Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter describes and defines the concept of recursion, and discusses its applications in computer science, consciousness, art, music, biology and various other fields. Recursion is crucial to writing computer programs in a compact, elegant way, but it also opens the door to infinite loops and irreconcilable logical contradictions.
Author Archives: Ethan
Why do I grimace when I concentrate?
The parts of your brain that do your abstract thinking are very tightly interconnected with the parts that control your muscles. In fact, some of that abstract thinking is done by the same brain regions that control your muscles. We don’t yet know why a specific brain region produces a given specific thought, but the …
The Makossa diaspora
The first time I heard Manu Dibango’s “Soul Makossa” was courtesy of Motorcycle Guy, a prominent Brooklyn eccentric who drives around on a tricked-out motorcycle bedecked with lights and equipped with a powerful sound system. I encounter him every so often and he’s always bumping some good funk, soul or R&B. One night, he was …
Visual remixes
Long before I got interested in electronic music, I was a fine arts guy. It bothers me that unauthorized appropriation of a music recording will get you sued, but visual artists who appropriate pop cultural materials get into museums and art history textbooks. Marcel Duchamp In ancient times and more traditional societies, there was never …
What are the greatest basslines ever?
The bassline is neglected by most non-musicians. But if you want to write or produce music, you quickly find out how important it is. The bassline is the foundation of the whole musical structure, both rhythmically and harmonically. The best basslines interlock with the drums and other rhythm instruments to propel the groove, without you …
How do I learn to improvise music?
Improvising music is like giving a speech off the cuff. Before you can do it, you need to know some vocabulary and grammar. In music, the vocabulary is riffs, phrases, scales, sequences and other melodic building blocks. The grammar is music theory. It’s not necessary to learn either one formally, you can figure them out …
What is the evolutionary purpose of dreaming?
Dreaming doesn’t have an evolutionary purpose per se. It’s just an emergent property of the piecemeal way our brains have evolved, from the older and more automatic systems out to the newer, learning-enabled systems. I’ve seen it suggested by several different scientists that most animals go about their waking lives in a state similar to …
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Visualizing music
Computer-based music production and composition involves the eyes as much as the ears. The representations in audio editors like Pro Tools and Ableton Live are purely informational, waveforms and grids and linear graphs. Some visualization systems are purely decorative, like the psychedelic semi-random graphics produced by iTunes. Some systems lie in between. I see rich …
Who are the best mashup DJs?
DJ BC is my favorite mashup artist right now. He deserves the nod just for Snoop’s Nu Shooz: [iframe_loader width=”640″ height=”360″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/FIAQGtgzsJE” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen]
Why has the human brain evolved so much more than any other animals?
The human brain isn’t “more” evolved. It’s just differently evolved. Our intelligence has its obvious advantages, but it carries some significant costs. Like Joshua Engel says, the big brain is metabolically expensive. It makes childbirth much harder for humans than for other mammals, too. Human babies have to be effectively born prematurely in order to …
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