Klarinet Archive - Posting 000443.txt from 2002/11

From: Oliver Seely <oseely@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] Dark Sound
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 23:54:32 -0500

I've scanned most of the messages about dark sound, perhaps not all. I
haven't yet looked at today's, but I'm surprised that no one with
synesthesia has posted a message saying in effect, "I can tell very well
when a tone is dark. If you folks can't, well, that's your problem."

On the Google search engine there are 14,300 hits for the keyword
"synesthesia." Here's a description from the second hit (and there are
some testimonials as well as exercises -- which I haven't looked at -- on
"virtual synesthesia" for all of us folks deficient in that advanced
evolutionary trait! 8-):

Synesthesia is an involuntary joining in which the real information of one
sense is accompanied by a perception in another sense. In addition to being
involuntary, this additional perception is regarded by the synesthete as
real, often outside the body, instead of imagined in the mind's eye. It
also has some other interesting features that clearly separate it from
artistic fancy or purple prose. Its reality and vividness are what make
synesthesia so interesting in its violation of conventional perception.
Synesthesia is also fascinating because logically it should not be a
product of the human brain, where the evolutionary trend has been for
increasing separation of function anatomically.

The link from which this description came is

http://web.mit.edu/synesthesia/www/synesthesia.html

Oliver

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