Timo Laiho
On the Structure of Bohm’s Implicate Order Theory: Reflections on Music Analysis
This presentation introduces the theoretical principles and analytical concepts of the analytic-generative methodology (AGM) that aims to specify the temporal organization of the musical surface (Laiho 2013). AGM focuses in particular on how musical structures are organized in our perceptual experience. This approach is closely linked with the quantum physicist David Bohm’s implicate order theory and his longstanding attempt to develop a groundwork for understanding structural features underlying physical processes (Bohm 1980).
The most important aspect relating both research projects is based on the concept of differentiation, which is essentially tied with non-local determinations of perceptual objects. In the early development of his implicate order theory Bohm introduced a conceptual framework grounded on an interplay between similar differences and different similarities, which functions as a powerful tool in analysing the structures of perceptual musical organization. This conceptual framework problematizes, in addition to non-locality, the nature and the mutual definition between quantitative and qualitative differences, which provides a basis of the much-debated concept of “qualia” in the field of cognitive science. More generally, this research area strives for a solution to a problematic question of a “meaning-barrier” between the high- and low-levels of sensory perception.
Another important topic connecting AMG and the implicate order framework concerns the analysis of movement and a question: “How are temporally perceived musical items enfolded together, thus constituting meaningful musical structures in our conscious experience?” Here, via the concepts of movement, time and non-locality we enter in the realm of music analysis into discussions related to the incompatible features between Einstein’s relativity and the paradoxical definition of quantum objects. In the poster session, digitalized music analytic tools are primarily presented in visualized forms.
References:
Bohm (1980) Wholeness and the implicate order.
Laiho (2013) Perception, time and music analysis. An Introduction to analytic-generative methodology (AGM)
