
People Who Empathize Highly With Others Process Music Differently in the Brain - rosstex
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-06-people-deeply-grasp-pain-happiness.html
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wahern
> "This study contributes to a growing body of evidence," Wallmark said, "that
> music processing may piggyback upon cognitive mechanisms that originally
> evolved to facilitate social interaction."

An alternative hypothesis is that singing co-evolved with humans' peculiarly
selfless social interaction. Joseph Jordania argues that rhythmic signing and
dancing evolved as a method of defense and offense for scavenging on the
savannah. A group of humans in synchronous motion and polyphonous vocalization
might appear quite formidable to a large predator, and the behavior could have
begun to emerge immediately upon or simultaneous to human ancestors' descent
onto the open savannah. We know that higher-order primates usually already
possess all of the physical prerequisites, such as primitive vocalization
capabilities, call/response behaviors, and rudimentary capacity to mimic
necessary to start down that path.

The cognitive mechanisms which permitted humans to instinctively synchronize
their behavior with others would be the foundation upon which not only
language could develop (via the emergence of shared, complex modulated
vocalizations to which meaning could be subsequently affixed), but also
_selfless_ empathy. There aren't any good theories for how significant, non-
kin selflessness could evolve using standard genetic models. Game theory shows
its too easy for genetic free riders to stifle the emergence of human-level
selflessness among non-kin group members. Thus concrete evidence of so-called
"group selection" has remained stubbornly but unsurprisingly elusive.

But in Jordania's theory it's presumably difficult to _fake_ the
neurobiological characteristics that permit perfect physical and polyphonic
synchronization. If you get it wrong or simply don't participate you stick out
like a sore thumb (or a wounded animal), become food for a lion, and are
removed from the gene pool. And its best if those characteristics for unified
behavior are deep, instinctual, and almost autonomic. Those characteristics
might not be sufficient to get you to modern humans, but they're a huge leap
forward (perhaps the biggest one) in terms of the emergence of complex non-kin
selflessness and cooperation via selfish genes. And at its root would be
humans' capacity to immerse themselves in and "become one" with music--music
would be the bridge between the self and the group, literally and
figuratively. And it would have been strongly selected for as part of a
survival strategy at the _individual_ genetic level; no need for group
selection.

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magduf
Very interesting. I just broke up with a woman who I now think may have been
sociopathic, or at the very least extremely selfish, due not only to the
utterly cold way she dumped me, but looking back, many many other cues I
ignored.

She had no real interest in music whatsoever. She played some awful Top 40
crap in her car, but I think it was just to avoid having silence. She was
never interested in hearing me play anything (I play guitar), never expressed
any real interest in particular bands or anything.

