“I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.” — Harry Emerson Fosdick
Music and math; is there a relationship beyond the obvious and that which lies in the realm of higher math and linguistics? In other words is there a realm of understanding that is beyond our current ability? Does music carry information in that realm?
Boethius, in his work De Musica, described three categories of music:
musica mundana (sometimes referred to as musica universalis)
musica humana (the internal music of the human body)
musica quae in quibusdam constituta est instrumentis (sounds made by singers and instrumentalists)
Boethius believed that musica mundana could only be discovered through the intellect, but that the order found within it was the same as that found in audible music, and that both reflect the beauty of God.
Do sounds in general carry such information? An animal’s sound or even the sound of a mechanical device? Is there a way to view it that is more than a Fourier analysis?
If I don’t know what I am looking for, how do I know when I have found it? The premise of Flatland comes to mind. How do I approach the idea of discovering what I don’t know I don’t know?
“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.” ― Arthur C. Clarke