my family are having a bit of fun with the article after we saw it in the paper, I think the research itself is quite interesting.

Kent,

You might be on to something!

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

This is closely related to the research on “fractal” music and songbird patterns over the past decade.

Roger Scruton’s book “Beauty” made almost the identical observation to the researcher quoted in this article: “The very nature of music itself is that it’s stylized, that it almost extracts the emotional parts of the sound and makes it impossible to identify.”