Ramblings on God, Science, Poetry, Music, Divinity etc...

[PUNARVASU]

VK, that was very good; I got to learn a lot from your posts.Thanks for sharing.

[rrao13]

Nirguna Brahman is a fundamental thesis of Hinduism and so is Satguna Brahman ( We can talk about that very important distinction later, our human perception of God is more on the satguna side of things so it is easy to relate ).

This is not an acceptable statement to the followers of Tattvavaada siddhantha/Madhwas/disciples of Shri Madhwacharya. For us (I mean Madhwas) He is: sarvaguNa sampUrNaH sarva dosha
vivarjitaH

Normally I would not respond to any religious statements made on this board because I am here for Karnatik Music and not for religious learning. But at times, I am sorry to say that some of the things written here are not applicable on a generic basis. If you were to revise the above statement to include your shool of religion, then I am fine with it. But saying something is fundamental to Hinduism is not appropriate.

[vasanthakokilam]

rrao13: Point well taken. I have modified that statement in question to "Nirguna Brahman is a fundamental thesis of some of the schools of Hindu philosophy and so is Saguna Brahman". Let me know if it resolves the objection to the extent of the topic of this thread.

[srkris]

Should be saguna, not satguna.

[rrao13]

I have modified that statement in question to "Nirguna Brahman is a fundamental thesis of some of the schools of Hindu philosophy and so is Satguna Brahman". Let me know if it resolves the objection to the extent of the topic of this thread.

Yes, Thanks.

[vasanthakokilam]

Kji: Thanks for the kind words. Pleasure and honor are mine. Looking forward to future pilion rides to experience the Kji's CM tour of Chennai !!

knandago2001 : The concepts you mention like feedback and especially "far from equilibrium states" along the lines of "order in the midst of chaos" are sort of familiar to me, having encountered them in my hobby of learning about non-linear systems. But I am too thin on those topics to develop it further for the topic at hand. It will be great if you can expand on those and relate it to our topic to the extent possible. That will be awesome. Thanks.

One thing that is worth pondering is this: The words "uniformity" and "equilibrium" are given a positive connotation in normal usage. But these are sort of "bad" words in entropy terms in the sciences. They represent higher entropy states. In fact, the highest entropy state is a state of atmost uniformity where there is no potential to do "work".

Contrast the two: In the minimal entropy state the potential to do work is maximum, omnipotent, but no work needs to be performed. In the maximal entropy state, the potential to do work is minimum and no work can be performed.

Low entropy state is a low probability state and it requires tender loving care, coaxing and cajoling to achieve that. A simple way to contemplate why this is so is this: Consider a carrom board with the carrom coins scattered on the table. What is the probability of finding the coins perfectly organized in the center ready to start a game. It is very very small. Why? . There are millions of possible ways the coins can be organized ( scattered ) on the board and that starting configuration is just one of them. So the probability of finding it scattered all over the place is much much higher than the "orderly" state. That is why ORDER is a low entropy and low probability state and DISORDER is a high entropy and high probability state. There are just millions of ways to organize something in a DISORDERLY state but there are only a few ORDERLY states. Hence the difference in probability. That carrom starting state represents a state of order, a state of low entropy and it requiers work to gather all the pieces and bring it to the center in that orderly fashion.

In general, systems, left to their own, tend to go to an equilibrium state which is characterized by some uniformity of distribution( defined as disorder ). They usually are higher entropy states. It takes some effort and energy to bring it some order, to lower its entropy.

Along the same lines, considering all the sounds one can make, music itself is a low entropy product since there is a definite order to it compared to the millions of random sound sequences that can be produced.

Most of the times, we like lower entropy products/states than higher entropy ones. Especially enjoyable events are when such Order arises out of Chaos.

This incidentally is the title of an immensely useful book on these topics: Order Out of Chaos by Ilya Prigogin, a nobel prize winner and a master at the far from equilibrium states and related concepts that knandago2001 refers to.

If equilibrium state represents disorder, then there are states far from equilibrium where orderly states exist. This is called non-equilibrium phase transitions.

Our mind is normally in a disorderly state. The peaceful state we experience, a low entropy state, when we listen to good music is probably such a non-equilibrium phase transition. So in a way, music, a low entropy product in itself causes us to reduce our entropy by moving us away from the normal equilibrium disorderly state we are in.

Sureshvv, this is probably what you are thinking of as well.

One fascinating thing about all this is that the concept of "flow of time" is associated with increase in entropy. In fact, increase in entropy is what gives us the concept of "arrow of time and the perception of past, present and future. When we reduce our entropy through music or meditation or losing ourselves in some work, we feel that bliss that Arasi refered to and we feel "Time stood still". This is more than just metaphorical and in fact is rooted in some reality in science terms.

[knandago2001]

vasanthakokilam: i’m all admiration!! For those like me who are new to vk’s world these links may be of some interest -

Claude Shannon
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 768a0.html
“In the 1990s, in one of life's tragic ironies, Shannon came down with Alzheimer's disease, which could be described as the insidious loss of information in the brain. The communications channel to one's memories--one's past and one's very personality--is progressively degraded until every effort at error correction is overwhelmed and no meaningful signal can pass through. The bandwidth falls to zero. The extraordinary pattern of information processing that was Claude Shannon finally succumbed to the depredations of thermodynamic entropy in February 2001. But some of the signal generated by Shannon lives on, expressed in the information technology in which our own lives are now immersed.â€

[gn.sn42]

Carnatic Music Styles as communication systems http://www.jstor.org/pss/843082

For those without access to JSTOR, a copy of this article is available on the Gift Siromoney tribute web site (in addition to a lot of other interesting content):
http://www.cmi.ac.in/gift/Music/musi_karnatic.htm

[uday_shankar]

One fascinating thing about all this is that the concept of "flow of time" is associated with increase in entropy. In fact, increase in entropy is what gives us the concept of "arrow of time and the perception of past, present and future. When we reduce our entropy through music or meditation or losing ourselves in some work, we feel that bliss that Arasi refered to and we feel "Time stood still". This is more than just metaphorical and in fact is rooted in some reality in science terms.

This is profoundly true. The second law of thermodynamics is fundamental for a physical basis for the flow or "arrow" of time as Penrose and Hawking call it. A great flaw In the literature of relativity, both technical as well as popular, including the writings of Einstein, is the glossing over of this thermodynamical basis for the "arrow of time". This, in turn, is the basis of an ontological experience of time. No person, including a relativistic physicist, is able to deny the inexorable decay of his physical body, even if he/she is unable to percieve its ultimate "death". Even if some advance in genetic science is able to interfere with the ageing process, the sequence of development of brain circuits from birth to the current state, i.e. what we call memory, would be undeniable. So the "personal" experience of a unidirectional flow of time is undeniable. In other words, causality remains even if space and time are integrated geometrically.

I've come across one book on relativity, only one, that too quite accidentally, that contains extensive and wonderful discussions on the nature of time:

http://www.amazon.com/Spacetime-Electro ... 0198520387

I would strongly recommend this book.

Not to be taken seriously but perhaps the goal of mediation, gnyana, God, etc.. is to limit causality by try to experience the bliss of having no events at all, but not to attempt to reverse causality. The latter may be the tempting and useless pursuit of miraculous powers ?!

[vasanthakokilam]

Carnatic Music Styles as communication systems http://www.jstor.org/pss/843082

For those without access to JSTOR, a copy of this article is available on the Gift Siromoney tribute web site (in addition to a lot of other interesting content):
http://www.cmi.ac.in/gift/Music/musi_karnatic.htm

Thanks knandago2001 and gn.sn42.

That is quite a creative attempt to tease out some characteristics of the compositions of the trinity. But the authors conclude that "information content" as calculated through the entropy formula does not differ that much among the composers or between the two ragas they looked at.

It may be a bit daunting to read this rather short but dense article. Let me outline what they did.

They took two ragams ( Shankarabaranam and Madhyamavathi ) and compositions in them by the trinity. For each composition, they then painstakingly counted the swaras and put them in "bins" for each swara. Then they calculated the relative frequency of the swaras and from there it is a straightforward hop, skip and a jump to get to entropy value using the standard Shannon formula.

In this context, what does the entropy value mean? This is slightly different from what we have been talking about but nonetheless very related, it is just another face of it. What they have done is to measure the "inherent" information content of the compositions. It is not about the meaning of the information but just a quantification of the information. What we have discussed till now is the entropy associated with 'information flow ', what happens to this information as it is communicated to somebody else.

To be precise, the technically correct way to describe what the authors have done is this: The entropy number they came up with is a measure of "uncertainty" or "surprise factor". You hear one note and how much uncertainty is there in "guessing" the next note. Another way of stating it is 'how surprised you will be when you hear the next note'. If the next note is a very improbable swara, then you will be surprised. The entropy of the entire piece will be higher if there were lot of such surprises. If it is a very probable swara, then you will not be surprised. Then entropy is lower. The combined value of the 'uncertainty' of all the swaras is what their number represents..

What they have concluded is that you can not infer any statistically significant meaning based on the way they calculated the entropy value. They do not correlate between the ragas and there is not much correlation across composers in the same raga.

Hope this helps in understanding the meaning and significance of their work.

Having described their work in my words ( apologies for any misrepresentation or oversimplification ), let us discuss what the musical significance is. We all know ragas are not just a sequence of random swaras. There are prayoga patterns and gamaka patterns. People are familiar with those patterns. Within each prayoga, the "surprise" factor or uncertainty is very low since we sort of know what swara comes next in a prayoga. We may not know at the swara level but the overall effect of a prayoga would not be "surprising". Even if the artist does not exactly produce the prayoga, we sort of "error correct" and enjoy it nonetheless.

Take a characteristic Shankarabaranam prayoga "GA MA PA GA RI SA". When people hear the combined effect of these 6 swaras, it is quite familiar to them and they nod and enjoy. The entropy level of that prayoga is very low. Compare that to "SA DHA RI MA NI SA GA NI DHA SA" ( or something like that ). In the shankarabaranam context, the entropy of that phrase is quite high since there are so many surprises.

The authors paved the way for quantitatively determining that surprise factor/uncertaintly factor. That is what the entropy value means in this context. Though the authors conclude that they did not detect any differences in entropy in the compositions they looked at, I think there are two musical applications.

1) Since the Trinity set the template for raga characterisitcs, let us use their entropy value for calibration and use that as a standard. If we analyze someone else's composition and if the entropy value is statistically different from the trinity calibrated value, then it is a candidate for further examination. Is it because the usage of shankarabaranam is markedly different from what the Trinity used, are there too many jumps, have they used a different swara more frequently than normal, have they not used the jiva swaras as much as the trinity etc. All these factors can contribute to a difference in entropy

2) Second application is to extend the work of the authors and get a paper published . The authors of the above paper have done the tough part and have shown us the way. There is now a low hanging fruit ready to be plucked. Instead of using the individual swaras as the basic unit ("symbols"), use "prayogas" and "gamakas" as the basic unit.

These are two separate calculations, one for "prayoga sequence" and one for "gamakas".

On the prayoga calculation, one tough part is in deciding the prayogas to use as symbols for a particular raga and then counting them in the various compositions. So there is some research planning there.

For gamakas, our own A.M. Sharma has done all the leg work. In his recent update to his AMS EasyMethods - 2007 CD which is available for free download at http://sangeethamshare.org/chandra/AMS- ... hods-2007/ , Sharmaji has devised an exhaustive set of gamaka symbols and on top of that notated many compositions using those symbols. Those are the "alphabets" for the gamaka based entropy calculation.

We can see if, with this calculation, the compositions of the trinity or ragas in themselves vary with respect to entropy value. And rasikas can also check if their tastes correlates somehow with the calculated entropy value. No guarantees of course that the entropy value will be statistically meaningful but as with any scientific enquiry, a null result adds to the state of the art.

A couple of days back, we got in to how entropy increases in music (Information) transmission, and here we are referring to the inherent entropy of the source of that information itself.

[arasi]

VK,
Your simplification is tough enough, but 'there is a low hanging fruit ready to be plucked'--as you so aptly put--for the erudite rasikAs on the forum. Or for going from there to find something on their own, inspired by this. For lesser rasikAs like me, it is fascinating to hear about all the work that is done in music in some context or other (getting papers published being one!).
A dumb question perhaps--better than in svarams, don't you experience the 'surprises' in rAgA singing/playing even more? Agreed. It shows up showcased in svarA patterns, but in a finer way in AlApanais. Is it just me?

[vasanthakokilam]

Arasi: You are right on the mark. Given the manodharma involved in alapana, the surprise factor will show up in the calculated entropy of a particular singer's manodharma. People do notice 'new pidis' with in the context of a raga elaboration. So, alapana, thanam, niraval and kalpanaswaram are all prime candidates in that context. Those rasikas who want something new will find 'higher surprises'/higher entropy to be a plus whereas those who prefer a traditional presentation would prefer a lower surprise/low entropy to be a plus. The characterization of "high" and "low" are all relative to the context of the raga. If an artist is so prone to experimentation that he springs a lot of surprises that may not be in the boundaries of a raga, then that high entropy may not be enjoyable even to rasikas who want some adventure and newness.

[vasanthakokilam]

folk songs related posts are moved to http://www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=86773

[vs_manjunath]

For the KInd Attention of rshankar & other rasikas who have contributed/viewed this post.

The following book is very interesting: | | Science and Beyond ||
Cosmology, Consciousness and Technology in the Indic Traditions.

Editors- Sangeetha Menon,BV Sreekantan,Anindya Sinha, Philip Clayton & Roddam Narasimha .
Publ by NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES, Indian Institute Science Campus, Bangalore. ( Space Scientist Dr Kasturi Rangan, Former Chairman ISRO is the Present Director of this Institute) Price Rs 350/-; US $ 35
Copies can be had from The Controller, NIAS, IISc Campus, Bangalore 560 012 ; Phone 91-080-2360 4351;2360 6594THis book contains the proceedings of an International Symposium held at NIAS during 8-11 Jan, 2003 on the same title as the book. This symposium was the fourth and last in the series " Science and the Spiritual Quest II ", an international programme of the Center for theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkely, California.
(More in my next post)

[karthik76]

Some of Albert Einstein's beautiful quotes on these topics -

The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.
( Albert Einstein - The Merging of Spirit and Science)

I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being. (Albert Einstein)

I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know his thoughts. The rest are details. (The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, 2000 p.202)

I see a pattern, but my imagination cannot picture the maker of that pattern. I see a clock, but I cannot envision the clockmaker. The human mind is unable to conceive of the four dimensions, so how can it conceive of a God, before whom a thousand years and a thousand dimensions are as one? (The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, 2000 p. 208)

It is very difficult to elucidate this [cosmic religious] feeling to anyone who is entirely without it. . . The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it ... In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it. (The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, p. 207)

What separates me from most so-called atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos. (Albert Einstein to Joseph Lewis, Apr. 18, 1953)

As to science, we may well define it for our purpose as "methodical thinking directed toward finding regulative connections between our sensual experiences". (Albert Einstein, 1948)

While it is true that science, to the extent of its grasp of causative connections, may reach important conclusions as to the compatibility and incompatibility of goals and evaluations, the independent and fundamental definitions regarding goals and values remain beyond science's reach. (Albert Einstein, 1948)

Truly a genius !!!