Background knowledge - music and cosmology

In the latest dialogue on the application of Bayes theorem to historical analysis, the idea of background knowledge came up. I would like to come up with a real application of Bayes theorem to certain theses about history but I don't want to apply probabilities to things that are generally known or accepted since the degree of uncertainty does not support applying a probabilistic approach. Yet I am aware that what we seem to know is not really fully known, as if that sort of knowledge was even possible.

The mechanics of ninety-five percent of the matter and energy that we seem to be aware of is actually unknown to us and goes by the name of dark. It has to be there for what we see as stars and galaxies to 'hang together' but we can't say what it is. It is 'dark' to us. What makes us think that in the area of background knowledge we actually know anything?

When it comes to background knowledge in music, (this being the subject of the set of hand-signals embedded in the text of the Aleppo codex and all texts of Tanach copied since then in the world I know about,) I know if I know anything about musical line, or shape, or beauty, or tonality, I know at least three things: sequences of vibrations (notes) that lead to the idea and feeling of rest, sequences that lead to a feeling of incompleteness, and groups of such sequences, musical phrases and structures, that lead to surprise and delight.

Both cosmology and music are based on the concept of wave, or the vibration of particles, strings or voice or pipes. Waves operate within a field. The field of music for a particular performance (roughly speaking) encompasses time and space within audible limits. What happens to us as performer and listener when we take part in this field? Do we become part of the music of the spheres? (Just askin'.)

More seriously, what background knowledge can we assume for ourselves and for our ancestors within the tradition of Biblical Studies? Some few of you will know that I created a survey on survey-monkey - much too expensive a tool - $40 a month to use it for surveys with more than 10 responses. I only did the free bit. My questions were simple - here are the results:

20% of respondents included Musician as a role

More readers of music than I might have thought

This is far too few responses to even guess at a trend. Personally, I expect the musicians in the churches compared to those who concentrate on 'the word' without music (a fearful error) is about 5 in a 100. But there is a significant musical background within the religious world, perhaps even more in other traditions than in the Judeo-Christian circles such as I inhabit.

I know that string vibrations were investigated up to 3000 years ago. It's too big a study for me to summarize, but there is no ignorance of the octave 2/1, or the fifth 3:2, or the fourth 4:3, or the scale divided into roughly 7 or 8 steps, or instruments tuned to play a scale in ancient times that we would recognize today. You can get in as deeply as you like with a search. The musicologists and the mathematicians leave me behind quickly.

In short, I am not surprised that Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura found a 7 note scale for the poetry books in the accents, and a compatible 8 note scale in the prose books. I am also not surprised that she postulates that the pausal accents under the text allow for cadences (the sense of resting) on the fourth note of the scale and on the second note as well in the poetry books. (For more, see my book on the music and the series of posts on this blog under the title, the ladder.)

The general sense of the music found restores the tone of voice in a way that is immediately recognizable by a modern hearer. It changes our attitude to the words and our sense of who was able to design such a coherent and efficient system. The information embedded in the system is as significant for us as it was for them. They were like us, lovers of beauty, recognizing transcendence, and able to design a notation that would stand the test of time.

I can accept this assumption of background knowledge even if I am only 5% sure that I exist in a musical field. Maybe the darkness of the matter and energy that surround me is vital to my soul.