The Mind and the Brain: Being the Authorised Translation of L'Âme et le CorpsBinet, Alfred
Philosophy
The Mind and the Brain: Being the Authorised Translation of L'Âme et le Corps
Binet, Alfred
Mind and body
Since, however, we are theorising, let us not be stopped by a few
difficulties of comprehension. Perhaps a little training might enable
us to overcome them. Perhaps musicians, who discern as much reality in
what one hears as in what one sees, would be more apt than other folk
to understand the necessary transposition. Some of them, in their
autobiographies, have made, by the way, very suggestive remarks on the
importance they attribute to sound: and, moreover, the musical world,
with its notes, its intervals, and its orchestration, lives and
develops in a manner totally independent of vibration.
Perhaps we can here quote one or two examples which may give us a
lead. To measure the length of a body instead of applying to it a
yard-wand, one might listen to its sound; for the pitch of the sound
given by two cords allows us to deduce their difference of length, and
even the absolute length of each. The chemical composition of a body
might be noted by its electric resistance and the latter verified by
the telephone; that is to say, by the ear. Or, to take a more subtle
example. We might make calculations with sounds of which we have
studied the harmonic relations as we do nowadays with figures. A sum
in rule of three might even be solved sonorously; for, given three
sounds, the ear can find a fourth which should have the same relation
to the third as the second to the first. Every musical ear performs
this operation easily; now, this fourth sound, what else is it but the
fourth term in a rule of three? And by taking into consideration the
number of its vibrations a numerical solution would be found to the
problem. This novel form of calculating machine might serve to fix
the price of woollen stuffs, to calculate brokerages and percentages,
and the solution would be obtained without the aid of figures, without
calculation, without visualisation, and by the ear alone.
By following up this idea, also, we might go a little further. We
might arrive at the conviction that our present science is human,
petty, and contingent; that it is closely linked with the structure of
our sensory organs; that this structure results from the evolution
which fashioned these organs; that this evolution has been an accident
of history; that in the future it may be different; and that,
consequently, by the side or in the stead of our modern science, the
work of our eyes and hands--and also of our words--there might have
been constituted, there may still be constituted, sciences entirely
and extraordinarily new--auditory, olfactory, and gustatory sciences,
and even others derived from other kinds of sensations which we can
neither foresee nor conceive because they are not, for the moment,
differentiated in us. Outside the matter we know, a very special
matter fashioned of vision and touch, there may exist other matter
with totally different properties.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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