Sunday, September 30, 2007

This is Your Brain on Music

I'm reading this fascinating book called "This is Your Brain On Music." by Daniel Levitin. In his introduction, Dr. Levitin says some very profound things about the nature of sound. What I found particularly intriguing was his notion the scientists and artists are very much alike. They both engage in work that begins with a brainstorming or creative stage, followed by testing and refining in ways that involve the application of set procedures. Artists' studios and scientists' laboratories are also similar, with many projects on the go, using specialized tools and skills, and the final product is subject to interpretation. Both work in the pursuit of truth, but a truth is often contextual and changeable. Levitin posits that "today's truths become tomorrow's disproven hypotheses or forgotten objets d'art". He goes on to reference Piaget, Freud and Skinner as researchers whose theories have been overturned or re-evaluated and he talks about the goal of conveying "truth for now." This sounds similar to what I've been reading in my Instructional Design course, in particular, the information about situative and cognitive epistemologies of learning. Sounds like "eclectic constructivism" to me!

(Check out the book's website!)