Harmony,
Perspective and Triadic Cognition
(New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2012)
(a review by Nicholas Swindale and my
response)
Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter One introduces all of the main
arguments in the chapters that follow. The introduction alone will not
convince you of the validity of the triadic argument, but makes the case for
thinking that “triadic information-processing” is a serious scientific
notion... not metaphysics and not occult numerology, but rather low-level
human cognition. Unlike animal brains – that generally get by on dyadic,
one-to-one associations – the human brain can handle triads. Read on... |
Chapter 2: Human Hearing Chapter
Two is the most complete discussion of the musical importance of triadic
harmony in the music perception literature thus far. From the early discovery
(by Galileo’s father in 1588) of the factor responsible for harmonic tension to
the modern psychoacoustical model of harmonic modality, this chapter
addresses the question avoided in all the psychology books ostensibly
explaining music: Why do major chords elicit positive affect, while minor
chords are slightly negative? |
Chapter 3: Human Seeing Human beings have
visual systems that are virtually identical to those of other primates, but
we have an unusual ability to perceive the 3D structure implied in 2D
paintings, diagrams and photographs. What is the processing that allows for
“pictorial depth perception” (and the many visual illusions that are
distortions of normal depth perception)? The answer concerns our ability to
see the relations among three objects... |
Chapter
4: Human Work Chapter 4 asks the evolutionary question of where our
triadic talents first arose. Fascinating speculations aside, hard empirical
evidence in the form of stone tools is available. The 2.5 million year trail
of stone relics shows that banging one stone into another to make a knife,
axe or scraper is where triadic cognition started. And that’s when trimodal
(visual, tactile and auditory) association neocortex (BA39, BA40) began to
evolve. |
Chapter 5: Human Communication That’s all very nice, you say, but human beings are different from
other animal species because we use language. Where did THAT come from?!
Well, the answer was first proposed by the bête noire of the American intelligentsia, Noam Chomsky. He calls it “Universal
Grammar,” but the core insight (ca. 1957) concerns “phrase structure” – which
is ... explicitly triadic. Guess what aspect of language chimps, bonobos and
parrots can’t understand. |
Chapter
6: Consciousness The “mysterians” want to believe that there is something sexier than
boring “cognition” that is special about the human mind. But the
“somewhat-less-mysterians” among you will acknowledge the evolutionary
continuity of all animal species... and that’s where the consciousness
argument begins to make sense. Awareness requires nervous systems containing
“excitable cells.” It is little more than plain-vanilla, 21st
century neurophysiology, but the answer to the consciousness conundrum lies
there. |
Chapter
7: Loose Ends Triadic skills among human beings
are numerous. The triads involved in social cooperation (“joint attention”)
and the “moral mind” are essential to human civilization – and important for
the rearing of civilized human beings. But there are also triads involved in
face perception, rhythm perception, color perception, subitization,
trigonometry, mental rotation, dance, sports, and ... hey, just about
anything that people are interested in – and that even the cleverest of
animals just don’t get. |
Chapter 8: Conclusion “Reductionism” – reducing complex phenomena
to their essential components – is what science is all about. For the science
of human psychology, it is essential to reduce the phenomena of perception
and cognition to, first of all, their dyadic and triadic constituents. It is
doable – and need not degenerate into the pseudoscience of pretending to
explain the human mind in non-psychological terms – in the terminology of
genetics, biochemistry or quantum mechanics, on the one hand, or the lofty
notions of politics, religion or occultism, on the other hand. |