No, what you're talking about is scales.

All major scales are:

Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do

Take the C major scale, like you said.

C D E F G A B C

C is do, D is Re, E is Mi, and so on.

But what about the A major scale?

A B C# D E F# G# A

Now A is Do, B is Re, C# is Mi...

But then in minor scales, it's different. You can google or wiki or something if you're interested.

I didn't read the whole thread, and if someone said this already, then scratch this post...

Take 2 mathematicians (from 2 different countries, say one from Romania and one from Brazil), they won't understand each other verbally... but they can theorize on anything, mathematically... they can exchange formulas, but can't exchange words... if they were to exchange in musical notes... they wouldn't understand each other too, music is (more or less) like poetry... only the one who wrote it will truly understand what he meant in the said song/combination of notes.

My 2c

the semantics of a answer become important to understand when trying to answer a question such as this


look there are patterns in nature that are universal, repeating thoughout


now we use something we call math to interpret these PATTERNS the ratio's of the patterns are universal, and we use something we call math to determine those ratio's but let us not confuse the messenger with the message.

there are patterns in nature that are repeating and universal and something we english speaking humans refer to as ratio's further describe these patterns but it is these paticular patterns that are universal, WE use math to determine them, but that does not make math universal FOLLOW?

there are sounds /vibrations that ALL humans interpret that are considered sacred because they co incide with certain energy centers that are inside us (chakras) the sound pitch/energy that human perception picks up have certain tones that effect us all. now what ever words are used with the music will effect everyone completely different but again this is only when dealing with WORDS and SOUNDS, sounds and certain tones are Sacred to the human perception. will these same sounds effect animals the same as us, i have no idea, Aliens i have no idea but i would not be surprised

patterns go hand in hand with creation/life

and sounds are instrumental in creating also especially manifesting spiritually (i'm getting a little over my head now)

This post is based on the assumption that universal means understood by most people on earth, and language means whatever method of communication.
In my opinion, math cannot be a universal language, since it requires symbols and rules that aren't innate, but must be taught.

I also have to disagree that music is based on math, since music has been around much longer than our knowledge of math...you don't need to know math in order to create, play or enjoy music. It can be described with it though.
I don't think music is a universal language either, since, as other people said, it's too subjective.

I guess the most universal language we have is basic sign language along with facial expressions and vocalization...example:
You're walking down the street and someone ahead of you either
a. does an equation
b. plays a song
c. gets a shocked expression, yells, and points behind you

Which one is going to alert you to the (insert whatever menacing thing) behind you?
Ok, so it's not the most complex, but it is the most universal thing I can think of.

Originally posted by dvd500
what is the 1st thing we learn in school how to count to 10 which is the basics no? Music....in order to understand any music theories how scales work, or chords or A chromatic scale you got to learn your basics, the equivalent of 1-10 in math which is what? C D E F G A B isn't it? isn't that the 1st music lesson? like I said its the equivalent of 1-10 in math.

Yes learning basic numbers is the first thing you learn in maths, and notes is usually the first thing you learn in music. But as I said before, notes are based off of maths, as are scales. Conventional music is based on science and maths with artistic creation basically defining what numbers we choose to make songs, we call them notes but they are all based on strict mathematical scientific guidelines.

Of course you can argue that music has been around for longer than mathematics, but that depends what you would class as music. You could say that the first people grunting was music and they didn't know maths. But I assume you mean modern conventional music.

Originally posted by Astrithr
In my opinion, math cannot be a universal language, since it requires symbols and rules that aren't innate, but must be taught.

The symbols are just the way we invented to represent the rules. If there is an alien race who has advanced as much as us I think they will still understand science with some mathematical system because everything in science is based on mathematical equations and patterns, you can be explain science with maths, and you can create theories based on mathematical equations that will usually turn out as you predicted. They will probably just have different words or symbols or whatever to represent the math rules.

Or on the other hand an alien race could have skipped maths and discovered some other way of explaining nature and science that we never did. I don't know, I wasn't there lol

Originally posted by Astrithr
I guess the most universal language we have is basic sign language along with facial expressions and vocalization...example:
You're walking down the street and someone ahead of you either
a. does an equation
b. plays a song
c. gets a shocked expression, yells, and points behind you

Which one is going to alert you to the (insert whatever menacing thing) behind you?
Ok, so it's not the most complex, but it is the most universal thing I can think of.

Good point... body and sign languages are universal languages. Sign/body language might be a little problematic if you're trying to communicate with a ET (if they decide to reveal themselves).

it is pretty simple. 2 + 2 equals 4 every where!

Someone hugging a tree doesnt equal squat!

nice try on the harmony thing, it just doesnt add up

Originally posted by redseal
it is pretty simple. 2 + 2 equals 4 every where!

Someone hugging a tree doesnt equal squat!

Sorry for the on-liner... that's funny. good one.

Originally posted by Byrd
As far as we can tell, living things have some sense of numeracy. They also have 'grammars' (this is debatable but more research is showing this.) You are making some assumptions about language and math that don't hold up.

"As far as we can tell"... It always boils down to us interpreting and probably misinterpreting the thinking and communication skills of other species. In our predisposition to anthropomorphize the behavior and "thinking" of other species, we project our logic and our mathematics and even our perception of the passage of time onto other creatures.

But we have no way of intelligently communicating with other species on this planet — communication being the exchange of progressively more sophisticated information between parties who knowingly engage in the activity for that specific purpose.

Originally posted by Byrd
What is universal (if we meet with another intelligent species) is that there's some way of determinging "one" and "more than one." If they have technology, then they have counting systems (no matter what their designations are) and they know that a circle divided by its ratio provides a certain unit of measurement (whether they use base 10, base 50, base pi, or base e.

I addressed this earlier. No, there is no mandate in the universe for all "intelligent species" to even express an interest in "one and more than one". If they have a technology, if they have space travel, et cetera, it does not mean that they have a mastery nor even a grasp of mathematics. That's a purely human assumption.

Look, let's say that the very first intelligent species we encounter is no more intelligent that a spider...

A spider performs activities that not only appear to be superhuman, but are superhuman — scaled up to human proportions, a spider can move ten times faster than a human; it can biologically produce a building material from its butt that is many times stronger than steel cable; and from this cable a single individual can assemble a highly complex, multi-purpose structure the size of a 10 story building in a matter of hours. Using its biological chemistry set, some spiders even produce aircraft that enable them to travel on wind currents over vast distances.

Now, you may counter with "oh, that's just instinctive behavior," and I will respond so what? Telling the truth, it's an alien behavior that produces results far beyond the scope of the capabilities of human intelligence. Yet a spider has no concept of mathematics. It has no linear thought processes even remotely akin to that of a human being. But it is capable of feats of chemistry and engineering that humans still cannot duplicate.

That's why I suggested earlier that a successful alien intelligence may be purely naive and spontaneous in its technological industry, capable of generating technologies that humans simply can't touch through our laborious and slow mathematical gymnastics.

Originally posted by Byrd
And that's what's meant by a "universal language." Not "knowing math will enable you to communicate Shakespeare's sonnets to the inhabitants of XmkajsdfMjkalf."

I understand what is meant by "universal language"... My point is that we have no other examples of intelligence against which to test this "universal language" theory. No, computer technology does not represent another form of intelligence — computers are just clumsy analogies of the human brain. Only humans agree that mathematics is a universal method of communicating and laying the groundwork for other forms of communication.

Originally posted by Byrd
Communications with many of the species are not done simply because of lack of interest from researchers. There's a lot of papers out there on the language and grammars of chimps...

No, we have not established dialogues (linguistic, mathematic or otherwise) with other species — we humans always initiate these attempts at communication, the other species responds in some fashion, and then we humans jump through hoops backwards misinterpreting the response as some sort of communication. And, immediately afterward, we reward the other species with a dead fish or a cheese biscuit or an electric shock to the gonads. Pardon, but this aint communication. It's conditioned response.

Originally posted by Byrd
Engineering and technology require replication of things to a very tightly controlled standard.

Again, can you show me an alien technology against which we may compare our human technology? No, of course you can't. Which leads us right back to the fish bowl and our human tendency to assume that all intelligent beings are essentially human beings in thought, word and deed.

There are examples of very advanced engineering all around us in Nature — from honeycombs to ant beds to termite mounds to beaver dams and beyond — that have nothing to do with "tightly-controlled standards"... If anything, these elaborate structures seem to be based on very flexible and even chaotic standards. To all appearances, only humans are married to the ponderous calculation of circumference and angle and precise repetition so forth, while Nature spontaneously pursues the business of building a universe without even consulting us.

— Doc Velocity

[edit on 4/15/2007 by Doc Velocity]

Originally posted by Doc Velocity

Originally posted by Byrd
As far as we can tell, living things have some sense of numeracy. They also have 'grammars' (this is debatable but more research is showing this.) You are making some assumptions about language and math that don't hold up.

"As far as we can tell"... It always boils down to us interpreting and probably misinterpreting the thinking and communication skills of other species. In our predisposition to anthropomorphize the behavior and "thinking" of other species, we project our logic and our mathematics and even our perception of the passage of time onto other creatures.

That's probably because maths usually works, even off of this planet. We can use it to hypothesise things in space and they work, that must mean that maths is a valid system. Whether alien planets possess the same mathematical patterns as Earth does is a different question, but as far as we can see, physics and maths applies all over the universe.

Concerning music, well because our air is so unique to Earth, air pressures, makeup, etc. there is a good chance that sound would act differently on another planet, and that's assuming they even have sound at all. Their air may not oscillate in the same way as ours does so they would probably have a different perception of sound than we do. Which is a shame, because we may not be able to share music with them when they turn up.

All cultures have unique music whereas math remains the same for all cultures making it a universal language.

Not really. Different cultures have had different number base systems.

10 (base 10) = 10 (base 10
10 (base 2) = 2 (base 10)

Originally posted by malganis
That's probably because maths usually works, even off of this planet. We can use it to hypothesise things in space and they work, that must mean that maths is a valid system.

Validated by whom? Are we submitting our results to some otherworldly authority for validation? No. Again, mathematics seems to work, but only from an earth-bound human perspective.

Let's look at some other math that is perfectly valid: The Platonic-Aristotelian cosmos (the earliest model of the universe with Earth in its center). Preposterous idea, isn't it? Yet, all of our modern cosmology works just fine with Earth at the virtual center of the universe. Regardless of how much this upsets the mathematicians and astrophysicists, this pre-Copernican notion is still perfectly valid today. It doesn't unravel our science at all. Run it forwards, run it backwards, but our whole vast cosmic clockwork doesn't seem to care if Earth is at the center as the universe revolves around us. Why do you think this is the case?

It's because all of our math, all of our physics, all of our Science in general was founded upon this one small platform of observation called Earth (the fishbowl); in a very real sense, we are the center of the universe, and this bias is reflected in our physical models and mathematical formulae. Like it or not, we humans have no other intelligence against which to compare our notes. And I hate being pessimistic, but we'll probably never meet another intelligence similar enough to modern human intelligence for us to compare notes.

— Doc Velocity

[edit on 4/16/2007 by Doc Velocity]

Take this to the most basic level when a human is just a few hours old!

Try to calm the baby down by Reciting the multiplication tables
vs
a nursery rhyme.


When you are a baby is math already wired within you? is time alredy a concept? are heart beats counted while inthe womb?

At the most basic level what will get the message across faster and easier?

Originally posted by a1ex
Try to calm the baby down by Reciting the multiplication tables
vs
a nursery rhyme.

Even playing music or singing to the baby is still based on maths. It's a series of mathematical oscillations in the air (notes) which are in turn composed in a mathematical order (scales).

Originally posted by malganis

Originally posted by a1ex
Try to calm the baby down by Reciting the multiplication tables
vs
a nursery rhyme.

Even playing music or singing to the baby is still based on maths. It's a series of mathematical oscillations in the air (notes) which are in turn composed in a mathematical order (scales).

The vibrations of musical tones interacting with organics should be studied, and that is where we would find our answer of why death metal aggrandizes plant growth.

Vibrations hold frequency, frequency holds energy. Vibrations, motions, sounds, lights, waves, frequencies, temperature, densities, all interconnected, interrelated, interdependent, and infinitely the perpetuating cause of one another

[edit on 17-4-2007 by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal]

Originally posted by a1ex

Even playing music or singing to the baby is still based on maths. It's a series of mathematical oscillations in the air (notes) which are in turn composed in a mathematical order (scales).

But going back to the Basics try: a Nursery rhyme and now try Ozzy Osburne which tune will statistically be more pleasant to the baby?
Now with another experiment try Death Metal & classical music which one will be more pleasant to your hemp plantation?

Why is that? what makes a nursery rhyme pleasant or "good"? What makes death metal appealing to plant growth?

Well there's obvious things like the style that the music is played in, e.g. a nursery rhyme is usually played quite softly and has relaxing themes, whereas death metal is aggressive, distorted and usually involves a burly man growling his chest out (i love it!). So obviously the quiet soft one is going to relax the baby more.

Then to go further into it, nursery rhymes are generally based on Major scales, which is basically limiting the notes the song uses to certain ones which sound 'nice' together. This is achieved by counting up intervals (or 'steps') in between the notes to see which ones you could use, and the scale is designed to sound nice and non-conflicting. The maths behind scales can get complicated when you go into harmonies and all different intervals, but it is there.

And on the other hand, death metal is based around minor scales which don't sound 'happy and nice' like major scales do, or sometimes it's based on diminished scales which are designed to sound conflicting but still sound good if you're into that type of music.

That is for how music affects humans, as for the plant growth thing, I don't know. Maybe it's something to do with the amount it vibrates something in the plants? Or maybe there's some sort of hidden energy in more aggressive music?