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We all know there has to be some science and theory behind any given design but that's only the beginning. Measurements will not tell us about the sonic signature or level of emotion the end result will provide.
I have to take issue with you on that one though. I believe that anything that interacts with this physical universe, must, by default, take on some aspect of that same physicality itself. I don't believe in a type of "magic" that can't be detected and ultimately quantified by scientific means and apparatus - and I REFUSE to accept otherwise! Science may not yet possess either the means or apparatus to do so at a given point in history, but it has at least the potential of ultimately doing so.
For instance - and this is the ultimate in the extreme - if "ghosts" or "spirits" really exist and they interact with the physical world, there must ultimately be a method of detecting their presence and proving their existence. "Ghost Hunters" and the lot are only scratching the "tip of the iceburg" - if at all - in their attempts.
That being the case, I believe all the "effects" these various components manifest can ultimately be detected and quantified by laboratory apparatus and methods. I even believe the right tools already exist. When the day comes that I can afford such tools (by the nature of their sensitivity and complexity, they are quite expensive), I am going to make it my personal mission to do so.
It may (would) take someone else that is trained in the area of neuroscience to interpret the results and relate them to any associated emotion, but I guarantee it can ultimately be done. Although, I'll have to admit...that would be one hell of an undertaking!
-Bob
This is quite interesting. I find Bob's thoughts to be very similar to those published by Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, in his explination of the understanding of Morphic Fields and Jung's concept of collect unconscious - Psychological Perspectives (Spring 1987), 18(1) 9-25. This might be a little deep but FWIW, I think we are sitting on the the edge of a paradigm shift which set into motion in 1966 when physics finally accepted an evolutionary cosmology in which the universe was no longer eternal.....
THE ALLEGORY OF THE TELEVISION SET
".......Think of the pictures on the screen as the form that we are interested in. If you didn't know how the form arose, the most obvious explanation would be that there were little people inside the set whose shadows you were seeing on the screen. Children sometimes think in this manner. If you take the back off the set, however, and look inside, you find that there are no little people. Then you might get more subtle and speculate that the little people are microscopic and are actually inside the wires of the TV set. But if you look at the wires through a microscope, you can't find any little people there either.
You might get still more subtle and propose that the little people on the screen actually arise through "complex interactions among the parts of the set which are not yet fully understood." You might think this theory was proved if you chopped out a few transistors from the set. The people would disappear. If you put the transistors back, they would reappear. This might provide convincing evidence that they arose from within the set entirely on the basis of internal interaction.
Suppose that someone suggested that the pictures of little people come from outside the set, and the set picks up the pictures as a result of invisible vibrations to which the set is attuned. This would probably sound like a very occult and mystical explanation. You might deny that anything is coming into the set. You could even "prove it" by weighing the set switched off and switched on; it would weigh the same. Therefore, you could conclude that nothing is coming into the set.
I think that is the position of modern biology, trying to explain everything in terms of what happens inside. The more explanations for form are looked for inside, the more elusive the explanations prove to be, and the more they are ascribed to ever more subtle and complex interactions, which always elude investigation. As I am suggesting, the forms and patterns of behavior are actually being tuned into by invisible connections arising outside the organism. The development of form is a result of both the internal organization of the organism and the interaction of the morphic fields to which it is tuned...."
