As the year continues, many of these posts will be philosophical in nature. Some will be in contradiction to previous postings. These are not intended as truths or assertions, they’re merely thoughts…ideas. Think of this as stream of consciousness over a wide span…
Picking up an element from last week’s thought… “sound is the result of a physical event.”
It’s the vibration of physical objects in response to a state change in other physical objects. It can’t move through the environment without those carrier objects…such as air (yes, I’m considering gas a physical object here). It exerts force on those objects, which can then exert force on other objects. It’s how we hear. Pressure waves in the air around us exert force on and displace our ear drums. Our brain converts the resulting signals to sound.
Maybe hearing is not it’s own separate and distinct sense, but instead a kind of specialized function of the sense of touch. The sound in our environment “touches” us, our brain just interprets it differently than a hand on your arm.
You would probably be aware of a long history of research and discourse on this subject. Music, or organised sound, is very closely related to, and some would even say indistinguishable from sculpture.