h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Paulh enjoys most kinds of classical music, and appreciates many kinds that he
once disliked, by getting to know it better. .

I like "Queen" because Freddy Mercury's voice is so splendid.

'I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixing-to-Die Rag' brings back memories. I was campaigning for
a presidential candidate in N.H. in 1972, and heard that song being blasted from
a campaign truck by candidate Sam Yorty. I loved it instantly. I didn't
know what had been played at Woodstock, but when I later watched "Woodstock"
on videocasette, I was thrilled to hear that song.

So "Eve of destruction" was played on "Hootenanny"? Interesting!

I have about 300 CD's of pop music, and about five times that many
covering the period from 1500 to 2010 (not a perfect equality of CD's
per century, but closer than most people might have). I continue to
hear new music (and new interpretations of old music) on youtube,
and it amazes me that I like as much of it as I do. Those parodies of
song classics with Covid-era lyrics are a hoot!

Thank you for 'Paint Me on Velvet'.! It has all the qualities that make
country music apealling to me.

Things change.

When Bobby McFerrin and Yo Yo Ma did a recording together, I scoffed at the very concept. Now I'm more willing to consider it....

Oh, good.

May I recommend Mongolian metal? No? Hu'dve thunk!

Mongolian metal is .

Lions and tigers and elephants!

I'm going to do something that I very rarely do which is to give my niece, Tasmin, a "plug" here and the write a following comment separately:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOTIp8c5NyY

Inevitably, as music is my main interest in life - even more so than philosophy - I've had some conversations with Tasmin about playing music and what it means philosophically-speaking.

What I've gathered from this is that music is, actually, a "universal language" in some sense - that is, the physical act of making music and experiencing music is something we do with our bodies and, in this context, our bodies are all the same but that how this is manifested is a cultural construction so varies both individually and culturally

Have a listen to some albums by the Irish folk group The Chieftains when they've worked with Japanese, Spanish, Native American etc folk musicians.

When you are singing together in a group, or reading music and playing an instrument, you are using your whole mind, and much of your body. This takes quite a lot of coordination.

We are, now, beginning to move away from the Cartesian separation of mind and body:

https://www.academia.edu/37027664/Musical_Creativity_and_the_Embodied_Mind_Exploring_the_possibilities_of_4E_Cognition_and_Dynamical_Systems_Theory?email_work_card=view-paper

I read somewhere that the French tend to side with either Descartes or Pascal. But both believed in dualism. I guess that was a 17th Century hangup. But at least Leibnitz saw mind and body as synchronized.

Where will we be in the Twenty-Fourth Century?

I, for one, intend to be in a different body.

Well, if we don't do something about climate change, we probably won't see the 24th century! However, Leibniz is interesting because he tried to work out a system which was sort of ontological monism and metaphysical dualism - impossible to make sense of, naturally, but almost an early version of Davidson's anomalous monism. The problem those early scientist/philosophers gave themselves was their idea that they had to start from the autonomous individual rather than understanding that we have to combine that with the reflexive movement from the social construction that we see in, for example, the article I linked above.

I'm too old to expect to see more than a decade or so ahead. I've aged a lot in the last twelve months. I keep my weight steady, I exercise, I absolutely take my pills when they need to be taken, and my meals are scheduled with clockwork. I eat a fine balanced diet that also tastes divine.

That's all I can do. I keep my mind active -- hard to do when I'm stuck inside so much of the time. I want to get out and see green plants and feel the sun and wind on my face.

I felt so *good* on Christmas Day when it as 62 degrees F. out and I went walking in a gentle rain storm. That was the most perfect day in the last few months,.

(I don't like dry air. It makes my sinuses swell.)