physiology of internal timing?

I seem to keep time quite well and I lack pigment big time. My circadian rhythm is also a bit out of wack. I have worked night shift for over 20 years now and my body temp is highest during the day, not at night like regular people. I don't like machine tempo, I like human tempo. That is why a live drummer is best. 8)

Humans don't really need to sleep for any special reason, we simply do.

Recent research is providing evidence to reasons that we need sleep. It was thought to be when the brain reviews the day's activities and some recent research has found that to be true. It's probably during that review that reinforcement of the behaviour that lead to positive outcomes and the opposite for those behaviours that lead to negative outcomes occurs. This appears to be similar to the training cycle that occurs in computer simulations of brain like circuits called neural networks. I spent a fair bit of time in grad school "playing" about with neural networks and genetic algorithms although my thesis work ended up being in anothe topic.

Not trying to get into any philosophical or religious type discussions (this is not the place), but the Universe itself shows order and complexity. For instance, the Sun is 400 times larger than our Moon, but also happens to be 400 times further from the Earth so that they appear almost exactly the same size in our sky. During a solar eclipse one can see this remarkable fact.

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This is astounding when you think about it, that it appears almost exactly the same to us earthbound humans. This cannot be found with any of the other planets and their moons that we have knowledge of. Coincidence?? I have a hard time with that.

But they're not the same apparent size - the corona is still visible and the apparent diameters change on a cyclical basis because of the elliptical orbits of both the earth around the sun and the moon around the earth. Further that size / distance relationship of the sun and the moon is only a temporary state of affairs since the moon continues to move further away from the earth over time (this movement has been measured) and it's apparent diameter will shrink. To try and tie it back into the topic this is nothing but the pattern matching neural network between our ears finding one pattern, giving it some mystical significance, and ignoring all the other non-coincidences that we encounter thousands of every day because they aren't "special".
But, that is not the discussion, the discussion is time. And music is based on time. Music is complex and orderly, not random and chance.

Order and pattern in music can arise from some pretty simple rules just as it can in other systems. It only takes a small number of these simple rules to create order as they interact. The exact set of these simple rules that is used could be selected randomly with this random set being pruned if it doesn't produce pleasing enough music - a very similar system to the evolution with natural selection that gave rise to humans. This could very well have been how from the world's variety of music and musical systems came about. Mostly this "emergent behaviour" research has been focused on other areas like walking or simulating ant colonies but some are applying it to music.

the ancient babylonians used a base-60 counting system(as opposed to our base 10), which is where 60 seconds to a minute, 60 minutes to an hour comes from.

Humans don't really need to sleep for any special reason, we simply do.

Sleep serves some very basic functions: when you sleep you don't burn that much energy so you need less food to stay alive. After the sun goes down the world is a lot more dangerous for all kinds of reasons, so finding a safe spot to lay low and conserve energy makes sense. Rest also allows for the recovery of injuries and normal physical recuperation.

So why do we dream? One theory is that dreams are the result of random stimulation of brain areas. Because we are asleep we don't particularly use much of our brains, which could lead to understimulation and the matching damage. Our mind then tries to combine all this blurbs of these brainparts into one story. This happens on the fly, so later, on second thought, a lot of it might seem absolute absurd. Another one is about REM during the REM-stage in sleep. Presumably, because we sleep with our eyes closed, our eyes aren't being hydrated properly. By rapidly moving the eyes the hydration is improvded and our eyes survive the night intact.

I don't like machine tempo, I like human tempo. That is why a live drummer is best. 8)

That's why I am happy to hire Bish. :lol:

But they're not the same apparent size - the corona is still visible and the apparent diameters change on a cyclical basis because of the elliptical orbits of both the earth around the sun and the moon around the earth. Further that size / distance relationship of the sun and the moon is only a temporary state of affairs since the moon continues to move further away from the earth over time (this movement has been measured) and it's apparent diameter will shrink. To try and tie it back into the topic this is nothing but the pattern matching neural network between our ears finding one pattern, giving it some mystical significance, and ignoring all the other non-coincidences that we encounter thousands of every day because they aren't "special".

I disagree, they are the same "apparent" size, this is the reason we can get the "diamond ring" effect when the last remaining portion of the Sun is showing. They appear almost exactly the same size during a full solar eclipse.

This "coincidence" cannot be found with the other planets and their moons. It only happens here where there is someone to observe it (what are the chances of that?). If you wish to believe this is coincidence, everyone is entitled to their opinions.

How we perceive time is unimportant, to a musician it is more important to keep good time. We all have the ability to listen to the music and feel the pulse and beat. It is through careful listening and concentration that we keep good time, what ever tempo we decide to play.

Coincidence:
the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection

The sun being eclipsed by the moon is not an accident, we see them coming millenia ahead. Now the sun not eclipsing the moon when we expect the moon to do so would be an accident, but then there would seem to be no connection. As such the solar eclipse cannot be a concidence, nor the not-happening of a solar eclipse.

Why the whole situation is the way it is is interesting but I don't think science will be able to give an answer to that any time soon, if even ever at all. If anyone figured the life, universe and everything out come bring me a towel and I'm off.

If anyone figured the "life, universe and everything" out come bring me a towel and I'm off

:lol: :lol: :lol:

and of course, as the good Guide says itself;
One theory is that if the answer to Universe were to be discovered, the universive would immediately be replaced with something even more baffling. A second theory is that this has, in fact, already happened

either way - don't forget your towel! :lol:

Back on topic;
How we perceive time is unimportant, to a musician it is more important to keep good time. We all have the ability to listen to the music and feel the pulse and beat. It is through careful listening and concentration that we keep good time, what ever tempo we decide to play.

+1 to that Wes wrote; it pretty much sums it all up.
Pete

The rest and recooperation theory has been tested and as far as I know it didn''t hold up.

The most agreed upon reason that certain animals sleep, last time I checked, was that it gained them some sort of evolutionary advantage. There is nothing that happens chemically or otherwise while you are asleep that can't happen when you are awake.

That being said, a scientist once tried to totally deny himself sleep to prove this. After 10 days he had a permenent personality change and his life proceeded to fall apart.