RE: Is the Past Real?
October 28, 2022 at 4:53 pm
(This post was last modified: October 28, 2022 at 4:59 pm by John 6IX Breezy.)
Would music be possible if the past didn't exist? Something about playing a set of notes requires that it be embedded in the past in order to carry a melody. Not sure if my point makes sense but here are two ways to illustrate it:
1. If the past wasn't real, then playing a note in isolation in the present moment would be indistinguishable from having played it after a sequence of notes. Both examples would be the equivalent of pressing the reset button. And yet, this isn't the case. A note will sound either harmonious or discordant depending on what preceded it. The past transforms it.
2. The notes cannot be simply held simultaneously in memory in the present moment, the way a photograph might hold referents that no longer exist, because if a sequence of notes were to exist simultaneously they would become a chord rather than a sequence.
In other words, the notes of a melody cannot exist at the same time, neither in the world nor in memory, without changing the song. It needs to extend into the past in a real and inteconnected way.
1. If the past wasn't real, then playing a note in isolation in the present moment would be indistinguishable from having played it after a sequence of notes. Both examples would be the equivalent of pressing the reset button. And yet, this isn't the case. A note will sound either harmonious or discordant depending on what preceded it. The past transforms it.
2. The notes cannot be simply held simultaneously in memory in the present moment, the way a photograph might hold referents that no longer exist, because if a sequence of notes were to exist simultaneously they would become a chord rather than a sequence.
In other words, the notes of a melody cannot exist at the same time, neither in the world nor in memory, without changing the song. It needs to extend into the past in a real and inteconnected way.
