I think it’s safe to say that all humans who can hear, enjoys music. Not everybody likes the same genre, but what is it about music in general that makes humans so drawn to it?
In: 86
Because of evolution.
Why did our distant ancestors develop ears? Perhaps as a way to warn of approaching danger.
It’s not that our distant ancestors *wanted* to grow ears. That’s not how it works.
Some random mutation led to some organ that could detect pressure waves in air, and the brain learned to interpret that as “sound”. That was a huge evolutionary advantage, so that trait survived.
Later, our ancestors developed the ability to discern between different animal sounds.
And even later than that, our ancestors developed the ability to communicate via speech.
Again, none of this was “planned”. But random genetic mutations led to abilities that were advantageous to humans winning out, and that included the ability to hear.
One of the ways the genetics worked out is for certain sounds to be more pleasurable / enjoyable.
Why?
Maybe it was so we’d enjoy the sound of other humans. Maybe it was so that we’d march together with other humans because we like the sound of marching.
We don’t know for sure why. But the end result is that our brains are wired to enjoy certain sounds and patterns of sounds, because it was an evolutionary advantage for us to do so.
Music is just exploiting those patterns. Coming up with new sounds and patterns that tickle the human brain.
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