The new cyborg music

I read a book once, in which a boy was listening to music and was picking between machine made or human made music. Totally not a new idea.

Very interesting though.

Even if we went slightly off topic it all makes sense!!

When we have all this tech, for example bio processor main frame tech and when all people has personal multi sensor arrays, why would we be satisfied with todays (boring!) music?

A modern tune has what? 10 instruments at tops. When we are talking about future music and art we are maybe talking about tens of thousands of stimuli generators collaborating at a time! Wouldnt that be something or WHAT!?

Originally posted by Son_of_Neo
Even if we went slightly off topic it all makes sense!!

When we have all this tech, for example bio processor main frame tech and when all people has personal multi sensor arrays, why would we be satisfied with todays (boring!) music?

A modern tune has what? 10 instruments at tops. When we are talking about future music and art we are maybe talking about tens of thousands of stimuli generators collaborating at a time! Wouldnt that be something or WHAT!?

Exactly my point! But to be honest, I believe that to be able to appreciate such sophisticated art expressions, cybernetic improvements of the human organism is the inevitable next step.

I mean, the under developed human brain would only be able to take in such a low amount of information - the interpretation of the work would probably only be chaos. I guess you could compare it to the noise of a modem hand-shaking with another modem... times 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 due to the complexity of the cyborg art. It would simply be impossible to process the piece at the extreme rate that would be needed for machine cultural expression without cybernetic improvements.

edit: Also forgot to add that this kind of cultural revolution will demand a whole lot of the transmission system used to distribute the music. Jitter, for example, would be completely unacceptable since machine intelligence would notice it, and react to it no matter how small the error was since all values are either true or false (1 or 0). On the other hand, with an evolving machine intelligence im sure that new alloys and conductors would be invented pretty fast.


[edit on 9-3-2009 by Kos!!]

Cyborg music? Watch em all hit the floor like it's 1984 when the DJ drops some old skool 56k modem noise!

Are you looking for a Cyborg actually choosing to listen to and / or create music from it's own free will? Or an intelligent machine that was intrinsically designed to like music? Because, well I think that would be important.

Originally posted by Now_Then
Cyborg music? Watch em all hit the floor like it's 1984 when the DJ drops some old skool 56k modem noise!

Are you looking for a Cyborg actually choosing to listen to and / or create music from it's own free will? Or an intelligent machine that was intrinsically designed to like music? Because, well I think that would be important.

I am talking about machine intelligence and awareness. A conscious machine, be it a cybernetic implant integrated with the human bio-processer, commonly refered to as the human brain, or pure machine intelligence.

This is very important!

Why would we deny evolotion - Biological or technical?

As the mechanism of natural selection is no more, due to modern medicine and lack of famine, we must help this process by entering new era - Era of Cybernetic Evolution!

This will be very good for us. Because if we do not improve, who knows what will happen?

I think the only way for us to solve problems such as inventing warp engine technology and even cure for cancer might be us plugging our bio processors into the super grid (future mainframe connecting all human minds , transforming the entire population into ONE).

the new cyborg music will sound just as empty and soulless as morse code.

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i think if the 'music' were created to help with productivity or to shift attention to a certain task, like how many humans use it for, then it wont be music at all, just tones and frequencies that enable the cyborgs output to be amplified or have the cyborgs hardware convert the external frequencies into into energy or something usable -- which means the 'listener' has to be built/programmed for it to work...

the closest i can think of existing music that a cold, robotic 'mind' would be into is the Swedish metal band Meshuggah. It has evil robot written all over it with their crazy deep tones, time signatures and droniness... actually to me they sound like what a camel spider's mind would be, set to music -- programmed, instinctive EVIL, if you've ever had one or known someone who kept one you would know what i mean.

Why would a high speed computer intelligence appreciate anything time based which is processed as slowly as human music?


If computers develop their own distinct music, it will be out of the range of human perception in probably more way than one. The most likely difference would be a frequency range which we either could not hear at all, or at such speed that it all sounds flat or all the detail is lost to humans with perhaps tens of thousands of points of detail merged into only one humanly perceptable event.

That would be assuming that we could hear the "Music" at all, or that the machine music would be in the form of an audible communication, rather than a direct digital communications stream. A series of on off square wave pulses, imperceptable by man, and nothing like human music.

Think in terms of the speed at which compters communicate.

Humans have a terribly slow communications rate.

If computers write beautiful music humans can appreciate, it will be by the labor of humans, for the benefit of humans. Not from some computers personal esthetic for the computer's personal appreciation.

reply to post by Kos!!


I would really, really like to see some proof of your toaster and computer performing better playing techno music.

Originally posted by Cyberbian
Why would a high speed computer intelligence appreciate anything time based which is processed as slowly as human music?

Because music is a mathematical computation. And a 'machine' could appreciate 'human' music simply on that basis alone if not for the emotional stimulation wherein the disparity is often seen. Since in fact the only real difference between bio and techno machines is in the materials the are made of. Besides, the human intelligence still works faster than any artificial intelligence.

...by simple calculation, we can estimate the processing power of a average brain to be about 100 million MIPS (Million computer Instructions Per Second ). In case you're wondering how much speed that is, let us give you an idea.

1999's fastest PC processor chip on the market was a 700 MHz pentium that did 4200 MIPS. By simple calculation, we can see that we would need at least 24,000 of these processors in a system to match up to the total speed of the brain !! (Which means the brain is like a 168,0000 MHz Pentium computer).

library.thinkquest.org...

Now, here are some pieces by human machines that might well be pleasing to both bio and techno entities.

Have anyone else experienced that machines of different kind seem to respond well to fast pased, repetitive sounds? I benchmarked my own computer while played different kinds of music. The result may indicate that the computer machine's performance is improved while playing music such as techno or other computer genereated sounds. The best results showed while playing Kraftwerk.

Don't mean to be rude intentionally, but are you nuts?! A computer doesn't know the difference between classical, techno, pop, ect. The best performance you'd get from your computer would be to turn the music OFF, the added resources needed to run the application would slow your computer down.

Since a cyborg would be part human, the human part would be the part that enjoys the music, not the machine. So fastness or music or patterns wouldn't be more enjoyed. Since music is art, and only humans are capable of appreiciating art, it'd be impossible for a machine to enjoy it. It's like a machine eating food...there's no point.

Some of the best music contains rather simple melodies and structure, so to say that that would be obsolete I find a bit off. Creativity would be enhanced I think for a cyborg. So better music would be developed and music could be created faster. It's like an axeman cutting down a tree with a manual saw vs. a chain saw.

Why would a high speed computer intelligence appreciate anything time based which is processed as slowly as human music?

exactly. Humans enjoy things because we have limits. We feel a lack and the filling of that lack brings about pleasure. What does a computer/machine lack? Answer me that. If there is no lack, there is no pleasure. Period.

[edit on 13-3-2009 by ghaleon12]

Originally posted by ghaleon12
What does a computer/machine lack? Answer me that. If there is no lack, there is no pleasure. Period.

Emotions and a constant energy source.

Hm.. What I am talking about is post singularity machine intelligence. Not some 700 Mhz CPU from 1999.

So music stimulate emotion in humans. But what exactly are emotions? I would suggest that an emotion is the response to a stimuli.

Why wouldn't a conscious machine respond to a stimuli such as music? And, exactly, what kind of functionality does music províde for us humans? I would say the same as for a conscious machine.

After all, we are all just conscious biological machines. It's just that the evolution of machine intelligence will leave us so far behind, we won't even be able to comprehend the complexity of machine generated art in the future.

Originally posted by Kos!!
So music stimulate emotion in humans. But what exactly are emotions? I would suggest that an emotion is the response to a stimuli.

Why wouldn't a conscious machine respond to a stimuli such as music? And, exactly, what kind of functionality does music províde for us humans? I would say the same as for a conscious machine.

After all, we are all just conscious biological machines. It's just that the evolution of machine intelligence will leave us so far behind, we won't even be able to comprehend the complexity of machine generated art in the future.

I think emotions are precisely a response to stimuli. Even more importantly a learned response. Though there is a certain amount of inborn ability, but it's rather limited. Infants generally only express two emotional states, pleased and not. The variance of emotion we express is learned through life. That being the case, a computer really only needs to learn those two concepts. Is it pleased or not. Is it's situation beneficial or not.

The functionality of music is, to me, to express existence in an alternate form. The act of creation is both a defining and expanding act. Can a computer learn that abstract concept? Most likely. But first it needs to recognize itself as an individual entity of value to itself. This to my mind naturally follows learned emotional response. Once emotion is recognized, maintaining emotional happiness becomes a goal, and so we question and so we express and so we communicate.

As to your last point, I wouldn't agree. Because I don't believe the creation ever completely overtakes it's creator. I believe it is actually the purpose of the existence of the created to propel its creator. We'll always be at least one step ahead of techno-entities.

To make it more simplistic, we don't fully understand ourselves. How can we then possible create something superior to ourselves without that understanding? Techno-entities may well excel beyond humans in certain aspects, but not as a whole. It's an impossibility. For when they might, humans will no longer need to be 'human' but something far grander.

Originally posted by TravelerintheDark
As to your last point, I wouldn't agree. Because I don't believe the creation ever completely overtakes it's creator. I believe it is actually the purpose of the existence of the created to propel its creator. We'll always be at least one step ahead of techno-entities.

To make it more simplistic, we don't fully understand ourselves. How can we then possible create something superior to ourselves without that understanding? Techno-entities may well excel beyond humans in certain aspects, but not as a whole. It's an impossibility. For when they might, humans will no longer need to be 'human' but something far grander.

Why wouldn't we be able to create something superious to ourselves? And of course humans would be able to upgrade themselves. Watch video, educate!

Originally posted by Kos!!
Why wouldn't we be able to create something superious to ourselves? And of course humans would be able to upgrade themselves. Watch video, educate!

Like I said, we will certainly be able to create entities that excel beyond humans in particular areas, but to create a singular entity that rivals humans in all capacities is to me an impossibility. For the same reason we can't find a cure for the common cold. Which is to say that even if we create an entity that we claim is superior to ourselves, how do we know without a complete and total understanding of ourselves? We only know that it possesses certain abilities that rival our known abilities.

As to upgrading, well that sort of proves what I was saying about the creation propelling the creator. And we wouldn't exactly be 'human' anymore, would we?

Originally posted by TravelerintheDark
Like I said, we will certainly be able to create entities that excel beyond humans in particular areas, but to create a singular entity that rivals humans in all capacities is to me an impossibility. For the same reason we can't find a cure for the common cold. Which is to say that even if we create an entity that we claim is superior to ourselves, how do we know without a complete and total understanding of ourselves? We only know that it possesses certain abilities that rival our known abilities.

As to upgrading, well that sort of proves what I was saying about the creation propelling the creator. And we wouldn't exactly be 'human' anymore, would we?

First of all, superior in the sense of ability to process large amounts of information and to be able to access information. Put, on top of that, a consciousness.

Secondly, I agree with you - an upgraded human wouldn't be 'human'. Humans would be the sub-species of the cyborg race.

I have read that emotions can be seen on a CAT scan and these are the result of electro-magnetic impulses. We know that our bodies run on electricity in its simplest form so it is not a far stretch to imagine that our emotions can be individually manipulated by the right tones transmitted at the right frequency.

There is a recent report of a case of mass hysteria in a small village in a Nicaragua village with no apparent explanation for the occurrence. Could this have been caused by some sound designed for this result? Some super sonic wave that affects man much the way that if possibly affects other living species and could also be the result of the mass whale beaching in Tasmania.

Maybe parts of our brains can be controlled by sound and if this is the case then of course a computer could produce music that could target the parts of the brain to control different responses and the music could be phenomenal on a scale much larger then that created by man.

www.newscientist.com...

books.google.com... en&ei=7ve6ScOWBYvaMbbL5aAI&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result#PPA64,M1

news.bbc.co.uk...

Originally posted by TravelerintheDark

Originally posted by ghaleon12
What does a computer/machine lack? Answer me that. If there is no lack, there is no pleasure. Period.

Emotions and a constant energy source.

But to feel an emotion (some sort of lack), you need to have an emotion to begin with. A computer couldn't feel a lack of emotions because it doesn't have any emotions in which to feel the lack of emotions, lol. Why would it want emotion to begin with? That's a human trait. Will it want to eat food? Will it want to dance? Humans have a tendency to project themselves on to others, be it machines, God, or other people. We can only view things from our "situation" so inevitably our predictions on something as obscure as conscious machines are going to be biased.

It can't "feel" a lack of a constant energy source though, since if there was a lack of a constant energy source, it would already be turned off. And since it doesn't have emotion, it can't "worry" or "fear" about being turned off. Again, we are projecting our inner human traits on machines. We can't do that because it doesn't work.