The Brain - BBC4

[Sebastian Toe]

Two carrots?

Freak.

Well, what can I do if a carrot on a Friday is equivalent to 7.5 of your earth minutes? 

However on a Saturday a carrot is the number 17 bus, which takes me past the same pub but arrives later when the honey roasted peanuts are in conjunction with Saturn.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Seb,

Another myth shattered, Eastcoasters do have a sense of humour.

Wait!! waaaaiit! you were born in Glasgow but by some wicked twist of fate you were transported to the eastcoast.

Gonnagle.

[Rhiannon]

Dear Rhiannon,

It is, what a weird lot us humans are.

3 is a magic number ( no it's not Gonnagle it is just a song ) did you ever play five stanes ( stones in English ) actually that is probably because we have five fingers on each hand.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/apr/13/favourite-number-survey-psychology

Odd numbers are dodgy, does that mean we are both dodgy, are we both Arthur Daley types.

Gonnagle.

Odd numbers are difficult. They don't conform. People don't like them much. But they are so much more beautiful than even ones. They aren't afraid to be different.

So yes, numbers have personalities. And apparently I like dodgy ones.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Rhiannon,

I quite liked Susan's post, odd numbers have a kind of symmetry, they have middle, they are balanced

Gonnagle.

[Rhiannon]

Yes, we are supposed to find symmetrical faces the most beautiful. I think there's a conformity in that that just doesn't appeal to me. And (not liking maths much) even numbers should be my preference because they are easier to use in mental maths, at least in my experience. But i prefer odd numbers because they have a better 'personality' of non-conformity. I suppose odd numbers could be seen as misshapen. Quite what that says about my aesthetic sense I have no idea.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Rhiannon,

The really strange thing is that I understand exactly what you are talking about, non conforming numbers.

You know!! I have just received some fantastic news but I am now sitting here thinking, why the hell did they tell me I am the biggest blabbermouth in my whole family, I will have to go into hiding for the next couple of weeks, one thing is bloody sure, I cannot go out drinking with any of my family, I can't keep secrets, bugger

Gonnagle.

[Nearly Sane]

I find that it is even numbers that have a middle for me because of 0

[Dicky Underpants]

I think I may - the musical form, which is relatively common and relatively well known. This consists of somehow "seeing" - not literally; it's more "feeling" - musical keys associated with colours. It's almost impossible to put into words why C major is bright yellow, G major is brown, D major is bright green and A major is royal blue, but it just is.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromesthesia

Shaker

I know this phenomenon is well attested among some very distinguished musicians and composers - Scriabin in particular. However, when you consider how standard pitches have varied down the centuries, (about a tone lower than modern concert pitch during the time of Beethoven, I think) and several pitches have existed throughout the world at any one time, this makes it even more difficult for those of us who don't experience this phenomenon to understand.
This also seems to make nonsense of a related phenomenon - how composers viewed the 'mood' evoked by certain keys. Beethoven's 'noble' key was E flat major, yet this would have sounded somewhat lower-pitched in his day. Mozart seemed to think A major was sunny etc and the same applies.

[torridon]

And of course a major third sounds right-on, joyful, optimistic, whereas a minor third immediately sounds mournful or sad.

[Jack Knave]

I learnt something called the Internal Model which explains what I often get when I'm falling asleep. I see situations or scenes which are totally like real life but I know they are not. If one thinks of a tree, and a scene around it, one is aware of a kind of effort one is making to create this but these scenes I see in this half sleep state need no effort at all, they seem to be totally independent of my will and effort like real life. They are though of nothing or no one I know. They are also very tranquil and delicious.

[Dicky Underpants]

And of course a major third sounds right-on, joyful, optimistic, whereas a minor third immediately sounds mournful or sad.

Only in the last few hundred years. In European music at first there was only monody, then came singing in two parts, and the only permissible intervals were perfect fourths and fifths. All other intervals were considered discordant in varying degrees, including major and minor thirds. The Diabolos in musica was the augmented fourth (are you there, AB?)

The major-minor contrast has been deliberately reversed by some composers in more recent history. Gluck wrote his famous lament for Orpheus on the loss of his Euridice in the major key, and Mendelssohn wrote the very mercurial and perky overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream in the minor.

[Nearly Sane]

Only in the last few hundred years. In European music at first there was only monody, then came singing in two parts, and the only permissible intervals were perfect fourths and fifths. All other intervals were considered discordant in varying degrees, including major and minor thirds. The Diabolos in musica was the augmented fourth (are you there, AB?)

The major-minor contrast has been deliberately reversed by some composers in more recent history. Gluck wrote his famous lament for Orpheus on the loss of his Euridice in the major key, and Mendelssohn wrote the very mercurial and perky overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream in the minor.

hugely interesting post. It has triggered off a thought about our individual taste in music, there are certain songs, pieces of music that I cry at and in part that is about the generalised ideas of what is sad in the music that I have encountered, but perhaps there is an additional specific learned understanding because I can play those songs to people, with equivalent in a broad sense background, and there is little reaction. And yet there is a cultural and indeed age based reaction. The emergence of what is called twee pop in the Glasgow area in the early to mid eighties seems to me influenced by the confluence of influences of specific types of folk, rock,  country. It is a sound more Hunky Dory than Ziggy Stardust, though both are seminal.

[Red Giant]

When I look at paintings I often get the impression that what I'm seeing must be totally different from what the artist saw.  Otherwise he'd have given up painting.

[Maeght]

Since I've been on this forum discussing this kind of thing, I've begun to wonder if the quirk in my brain that makes me an animist is something similar.

And I know that some people with OCD dislike odd numbers. I've always been the opposite - I prefer them to even numbers to the point where I've actually felt some kind of sympathy for them.

I always count the number of letters in names & phrases (but not full sentences) and don't really like it if they come out as an odd number. Certainly a touch of OCD there.

[Rhiannon]

I always count the number of letters in names & phrases (but not full sentences) and don't really like it if they come out as an odd number. Certainly a touch of OCD there.

A couple of friends that I have with OCD both have to set the frequency on radios to even numbers, and the volume on tvs, stereos etc. They get quite anxious if they can't change it.

[Jack Knave]

Interesting bit in part 2 about the wave patterns of the brain during consciousness, dreaming and non-dreaming deep sleep.

Does anyone here understand exactly, and in detail, what an EEG is measuring; it can't be single neurons, but the graphs are so neat?