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 >>55686680
Your brain interprets the signals coming from your eardrums and all that shit. You could say that we don't really listen to music, but interpret it, and I would have to agree.
However, imagine that we create a machine with a single microphone which stores what the microphone records on a tape as a spectrum of all audible frequencies. And this machine could be stored in a way that makes sure it never degrades, sort of like the standard measurements for a kilogram. You could see how if we played music to this machine, it would record the objective sound from the piece and store it on paper. When you hear music, this essentially happens in the eardrums, which passes on the signals created to the rest of the brain and it is then interpreted. This is where the subjectivity happens, and where hallucinations and such come into play. Subjectivity also comes from possible other differences between people, like the shape of the ear and all that shit you learn about in intro psych, as well as subtle things, like the exact positioning and number of neurons in a specific section of your brain.
On a side note, the above example with the hypothetical machine also means that yes, music can be objectively analyzed, but only to a point. You could read the produced spectrum and match the patterns present to known patterns or frequencies which give the average mind pleasure, of course. But the issue is with the need to use averages, which is a much larger issue.
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