Jeff2 comments on The Gift We Give To Tomorrow - Less Wrong

44 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 17 July 2008 06:07AM

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Comment author: Jeff2 18 July 2008 03:33:09AM 0 points [-]

The book How Music Really Works has some decent ideas about the evolution of music. Here's approximately the relevant part.

Basically he suggests it's useful as pre-language for mother-infant communication, for maintaining group cohesion, and for sexual signaling. The specific structure of music is largely a side effect of how our brain processes language.