I was watching
NOVA "What Darwin Never Knew" this week.. It was truly wonderful, such a simple and eloquent explanation of evolution. I very much enjoyed all 2 hours with no arguments. It was thorough and concise, splendid and even charismatic! You all should catch it..
Anyways, a comment was made regarding human evolution that music was "unique to our species" which I thought was preposterous! It was the only mistake I saw in this otherwise delightful documentary. So many animals have music that this was an obvious mistake..
The real question, evolutionarily speaking, is why are humans
so musical?
Perhaps it is because we are so social? Birds are highly musical animals, they use songs and melodies to communicate simple, instinctive messages that convey primal emotions of fear, joy, doubt, frustration etc etc..
We too use musical speach to animate our conversations and communicate with other people. The question could be then asked, "Did humans learn to speak from birds?" Some scientists argue that our vocal chords were developed to sing before we could speak, and that the origin of human speech is musical. Primates howl and 'talk' vocally with melodies, rhythms and musical patterns. Speech is entirely based upon mimic. Did we take speech from birds? We use speech to convey complex messages and thoughts, but are our musical roots to convey simpler, instinctive feelings like the birds and animals? Adding all these what-ifs, could we be musical as a species because it conveys instinctive feelings and not necessarily thoughts/ideas/opinions?
What then is the evolutionary function of feelings?
evolution is deeper than theology sometimes...