Non-verbal band communication

[Thethirdapple]

Perhaps we listened to Hemisphere, around the house too often. And we are a very “earthy” family, so I wonder:

 

If we were all trees, how would we go about scientifically showing that humans do or don't communicate in a nonverbal language?

There is a wealth of writings which describe the concept, and the human culture is filled with pseudoscience colloquialism which dictate all sorts of accepted unspoken  behavior within interactions… But where’s the proof.

 

As a tree, I know about forest's and how we socialize, but humans ??? Its just a poplar media bias…

 

As a human, and more specifically as a musician within a community of musician I KNOW we share no verbal cue’s all the time… but trees???

 

We seem to have all experienced on one level or another these wonderful moments of togetherness, where words might only get in the way. Clearly our music and love of music at any level, whether composer, musician, conductor, engineer or even as audience, the human experience is barely understood. Let’s give the trees a break… and I agree there’s a whole bunch of hype, which is perhaps best left to those selling something.

 

🌲🌳🌲🍄🌳🌳🌲🍄🌳🌳🌲🍄

 

PEACE

[TommyRude]

Keith Moon giving some non verbal communication...sorta

[Tom Williams]

On topic: When I go back to Richmond for holidays (or, as I age, for funerals) I usually sit in with my old church's worship band.  The guitarist/songleader is one or the area's best loved blues-rock guitarists.  We've never actually gigged together except for the odd weekend, but that's happened on and off for 40-ish years.   The "telepathy" is pretty amazing -- trading off interludes and leads without any preplanning, sometimes on songs we've played together, sometimes on new stuff. 

 

If I had to guess, I would say that it's subtle visual cues + knowing each other's behaviors extremely well.  For example: when he's getting ready to play a lead -- or even a filler riff -- perhaps he raises the neck of his guitar a couple of inches, and I catch it.  Or maybe he looks over to me and his eyes widen a tad, and I know it's my turn.  In either case, it's quite unconscious, akin to married couples finishing each others' sentences.  Musically, it's a near-unbeatable comfort zone.

 

Following the tree squirrel: in the 1990s I used to backpack at least once a month, whatever the season.  In the winter, after the foliage has fallen off, the old-growth forest's trees will often rub each other's branches in the wind, wood-against-wood, creating sounds that I can only describe as "tree cellos."

[stoken6]

7 hours ago, MathOfInsects said:

That meta-study I linked essentially finds that the "wood wide web" concept has been fueled by a sort of sexy storyline, which has led to publication bias in its favor and even confirmation bias among those researching it, and if you look at the data behind the idea, it doesn't hold up. Trees are probably just trees, or at the very most those connected by root systems are probably the only ones connected. 

Props to your s[ck]eptical, self-researching attitude. My understanding of the concept is not that trees communicate with each other, but rather fungi. "An Entangled Life" is a good read.

 

Regards, Mike.

[MathOfInsects]

10 hours ago, stoken6 said:

Props to your s[ck]eptical, self-researching attitude. My understanding of the concept is not that trees communicate with each other, but rather fungi. "An Entangled Life" is a good read.

 

Regards, Mike.

I understand.

 

The paper I linked is specifically related to the idea of a fungal network.

 

Here is the abstract:

 

Abstract

A common mycorrhizal network (CMN) is formed when mycorrhizal fungal hyphae connect the roots of multiple plants of the same or different species belowground. Recently, CMNs have captured the interest of broad audiences, especially with respect to forest function and management. We are concerned, however, that recent claims in the popular media about CMNs in forests are disconnected from evidence, and that bias towards citing positive effects of CMNs has developed in the scientific literature. We first evaluated the evidence supporting three common claims. The claims that CMNs are widespread in forests and that resources are transferred through CMNs to increase seedling performance are insufficiently supported because results from field studies vary too widely, have alternative explanations or are too limited to support generalizations. The claim that mature trees preferentially send resources and defence signals to offspring through CMNs has no peer-reviewed, published evidence. We next examined how the results from CMN research are cited and found that unsupported claims have doubled in the past 25 years; a bias towards citing positive effects may obscure our understanding of the structure and function of CMNs in forests. We conclude that knowledge on CMNs is presently too sparse and unsettled to inform forest management.

[TommyRude]

9 hours ago, MathOfInsects said:

A common mycorrhizal network (CMN) is formed when mycorrhizal fungal hyphae connect the roots of multiple plants of the same or different species below ground.

hey is this kinda like that Hometree thing in Avatar?

[MathOfInsects]

Just now, TommyRude said:

hey is this kinda like that Hometree thing in Avatar?

Yes, and completely like The Last of Us.

[OG_Dave]

On 4/30/2023 at 4:58 PM, Thethirdapple said:

human culture is filled with pseudoscience colloquialism which dictate all sorts of accepted unspoken  behavior within interactions… But where’s the proof.

Exactly.

 

I don't want to sound harsh but I find, especially lately, that science really is quite full of itself, and yes, I am fairly well indoctrinated in science, I just don't agree that it explains very much outside of its rather limited purview.

 

12 hours ago, MathOfInsects said:

has no peer-reviewed, published evidence.

 

Case in point: This is a meaningless dismissal and should raise red flags. Re: peer review. An article by Richard Smith former Editor of the British Journal of Medicine and a rather distinguished member of the Medical community in which he explains far better than I can some of the concerns with peer review as a control.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/ A better outcome from the fungi article would have been an itemized rebuttal subsequent to a substantive review of the evidence they so casually discarded.

 

While I once believed the conditioning that the universe was a dead place and that "magic" or "metaphysical" events, situations, etc. were simply fantasies, a cheap way out from the cold hard facts, I have been unable to reconcile many experiences within the constraints of the scientific model. My assertion being that science is merely a tool for understanding the mundane, not a container for the universe. We should not confuse the map for the territory.

 

I ask: where in science can we find a love of music? How does science explain the perceptual sharing, the emotional reactions, created across time and space from one mind to another, whether that state of awareness is communicated via book, song, painting or sculpture? Why is live music so much more thrilling than recorded music? No, no I say to science. Hold your tongue and know that beauty is a mystery you cannot solve. Not by smashing particles together at insanely high voltages, nor through clever computing programs pretending to be intelligent. A tree has more to say on the subject that you ever will, my dear old friend. Science, it is time you admit defeat and let us go about our business. Look not to a single explanation for the complexity of the world.

 

As Thethirdapple intimated, we have a severe perceptual bias, unsupported by the facts, and not necessarily because the facts haven't been presented. I submit this fealty blinds us to much, to our collective detriment. I rather like the idea that fungi act analogously to neurons within the context of trees as a forest. One mind composed of cells we call trees. We know insects have hive minds. Whose to say this model doesn't repeat? Whose to say humans don't have an analog? Jung's musings on archetypes fits. Mandelbrot speaks eloquently on the notion of fractals and we can extrapolate whether our dear old, tired friend science likes it or not!

 

I'll put down my diatribe with a final thought - my father was a nuclear physicist who once said to me, "the more I learn about quantum behavior, the stronger my faith in God becomes."

[Thethirdapple]

The Noosphere is an interesting philosophical postulation in the field of consciousness, I lean towards the writings of; de Chardin. And as I posted earlier, music is transcendent, but certainly not the only human endeavor which culminates in a sensation of overwhelming togetherness.    

 

 

Quote

For de Chardin, the noosphere emerges through and is constituted by the interaction of human minds. The noosphere has grown in step with the organization of the human mass in relation to itself as it populates the Earth. As mankind organizes itself in more complex social networks, the higher the noosphere will grow in awareness. This concept extends Teilhard's Law of Complexity/Consciousness, the law describing the nature of evolution in the universe. Teilhard argued the noosphere is growing towards an even greater integration and unification, culminating in the Omega Point - an apex of thought/consciousness - which he saw as the goal of history.

 

PEACE

[OG_Dave]

17 hours ago, Thethirdapple said:

The Noosphere is an interesting philosophical postulation in the field of consciousness, I lean towards the writings of; de Chardin. And as I posted earlier, music is transcendent, but certainly not the only human endeavor which culminates in a sensation of overwhelming togetherness.    

 

 

 

PEACE

 

I'll have a dip in that pool of thought though I'm not read up on it, I will investigate. I lean towards the notion that "awareness" is a priori in the quantum realm and portions of a larger consciousness manifest pervasively in the "Newtonian" realm of matter bound physics. Similar to "The finer scale of consciousness: quantum theory" ideas but not exactly. There is, empirically, a reciprocal determination component at play on a quantum level which I find fascinating.