The Evolution of Music

One of the criticisms being leveled at the budding science of memetics is a valid one: what is it good for? Can memetics explain historical facts any better than existing theories? Can it make better predictions? If not, it can hardly be called a science, let alone a paradigm shift in understanding culture. To the rescue comes philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett, deliverer of the first Charles Simonyi Lecture at Oxford last week. What does memetics explain that we otherwise have no clue about?

Music.

Traditional evolutionary theory -- not taking memes into account -- boils down to the idea that in the end, everything is about improving an organism's chances for reproducing its genes. While there has been ample speculation as to the biological function of music, most people thinking along traditional lines of evolutionary theory have concluded that it's at best some kind of not-yet-understood social-group bonding mechanism and at worst a mistake that hasn't been caught yet by Mother Nature. Given enough time, they say, genes for liking music will be out-competed by genes for something more productively related to reproduction.

Dennett proposes that music has less to do with genes, and more to do with much-quicker-evolving memes. Memes may actually be directing the evolution of genes to suit themselves much the way we breed dogs so they look and behave the way we fancy them. When one looks at the sex lives of popular musicians, that's not so far-fetched a thought, is it? Why is it that rock stars have so many adoring admirers? What possible genetic function could it serve to want to mate with a singer?

Dennett weaves a tale of how it might have happened, beginning with caveman Og pounding with a stick on a log. Some of the rhythms he pounds, for whatever reason, are more catchy than others. The ones that are catchy get picked up by other cavemen. These rhythms are mental information patterns: early memes.

Now this pounding evolves for awhile, and it turns out that some of the rhythms that get pounded out are more pleasing than others, and crowds tend to gather around when someone pounds them out. Since the crowds gather around, the meme spreads faster. As a byproduct of this, the best rhythm-pounders gain in social status and therefore get more chance to spread those genes that give them the knack for rhythm.

Eventually, pounding gives way to more complex music, and all the while the better musicians attract more attention, spread the memes better, and as a byproduct get more mating opportunities. It's all driven by the memes, which evolve so much faster than genes that unless the direction the memes take is so toxic to the genes that we find ourselves wiped out -- by global nuclear war, for example -- the genes can never catch up.

So by the time we reach 1999, our genes have evolved a bit, perhaps, over thousands of years, to make us enjoy music more. But look at how music has evolved in only the last thousand years! We've gone from Gregorian chants to Bach to Tchaikovsky to Celene Dion! (OK, it's not always an improvement.) But the point is that the music evolves to push our buttons -- to draw our attention and compete with everything else out there that wants our attention too.

Does this mean it's bad to listen to music? Of course not. As with everything, the key is consciousness. Are you spending your time on what's most important to you or on what's unconsciously demanding your precious time? Like a pet dog, the memes in your life can be a source of delight and can be kept on a leash.

The question is, who's pulling the leash: you or your memes?

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All the best memes,

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