Elle Hogan <[log in to unmask]>:

>[log in to unmask] writes:
>
>>What do you think is the cause of your associations?
>
>Does the word "tone" ring a bell? How about "chiaroscuro"?

I don't think that the explanation lies in the mere synestesia.  Actually,
I was thinking about events that comes to the mind together, and that were
bonded once by diverse experiences.  As Spinoza once wrote (Ethics, Part
III, Prop.  XIV):

   "When the soul has been affected once by two simultaneous passions,
   if it's later affected by one of them, it will be affected also by
   the second one".  (sorry for the translation).

This sort of "inertia" law is the key of the leitmotive technique.  It's
also an elegant way of describing some feelings and almost any kind of
mental association.

>Certainly, we know that tone applies to both music and color...  And
>sound and color are really waves...frequencies...

The argument seems scientifically correct.  However, the fact that
music and color are essentially waves of different lenght isn't enough
to establish a solid aesthetic correlate between both (which should be
mainly cultural, I guess).  Actually I doubt that I could apply a table
of equivalents between musical chords and the different cooking times of
my microwave oven.

>Our brains really do try to connect the dots...don't you think?

I wouldn't say that they do "try".  They simply do connect the dots.  The
"why" isn't very clear sometimes.

Pablo Massa
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