Musical Literacy: A Skill of Some Note

theepochtimes.com

Musical Literacy: A Skill of Some Note(s)

Peter Tregear

Earlier in 2015 a story ran in the U.K. press which revealed that it was Heather Mills who taught her daughter music, not her ex-husband, Sir Paul McCartney, because he cannot read music notation. McCartney and John Lennon left the job of notating their music for the Beatles to producer George Martin.
The news was received with frisson in some quarters, suggesting that a central goal of traditional music education, the ability to read music, was, self-evidently, unnecessary for a career, let alone a qualification, in music.
Given the ongoing threat to the funding of such music education in schools, it certainly gives us pause for thought.

Given the ongoing threat to the funding of such music education in schools, it certainly gives us pause for thought.

Should we teach music notation? Should the ability to read music be a prerequisite to take a music degree or, indeed, teach music?
This is much more than simply an academic question. After all, a specialist music teacher represents a significant investment by the state.

More Than Simply Notes on a Page?

Musical literacy is indeed no longer a prerequisite skill in many of the degree courses in music emerging at major Western universities. This is particularly true of courses that focus on popular musical genres and music production.

Music production today is largely concerned with technology rather than notation. (Jules0222/iStock)

This shift reflects not so much the example of McCartney and others. Rather, technological advances in music production have all but obliterated the need for popular music to be transcribed into musical notation for it to be exchanged between producers, performers, and listeners.
Recall that it was not so long ago when the latest commercial musical hits could be bought as sheet music to be played at home on the piano or guitar. Sheet music may still be available today, but in the digital era, neither the creation nor the consumption of music demands mediation through a written score.

Popular sheet music: Wonderful World of Disney (1970). (Tom Simpson/Flickr, CC BY)

At the tertiary level, I suspect this emerging lack of confidence in music notation can also be traced to a broader, utopian urge to rid the world of old-fashioned hegemonic norms and institutional values.
The teaching of notation as a cornerstone of music education can appear to some as merely “just another brick in the wall,” as Pink Floyd would have it; a means of subsuming individual artistic freedom into predetermined patterns of thought.
We thus end up with a rather Orwellian notion educational idea that here, at least, ignorance is strength.
Preordained systems of communication like musical notation are inevitably normative, and thus potentially oppressive to the creative expression of individuals and minorities.
The abolition of such norms has become, according to a recent essay by the great theorist of postmodernism Frederick Jameson, “a burning political issue,” often associated with “identity politics and the politics of secessionist groups and marginal or oppressed cultures.”

Preserving Music, Preserving Culture

To be sure, musical notation is indeed a reductive system that inevitably shapes and limits what it attempts to describe.
But it still provides the most powerful means yet developed for turning the musical work into something preservable, transferable, and analyzable. It connects us to well over a millennium’s worth of historical music practice. Above all, it allows us to render music into objects of heightened critical contemplation.

Left: “Symbolum Nicenum” from the Mass in B minor (1749) (BWV 232), by Johann Sebastian Bach. Right: “Don’t Jazz Me-Rag” (1921), by James Scott. (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY)

Just as the printed word not only made it possible not just to preserve but also deconstruct and reflect upon the various ways we construct words to help give meaning to our world, musical notation gave us a similar capacity to reflect deeply on how music does the same.
Rather than being a utopian moment of artistic (and thus political) freedom, an emerging loss of confidence in notated musical culture might in fact foretell its very opposite: a loss of a particular type of imaginative, historical, and political capacity in our society.
As early as 1938, in the provocatively titled essay “On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening,” the German philosopher and social critic Theodor Adorno suggested what such a loss might mean in practice. The real dichotomy faced by Western musical culture, he thought, was not between “light” and “serious” music but rather “between music that was market-oriented and music that was not.”
A significant question the music critic must ask, then, is: to what extent is the music offering any resistance to its appropriation as a tool in social and economic domination?
Adorno was deeply distrusting of what he thought was the pseudo folk-culture around popular music. In his analysis, this ethos concealed a commercial imperative that was premised on manipulation and imposition of the populace from above.
So the role of tertiary music institutions in preserving the forms and critical tools of musical culture is crucial. As musicologist Ian Pace wrote recently:
“[Tertiary music education should] provide arenas where it is possible to carry out intellectual and creative [and other] work, involving genuinely independent critical and self-critical thinking, in which few things are taken as read, everything is rigorously questioned on a regular basis, with a fair degree of autonomy from commercial or other external function.”

Music and Late Capitalism

What might a world without a critical music culture look and sound like? Some commentators suggest we already know.
For cultural historian Ted Gioia, music criticism is becoming mere “lifestyle reporting.” Or as music critic Jessica Duchen suggests, pop music itself is becoming “watered-down tat with scant musical content, using only a few basic chords.”
A good example might be found in Sam Smith’s “Writing’s on the Wall” (2015), the theme song for the latest Bond film. Heightened music production values cannot rescue incoherent lyrics and an unimaginative melodic and rhythmic design. It should flop, but it hasn’t.
We should be asking ourselves why this is the case.
Surely our capacity to make such evaluative judgments depends in part on an educated musical populace. Music notation is a key tool in being able to turn mere opinion into forensic judgment.
Might an emerging lack of confidence in the educational centrality of music notation really be just another manifestation of the cultural logic of late capitalism?
Whatever we think, maybe educational debates like these should occasionally be couched at such a level. Questions like these, after all, are what higher education in the arts should be about. Questions about what it means to be rational agents in civil society, and what kinds of investments—educational and economic—we need to make to sustain such a society.

Music notation has, and continues to be, essential for preserving music. (Tntemerson/iStock)

Oh, and just for the record, Lennon and McCartney may not have read music. But you can be quite sure that pretty much everyone else involved in the transfer of their musical ideas into monuments of world culture did.
Peter Tregear is an Australian-born musician and academic currently based in London, where he is a teaching fellow in music at Royal Holloway at the University of London. This article was previously published on TheConversation.com

eracy: A Skill of Some Note

John Rutter tells why singing in a choir is so good for you - get out there and sing in one yourself!

Singing Changes Your Brain

Life & Style

Singing Changes Your Brain

Group singing has been scientifically proven to lower stress, relieve anxiety, and elevate endorphins

By Stacy Horn @StacyHorn

Aug. 16, 2013

When you sing, musical vibrations move through you, altering your physical and emotional landscape. Group singing, for those who have done it, is the most exhilarating and transformative of all. It takes something incredibly intimate, a sound that begins inside you, shares it with a roomful of people and it comes back as something even more thrilling: harmony. So it’s not surprising that group singing is on the rise. According to Chorus America, 32.5 million adults sing in choirs, up by almost 10 million over the past six years. Many people think  of church music when you bring up group singing, but there are over 270,000 choruses across the country and they include gospel groups to show choirs like the ones depicted in Glee to strictly amateur groups like Choir! Choir! Choir! singing David Bowie’s The Man Who Sold the World.

As the popularity of group singing grows, science has been hard at work trying to explain why it has such a calming yet energizing effect on people. What researchers are beginning to discover is that singing is like an infusion of the perfect tranquilizer, the kind that both soothes your nerves and elevates your spirits.

The elation may come from endorphins, a hormone released by singing, which is associated with feelings of pleasure.  Or it might be from oxytocin, another hormone released during singing, which has been found to alleviate anxiety and stress. Oxytocin also enhances feelings of trust and bonding, which may explain why still more studies have found that singing lessens feelings of depression and loneliness.  A very recent study even attempts to make the case that “music evolved as a tool of social living,” and that the pleasure that comes from singing together is our evolutionary reward for coming together cooperatively, instead of hiding alone, every cave-dweller for him or herself.

The benefits of singing regularly seem to be cumulative. In one study, singers were found to have lower levels of cortisol, indicating lower stress.  A very preliminary investigation suggesting that our heart rates may sync up during group singing could also explain why singing together sometimes feels like a guided group meditation.  Study after study has found that singing relieves anxiety and contributes to quality of life. Dr. Julene K. Johnson, a researcher who has focused on older singers, recently began a five year study to examine group singing as an affordable method to improve the health and well-being of older adults.

It turns out you don’t even have to be a good singer to reap the rewards.  According to one 2005 study, group singing “can produce satisfying and therapeutic sensations even when the sound produced by the vocal instrument is of mediocre quality.”  Singing groups vary from casual affairs where no audition is necessary to serious, committed professional or avocational choirs like the Los Angeles Master Chorale or my chorus in New York City, which I joined when I was 26 and depressed, all based on a single memory of singing in a choir at Christmas, an experience so euphoric I never forgot it.

If you want to find a singing group to join, ChoirPlace and ChoralNet are good places to begin, or more local sites like the New York Choral Consortium, which has links to the Vocal Area Network and other sites, or the Greater Boston Choral Consortium.  But if you can’t find one at any of these sites, you can always google “choir” or “choral society” and your city or town to find more. Group singing is cheaper than therapy, healthier than drinking, and certainly more fun than working out.  It is the one thing in life where feeling better is pretty much guaranteed.  Even if you walked into rehearsal exhausted and depressed, by the end of the night you’ll walk out high as a kite on endorphins and good will.

Psychological and physiological effects of singing in a choir

Psychological and physiological effects of singing in a choir
1. Ahmet Muhip Sanal
2. Selahattin Gorsev
1. Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey
1. Muhip Sanal, Department of Music Education, Abant Izzet Baysal University, 14280, Bolu, Turkey. Email: muhipsanal@yahoo.com
Abstract
This randomized controlled trial aimed to quantify the effects of choir singing on emotional state and anxiety levels of singers. Salivary amylase, PANAS (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule) and STAI-s/-t(State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) were applied before and after a 1-hour single choir session for an experimental group (n = 35) and unstructured time for control group (n = 35). Amylase decreased in the experimental group but increased in the control group (p > 0.05 for Fgroup; p = 0.014 for Ftestbygroup). Follow-up analysis showed this interaction to be due to baseline differences between the two groups. Negative affect decreased in the experimental group and increased in the control group (p > 0.05 for Ftest and Fgroup; p = 0.006 for Ftest by group). A decrease in positive affect was found between the pre- and post-test for the control group (p = 0.023 for Ftest; p = 0.004 for Ftest by group). State anxiety decreased in the experimental group and increased in the control group (p > 0.05 for Ftest and Fgroup; p = 0.001 for Ftest by group). Singing in a choir was found to have a positive impact on psychological indicators of affect and anxiety, however, its physiological effect could not be shown using salivary amylase in this study.

Einstein liked music

Source: Creative Thinking

“The greatest scientists are artists as well,” said Albert Einstein. For Einstein, insight did not come from logic or mathematics. It came, as it does for artists, from intuition and inspiration. As he told one friend, “When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come close to the conclusion that the gift of imagination has meant more to me than any talent for absorbing absolute knowledge.” Elaborating, he added, “All great achievements of science must start from intuitive knowledge. I believe in intuition and inspiration…. At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason.” Thus, his famous statement that, for creative work in science, “Imagination is more important than knowledge”

Einstein indicated that he used images to solve his problems and found words later. Einstein explicated this bold idea that he never thought in logical symbols or mathematical equations, but in images, feelings, and even musical architectures (intuitive mind ).

Einstein only employed words or other symbols after he was able to solve his problems through the manipulation of internally imagined images, feelings, and architectures. “I very rarely think in words at all. A thought (rational mind ) comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards,”

He attributed his scientific insight and intuition mainly to music. “If I were not a physicist,” he once said, “I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music…. I get most joy in life out of music” . His son, Hans, amplified what Einstein meant by recounting that “whenever he felt that he had come to the end of the road or into a difficult situation in his work, he would take refuge in music, and that would usually resolve all his difficulties”.

Einstein recognized an unexplainable connection between music and his science, and notes that his mentor Ernst Mach had indicated that music and the aural experience were the organ to describe space” . Music also embodies time. He was in a constant struggle for musical experiences which helped him build a rich mental perceptual fabric of space and time in which to perform his scientific theorizing”

Einstein said “The theory of relativity occurred to me by intuition, and music is the driving force behind this intuition. My parents had me study the violin from the time I was six. My new discovery is the result of musical perception”.They also fit with the manner in which Einstein expressed his greatest praise for a fellow scientist. Neils Bohr’s work on the structure of the atom, Einstein said, was “the highest form of musicality in the realm of thought”

lessons about longevity from a 256 year old?

Lessons About Longevity From a 256-Year-Old
By Christine Lin
Epoch Times Staff Created: December 4, 2011Last Updated: April 13, 2012
Related articles: Health » Environment & Health


Mr. Li Qing Yun (1677–1933) died at the age of 256 years old. He had 24 wives, and lived through nine emperors in the Qing Dynasty. (Public Domain)
According to legend, Mr. Li Qing Yun (1677–1933) was a Chinese medicine physician, herbal expert, qigong master, and tactical consultant. He was said to have lived through nine emperors in the Qing Dynasty to be 256 years old.
His May 1933 obituary in Time Magazine, titled “Tortoise-Pigeon-Dog,” revealed Li’s secrets of longevity: “Keep a quiet heart, sit like a tortoise, walk sprightly like a pigeon and sleep like a dog.”
Mr. Li is said to have had quite unusual habits in his daily living. He did not drink hard liquor or smoke and ate his meals at regular times. He was a vegetarian and frequently drank wolfberry (also known as goji berry) tea.
He slept early and got up early. When he had time, he sat up straight with his eyes closed and hands in his lap, at times not moving at all for a few hours.
In his spare time, Li played cards, managing to lose enough money every time for his opponent’s meals for that day. Because of his generosity and levelheaded demeanor, everyone liked to be with him.
Mr. Li spent his whole life studying Chinese herbs and discovering the secrets of longevity, traveling through provinces of China and as far as Thailand to gather herbs and treat illnesses.
Keep a quiet heart, sit like a tortoise, walk sprightly like a pigeon and sleep like a dog.
While it is unclear whether Li actually lived as long as is believed, what little we know of his habits fit with modern science’s findings about longevity.
Research
Dan Buettner, author of “The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest,” researches the science of longevity. In his book and in a 2009 TED talk, he examined the lifestyle habits of four geographically distinct populations around the world.
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All of these groups—Californian Adventists, Okinawans, Sardinians, and Costa Ricans—live to be over 100 years of age at a far greater rate than most people, or they live a dozen years longer than average. He calls the places where these groups live “blue zones.”
According to Buettner’s research, all blue-zone groups eat a vegetable-based diet. The group of Adventists in Loma Linda, California, eat plenty of legumes and greens as mentioned in the Bible. Herders living the in the highlands of Sardinia eat an unleavened whole grain bread, cheese from grass-fed animals, and a special wine.
Buettner found that low-calorie diets help in extending life, as demonstrated by a group of healthy elderly Okinawans who practice a Confucian rule of stopping eating when one is 80 percent full.
Perhaps Li’s wolfberry tea played a crucial part in his health. After hearing Li’s story, medical researchers from Britain and France conducted an in-depth study of wolfberry and found that it contains an unknown vitamin called “Vitamin X,” also known as the “beauty vitamin.” Their experiments confirmed that wolfberry inhibits the accumulation of fat and promotes new liver cells, lowers blood glucose and cholesterol, and so on.
Wolfberry performs a role of rejuvenation: It activates the brain cells and endocrine glands; enhances the secretion of hormones; and removes toxins accumulated in the blood, which can help maintain a normal function of body tissues and organs.
Meditation
Researchers have found numerous benefits to regular meditation. Neuroscientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School asked two groups of stressed-out high-tech employees to either meditate over eight weeks or live as they normally do.
They found that the meditators “showed a pronounced shift in activity to the left frontal lobe,” reads a 2003 Psychology Today article. “This mental shift decreases the negative effects of stress, mild depression, and anxiety. There is also less activity in the amygdala, where the brain processes fear.”
Meditation also reduces brain shrinkage due to aging and enhances mood.
Aside from meditation, Buettner found that regularly scheduled downtime undoes inflammation, which is a reaction to stress. The Adventists in California strictly adhere to their 24-hour Sabbath and spend the time reflecting, praying, and enjoying their social circles.
Community
Buettner also found that community is a huge factor in the longevity of blue-zone groups. Typical Okinawans have many close friends, with whom they share everything. Sardinian highlanders have a reverence for the elderly not found in modern Western societies. The Adventists put family first.
A sense of belonging and having healthy friends and family encourage the individual to live healthily as well.
In “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell examined a group of Italians called the Rosetans, who migrated to an area west of Bangor, Pennsylvania. Across the board, they had lower incidents of heart disease and generally lived long, healthy lives. After experiments, it was determined that their secret was not genetics or even diet (41 percent of their diet came from fat).
“The Rosetans had created a powerful, protective social structure capable of insulating them from the pressures of the modern world,” Gladwell wrote. “The Rosetans were healthy because of where they were from, because of the world they had created for themselves in their tiny little town in the hills.”
Purposeful Living
In his travels, Buettner came across a common theme among blue-zone groups: None of them had the concept of retirement. As it turns out, to keep going makes it easier to keep going.
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Study on Yogi Prahlad Jani’s Fasting Miracles Concludes
Purposeful living into the sunset years is a mantra to the Okinawans and Sardinians. In those groups, Buettner met centenarian men and women who continued to climb hills, build fences, fish, and care for great-great-great-great grandchildren.
Interestingly, none of these centenarians exercise purposely as we Westerners who go to the gym do. “They simply live active lives that warrant physical activity,” Buettner said. They all walk, cook, and do chores manually, and many of them garden.

Based on an article about Li Qing Yun from Kan Zhong Guo (Secret China).

Musicians' Brains Highly Developed

Musicians' Brains Highly Developed
ScienceDaily (May 5, 2011) — New research shows that musicians' brains are highly developed in a way that makes the musicians alert, interested in learning, disposed to see the whole picture, calm, and playful. The same traits have previously been found among world-class athletes, top-level managers, and individuals who practice transcendental meditation.

The new study was conducted by Fred Travis, Maharishi University of Management in the US, Harald Harung, Oslo University College in Norway, and Yvonne Lagrosen, University West in Sweden. They relate to high mind brain development, and it appears that this represents a basic potential to become really, really good at something.
The researchers measure mind brain development in several ways. EEGs reveal special patterns in the electrical activity of the brain in people with high mind brain development. They have well‑coordinated frontal lobes. Our frontal lobes are what we use for higher brain functions, such as planning and logical thinking. Another characteristic is that activity at a certain frequency, so‑called alpha waves, dominates. Alpha waves occur when the brain puts together details into wholes. Yet another EEG measure shows that individuals with high mind brain development use their brain resources economically. They are alert and ready for action when it is functional to be so, but they are relaxed and adopt a wait‑and‑see attitude when that is functional.
Two questionnaires are also used to measure mind brain development. One has to do with moral reasoning. Those with high mind brain development score higher here. The other questionnaire targets what are called peak experiences. These are described as a higher level of consciousness. You have an intense feeling of happiness and harmony and of transcending limitations. Individuals with high mind brain development have many peak experiences.
Fred Travis emphasizes that everything we do changes our brain. Transcendental meditation and making music are activities people should devote themselves to if they wish to change their mind in the right direction. But you can make good progress by following common health recommendations: get enough sleep, work out physically, eat healthily, and don't do drugs. How you think also plays a role.
"If you are a very envious, angry, mean person and that's the way you think about people that's what's going to be strengthened in your brain. But if you are very expanded and open and supportive of others, there will be different connections," says Fred Travis.
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violence does not help god, says the pope

By Francis X. Rocca
Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY -- Violence committed in the name of God or religion is a "favorite instrument of the Antichrist," Pope Benedict XVI writes in a new book on the life and teachings of Jesus.

"Violence does not build up the kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity," Benedict writes. "On the contrary, it is a favorite instrument of the Antichrist, however idealistic its religious motivation may be. It serves not humanity, but inhumanity."

The passage appears in Jesus of Nazareth -- Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, which was published in English and seven other languages on Thursday (March 10), with an initial printing of 1.2 million copies.

According to its American publisher, Ignatius Press, 90,000 copies of the English edition had been sold before publication.

The book is a sequel to the pope's 2007 bestseller, Jesus of Nazareth, which explored Jesus' public ministry from his baptism to the Transfiguration. In the trilogy that he began before his 2005 election as pope, Benedict studies the Gospels in light of the work of other scholars, including those who have sought to discover the "historical Jesus."

In pre-publication excerpts that were released March 2, Benedict wrote that the Jewish people were not responsible for Jesus' crucifixion, and their descendants have not inherited blame for his death.

research suggests meditation may improve certain brain regions

Study: Mindful meditation may strengthen certain brain regions
Practice may improve memory, sense of self and ability to handle stress
Source: (AHN) Reporter: David Goodhue
Location: MA, United States Published: January 24, 2011 07:30 am EST
Topics: Health, Medical Research, Health, Physical Fitness, Health, Patient

New research suggests meditation may improve certain brain regions and help them with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress.

The Massachusetts General Hospital researchers said in a statement that changes in brain structure in people who practiced eight weeks of mindful meditation suggest the practice goes beyond simply making people feel better because they are spending time relaxing.
Meditation has long been recommended by practitioners as a way to achieve peacefulness, physical relaxation and cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day.
The researchers studied 16 participants two weeks before and after they took part in an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction program. In addition to questionnaires, the participants were also analyzed by MRI images to observe changes in certain regions of the brain.
Compared with a control group, images of the brains of participants who reported spending an average of 27 minutes each day meditating showed increased gray matter density in the hippocampus, known to be important for learning and memory, and in structures associated with self awareness, compassion and introspection.
The researchers said their findings show how malleable the brain is and that meditation can go a long way in improving personal well being.
A report on the study will be published in the Jan. 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.


Read more: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/briefs/articles/90031922?Study%3A%20Mindful%20meditation%20may%20strengthen%20certain%20brain%20regions#ixzz1BzFwaqSF

Is Believing In God Evolutionarily Advantageous?

Is Believing In God Evolutionarily Advantageous?
LISTEN
Monday, 08/30/10 9:00pm - All Things Considered
Alix Spiegel
Jesse Bering's mother died of cancer on a Sunday, in her own bed, at 9 o'clock at night. Bering and his siblings closed her door and went downstairs, hoping they might somehow get some sleep.
It was a long, hard night, but around 7 a.m., something happened: The wind chimes outside his mother's window started to chime.
Bering remembers waking to the tinkle of these bells, a small but distinct sound in an otherwise silent house. And he remembers thinking that those bells carried a very specific message.
"It seemed to me ... that she was somehow telling us that she had made it to the other side. You know, cleared customs in heaven," Bering says.
The thought surprised him. Bering was a confirmed atheist. He did not believe in any kind of supernatural anything. He prided himself on being a scientist, a psychologist who believed only in the measurable material world. But, he says, he simply couldn't help himself.
"My mind went there. It leapt there," Bering says. "And from a psychological perspective, this was really interesting to me. Because I didn't believe it on the one hand, but on the other hand I experienced it."
Why is it, Bering wondered, that even a determined skeptic could not stop himself from perceiving the supernatural? It really bothered him.
It was a very good question, he decided, to take up in his lab.
God, Through The Lens Of Evolution
For decades, the intellectual descendants of Darwin have pored over ancient bones and bits of fossils, trying to piece together how fish evolved into man, theorizing about the evolutionary advantage conferred by each physical change. And over the past 10 years, a small group of academics have begun to look at religion in the same way: they've started to look at God and the supernatural through the lens of evolution.
In the history of the world, every culture in every location at every point in time has developed some supernatural belief system. And when a human behavior is so universal, scientists often argue that it must be an evolutionary adaptation along the lines of standing upright. That is, something so helpful that the people who had it thrived, and the people who didn't slowly died out until we were all left with the trait. But what could be the evolutionary advantage of believing in God?
Bering is one of the academics who are trying to figure that out. In the years since his mother's death, Bering has done experiments in his lab at Queens University, Belfast, in an attempt to understand how belief in the supernatural might have conferred some advantage and made us into the species we are today.
In one experiment, children between the ages of 5 and 9 were shown to a room and told to throw a Velcro ball at a Velcro dartboard. They were told that if they were able to hit the bull's-eye, they'd get a special prize. But this particular game had an unusual set of rules: The children were told that they had to throw from behind, they weren't allowed to throw the ball while facing the dartboard, and they had to use their nondominant hand -- rules that basically made it impossible for any of the children to win the game unless they cheated.
The children in the study were divided into three groups. The first group was left alone and told to play the game as best they could. The second were told the same, with one difference -- the children in the second group were told that there was someone special who was going to watch them. The experimenters showed the kids a picture of a very pretty woman -- a character that Bering had made up whose name was Princess Alice.
Princess Alice, the kids were told, had a magical power: Alice could make herself invisible. Then the children were shown a chair and were told that Alice was sitting in the chair and that Alice would watch them play the game after the researcher left. The third group of kids was told to play the game, but the researcher sat with them and simply never left the room at all.
The question that Bering sought to answer was this: Which group of children was least likely to cheat?
The children in the first group -- the completely unsupervised kids -- by far cheated the most. But what was surprising was the behavior of the second group.
The children who were under the impression that Princess Alice was in the room with them were just as likely to refrain from cheating as those children who were actually in the room with a physical real-life human being. A similar study Bering did with adults showed the same thing -- that they were dramatically less likely to cheat when they thought they were being observed by a supernatural presence.
A Change In Behavior
Bering has a credo, a truth he says he's learned after years of studying this stuff.
"I've always said that I don't believe in God, but I don't really believe in atheists either," Bering says. "Everybody experiences the illusion that God -- or some type of supernatural agent -- is watching them or is concerned about what they do in their sort of private everyday moral lives."
These supernatural agents, Bering adds, might have very different names. What some call God, others call Karma. There are literally thousands of names, but according to Bering they all have the same effect.
"Whether it's a dead ancestor or God, whatever supernatural agent it is, if you think they're watching you, your behavior is going to be affected," he says.
In fact, Bering says that believing that supernatural beings are watching you is so basic to being human that even committed atheists regularly have moments where their minds turn in a supernatural direction, as his did in the wake of his mother's death.
"They experience it but they reject it," Bering says. "Sort of override or stomp on their immediate intuition. But that's not to say that they don't experience it. We all have the same basic brain. And our brains have evolved to work in a particular way."
Why would the human brain have evolved to work in that way?
For Bering, and some of his friends, the answer to that question has everything to do with what he discovered in his lab -- the way the kids and adults stopped cheating as soon as they thought a supernatural being might be watching them. Through the lens of evolution then, a belief in God serves a very important purpose: Religious belief set us on the path to modern life by stopping cheaters and promoting the social good.
God And Social Cooperation
Dominic Johnson is a professor at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom and another one of the leaders in this field. And to Johnson, before you can understand the role religion and the supernatural might have played in making us the people we are today, you really have to appreciate just how improbable our modern lives are.
Today we live in a world where perfect strangers are incredibly nice to each other on a regular basis. All day long, strangers open doors for each other, repair each other's bodies and cars and washing machines. They swap money for food and food for money. In short: they cooperate.
This cooperation makes all kinds of things possible, of course. Because we can cooperate, we can build sophisticated machines and create whole cities -- communities that require huge amounts of coordination. We can do things that no individual or small group could do.
The question is: How did we get to be so cooperative? For academics like Johnson, this is a profound puzzle.
"Explaining cooperation is a huge cottage industry," Johnson says. "It dominates the pages of top journals in science and economics and psychology. You would think that it was very simple, but in fact from a scientific academic point of view, it just often doesn't make sense."
It doesn't make sense because there's often tension between the interests of the group and the interests of the individual. Johnson gives an example. Recently he was on the subway in New York and as he was going through the turnstile a little child ran in with him and got through the barrier. He got onto the subway without ever paying.
"Now we only have the Metro if everyone pays," Johnson says. "But there's an advantage for everyone if they don't have to pay themselves."
And what's true of the subway is true of everything.
Why fight in a war, risk your own death, if someone else will fight it for you? Why pay taxes? Why reduce your carbon footprint?
These all have clear costs, and from an individual perspective, you and your offspring are much more likely to thrive if you don't get killed in a war or pay your taxes -- if you behave like the child in the subway.
The problem is that even a relatively small number of people who choose to behave like the child can affect the functioning of the whole.
"Even a few cheats undermine cooperation," Johnson says, because once people realize that they are paying for the same thing others are enjoying free, they become less willing to cooperate.
Punishment And Deterrents: Enforcing God's Law
Today, if you cheat -- if you decide to pass on paying Uncle Sam or if you steal a car -- there are systems in place that will track you down and punish you. And this threat of punishment keeps you on the straight and narrow. But imagine if you lived hundreds of thousands of years ago.
"We know that punishment is very effective at promoting cooperation," Johnson says. "The problem is: Who punished in the past before we had police and courts and law and government? There wasn't anyone formally to carry out the punishment"
In those early human communities when someone did something wrong, someone else in the small human group would have to punish them. But as Johnson points out, punishing itself is often dangerous because the person being punished probably won't like it.
"That person has a family; that person has a memory and is going to develop a grudge," Johnson says. "So there are going to be potentially quite disruptive consequences of people taking the law into their own hands."
On the other hand, Johnson says, if there are Gods or a God who must be obeyed, these strains are reduced. After all, the punisher isn't a vigilante; he's simply enforcing God's law.
"You have a very nice situation," Johnson says. "There are no reprisals against punishers. And the other nice thing about supernatural agents is that they are often omniscient and omnipresent."
If God is everywhere and sees everything, people curb their selfish impulses even when there's no one around. Because with God, there is no escape. "God knows what you did," Johnson says, "and God is going to punish you for it and that's an incredibly powerful deterrent. If you do it again, he's going to know and he is going to tally up your good deals and bad deeds and you will suffer the consequences for it either in this life or in an afterlife."
Differing Views
So the argument goes that as our human ancestors spread around the world in bands, keeping together for food and protection, groups with a religious belief system survived better because they worked better together.
We are their descendants. And Johnson says their belief in the supernatural is still very much with us.
"Everywhere you look around the world, you find examples of people altering their behavior because of concerns for supernatural consequences of their actions. They don't do things that they consider bad because they think they'll be punished for it."
Of course there are plenty of criticisms of these ideas. For example one premise of this argument is that religious belief is beneficial because it helped us to cooperate. But a small group of academics argue that religious beliefs have ultimately been more harmful than helpful, because those religious beliefs inspire people to go to war.
And then there are the people who say that cooperation doesn't come from God -- that cooperation evolved from our need to take care of family or show potential mates that we were a good choice. The theories are endless.
Unfortunately it's not possible now to rewind the movie, so to speak, and see what actually happened. So these speculations will remain just that: speculations.
As unknowable -- ultimately -- as God himself.

U.S. army adopts mindfulness meditation NARAYAN LAKSHMAN SHARE · PRINT · T+ In an unusual departure from traditional prescriptions for coping

U.S. army adopts mindfulness meditation

NARAYAN LAKSHMAN
SHARE · PRINT · T+
In an unusual departure from traditional prescriptions for coping with high stress the United States army is recommending something more eclectic to its soldiers in Iraq – mindfulness mediation.

According to Army Major Victor Won, Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, mindfulness is a simple but ancient approach to living that Western medicine has begun to recognise as a powerful tool for dealing with stress, illness and other medical or psychological conditions, and it could help soldiers in any circumstance.

Quoting the definition of the term used in the book ‘Wherever You Go, There You Are,’ by popular mediation teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn, he added, “Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way or maintaining the awareness on purpose, in the present moment.”

Major Won said it would be more effective for soldiers to learn and train mindfulness prior to deployment as the practice will offer soldiers a means to cope with their mental stress before getting into a high-stress environment.

University of Pennsylvania researchers, with Army support, were said to be examining the effects of meditation as a means to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder. Major Won said, “Many psychotherapists around the world have applied mindfulness, treating various psychological diagnoses such as PTSD, depression and even personality disorders,” adding that it was “through finding peace within and clarity that you see that you are not the thoughts or the emotions that bind you and take you away into suffering.”

Keywords: U.S. army, meditation, stress

New Study Show Buddhist Meditation Improves Concentration 7/19/2010 10:04 AM ET (RTTNews) - A new study published in the current edition of Psychol

New Study Show Buddhist Meditation Improves Concentration
7/19/2010 10:04 AM ET

(RTTNews) - A new study published in the current edition of Psychological Science suggests that Buddhist meditation techniques could help improve concentration and relaxation.

According to lead researcher Katherine A. MacLean, the practice is challenging even for those experienced in meditation, but often improves performance in computer tasks.

For the study, MacLean and her team followed 60 experienced meditators as they underwent 30-day meditation studies. For short period of time each day, the subjects were asked to identify lines of varying lengths on a computer screen.

She found that those practicing Buddhist style meditation were often most accurate in identifying which lines were slightly shorter or longer than normal.

"People may think meditation is something that makes you feel good and going on a meditation retreat is like going on vacation and you get to be at peace with yourself," MacLean said in a statement. "That's what people think until they try it. Then you realize how challenging it is to just sit and observe something without being distracted."

She added, "Because the task is so boring and yet is also very neutral, it's kind of a perfect index of meditation training."

by RTT Staff Writer

For comments and feedback: contact editorial@rttnews.com

Meditation Boosts Attention Span

Meditation Boosts Attention Span
By LiveScience Staff
posted: 14 July 2010 02:39 pm ET
Buzz up!
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The life of a Buddhist monk may seem far-removed from the busy, gadget-packed daily buzz most of us experience. But new research suggests daily meditation can give us a piece of the peaceful life, as the focused practice boosts attention spans.

"You wonder if the mental skills, the calmness, the peace that [Buddhist monks] express, if those things are a result of their very intensive training, or if they were just very special people to begin with," said Katherine MacLean, who worked on the study as a graduate student at the University of California – Davis. [10 Ways to Keep Your Mind Sharp]

Do We Live in a Meaningful Universe?

Do We Live in a Meaningful Universe?

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Share Comments 76 Science educators often skim off the top, as it were. They regale young minds with the marvels of science while remaining silent about the problems to which it has contributed.

When I was in grade school as a member of a different younger generation, we had routine drills in which we took cover under our desks. This was to prepare us to act quickly in case the Russians decided to nuke our playground. No one ever explained how this pathetic maneuver would save us, but it seemed to make the teachers feel better. Today's youngsters are treated to a different menu of menaces. Their nuclear hazard is more likely to come in the form of a dirty nuclear device detonated by a terrorist instead of from a Russian plane or missile. Then there is global warming, nuclear waste, environmental degradation, polluted air, water and soil. There are acidified oceans, melting polar ice, oceanic dead zones, dying coral reefs, vanishing species, on and on, all of which are due in some measure to the downside of science and technology. The mantra that only science can save us from these perils rings hollow to many youngsters, since it was largely science and technology that bequeathed them in the first place. As anthropologist and educator Loren Eiseley put it,

We have lived to see the technological progress that was hailed in one age as the savior of man become the horror of the next. We have observed that the same able and energetic minds which built lights, steamships and telephones turn with equal facility to the creation of what euphemistically is termed the "ultimate weapon." It is in this reversal that the modern age comes off so badly.

The usual defense from the science community toward views such as Eiseley's is that it is technology, not science itself, that has made a mess of things. This is no doubt true to a certain extent. But scientists sometimes take risks in their research that appear breathtakingly irresponsible and reckless, which they usually justify in the name of pure or basic science. Some of these risks are so obvious they draw fire from scientists themselves. Consider a recent editorial in the respected British publication New Scientist titled "The Scary Business of Tinkering with Life":

"By tinkering with the cell's natural machinery ...[the research team] has found a way of making proteins with entirely new properties, opening up a future of exotic designer organisms.... This is a fundamental advance that could lead to new drugs, materials and energy sources. But tampering with life's operating system will inevitably raise safety concerns -- and it's true that we have no way of predicting the fallout of this work. Synthetic biologists need to confront openly and honestly public fears that they are "playing God [emphasis added]."
Science boosters should wake up. Kids aren't dumb. To borrow novelist Ernest Hemingway's term, they have excellent "built-in bullshit detectors." And nothing triggers the warning more than when those in charge present only one side of a story.

Must Science Be Depressing?

Why would anyone who is psychologically healthy pick a career that demands a view of the world that is morbid, pessimistic and depressing? That's precisely the worldview advocated by some of the most outstanding scientists of our day. This can be a turnoff to any optimistic, questing, curious, intelligent kid who stumbles onto it. Perhaps that is why the advocates of science education almost never acknowledge this prevailing view when promoting the wonders of science to youngsters.

Typical of the gloomy perspective is that of Nobel physicist Steven Weinberg in his 1977 book The First Three Minutes. In a now-famous passage, he writes,

It is almost irresistible for humans to believe that we have some special relation to the universe, that human life is not just a more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents reaching back to the first three minutes, but that we were somehow built in from the beginning... It is hard to realize that this all [i.e., life on Earth] is just a tiny part of an overwhelmingly hostile universe. It is even harder to realize that this present universe has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.
By the time Weinberg unveiled his gloomy view, the notion of a purposeless, meaningless universe was already on a roll in science. One of the most influential supporters of this perspective was the Nobel molecular biologist Jacques Monod (1910-1976), whose 1972 book Chance and Necessity powerfully influenced a generation of scientists. For Monod, purpose and meaning in nature were outlaw concepts; for a scientist to believe in them was unbecoming at best and a moral failing at worst. As he confidently proclaimed, "The cornerstone of scientific method is the systematic denial that 'true' knowledge can be got at by interpreting phenomena in terms of final causes--that is to say, of 'purpose.'"

Cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel C. Dennett of Tufts University has joined the chorus of meaninglessness by dissing free will. "When we consider whether free will is an illusion or reality," he says, "we are looking into an abyss. What seems to confront us is a plunge into nihilism and despair."
Although prevalent, this depressing verdict on the status of meaning, direction and purpose in the world is not unanimous, and kids who intuitively reject this view have a few strong shoulders to stand on, as we'll see in the next blog.

the happiness project

http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/

why piano lessons?

Benefits of Piano Lessons for Children
• Posted by admin • 16 May, 2010 • (0) Comment The surprising benefits for children taking the piano lessons, be it the online piano lessons or offline, are innumerable. One would be awed at what all seemingly simple piano lessons can do to make your children an all-rounder. Some of the benefits of piano lessons are listed below and are proven facts.

- First and foremost, piano lessons help to preserve the natural learning process and the creative abilities of the children right from their younger age. By learning to understand the piano lessons at a young age and composing own melodies are the proof of the above statement. Music is also a language and by being exposed to it via piano lessons, children easily develop reading habits and interest to learn new languages. The children exposed to piano lessons obviously develop a sense of music appreciation and respect it.

- It is also proved that children who learn the piano lessons have a better performance at school as they are mostly good at spatial cognitive development and standard tests. Many researches have also proved that children taking piano lessons are comfortable with math as they deal problems with fractions and ratios with lots of ease. A report claims that preschoolers who had piano lessons scored 34% higher than the non-musical counterparts.

- The concentration level and co-ordination skills are also enhanced in the children who take piano lessons. Performing with both the hands at the same time and also to read the notes, translate the rhythm and tempo simultaneously during the piano lessons help to boost the concentration levels. The hand-eye cooperation is also achieved.

- The children undergoing their piano lessons accomplish a sense of achievement and learn to perceive hard to reach their goals. This also gives a boost to their self esteem and the confidence on themselves to achieve great things in their life by staying focused.

- The children grow out to be a well rounded adult interested in many fields due to the piano lessons they take up. It nurtures their personality development as they are exposed to the powerful classical music, Mozart or Bach all their life. The chances of them picking up another musical instrument after the pleasant experiences they gained from the piano lessons are very high.

- As any teacher would justify, the co-curricular activities only help a child shape into a complete individual having their uniqueness, so that they are not lost in the crowd. Taking up piano lessons is one of such best co-curricular activity which moulds the children’s personality as it spells their uniqueness when they are capable to create their new compositions, however simple it might be.

- One of the most important and crucial benefits of children taking up the piano lessons is they are saved from being depressed or lonely as they have their beautiful music to vent their feelings.

The magic of children taking up piano lessons at younger age is immeasurable and should be cultivated in all the children.

• Posted by admin • Sunday, May 16th, 2010 at 8:59 am • (0) Comment

Benefits Children. Lessons Piano