Hopping Bird

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On the structure of information

A well-known metaphor: a house is not a mere collection of bricks. It is, rather, a collection of bricks that has been organized in a certain structure. Organizing information into structure seems to be something our brains are good at. What if this organization is the means by which our brain comprehends, stores, and transmits information? In other words, the structure of information is all there is. "Meaning" may simply be certain types of structure of information that our brain distinguishes from others. When this distinction occurs, the brain provides us with emotional impulses, which creates this sensation of "aha, that is quite deep". If something like this is true, then the brain ought to be programmed to recognize structure in a way that is synchronized with the structure of the universe surrounding us, since those "aha" moments led us to a point where we can make predictions about nature, communicate over a large distance, etc. 

It is difficult to test out such a theory since perceived information is usually matched with existing knowledge in our subconscious... so it is difficult to isolate a describable portion of self-contained information, which would be necessary for a rigorous study of how the structure of information determines the meaning. Except perhaps in an art form, where the "meaning" is least dependent on existing knowledge, such as music.

Here is my (almost) first attempt at the study of how a meaning of a musical piece could be interpreted via the structure of the organization of its sounds. I improvised this short piece: 

Zurab's Music Channel · 1805

And then isolated various layers of its musical structure:

Each colored dot in the bottom layer corresponds to a half bar. Here is the score, for reference (bars are numbered):

The colors encode musical similarities. For instance, notice that the fourth and the fifth bars both have a C chord in an extended half note. This is marked by the fact that the seventh and the ninth dots (from left) both have the same red color. The higher layers are combinations of half-bars again categorized according to the similarity of their musical structure. Now, my hypothesis is that when listening to this musical piece our brain generates (partially subconsciously) the structure displayed in the image above. The mere possibility of, and the easiness by which the brain generates this structure gives us the illusion of "meaning".

Mathematically, the structure we are talking about here can be seen as a collection of subsets of a partially ordered set (poset) of "pieces" of given information. In the example above, this would be the poset of intervals of the musical piece. In the picture, these intervals are continuous bars. The set of bars of the same color constitutes one subset. What is extraordinary in this example is the organization of these subsets into partitions of the entire piece (one partition for each line of bars in the picture, so four altogether). Another interesting phenomenon is that bars of the same color always occur in the same line. I do not know to what extent these rules are universal to musical compositions (of a certain type?). 

As for applications of the study of the structure of information, well, if "meaning" can be reduced to "structure", then by embedding structure into artificial intelligence, we should be able to produce a machine that is more human-like. This feels scary, I know, but I hope that my theory has a sufficient amount of flaws that it will not bring us closer to the terminator judgment day anytime soon. 

Another possible application is in education: by identifying and emphasizing the structure in learning, the brain of a learner may be able to acquire the skill/knowledge more efficiently.

And perhaps, there can be applications in psychology too, where structure can be a key in helping a brain make sense of life experiences...

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Resilience (Opus 1015)

This piece is to remind you of resilience, or toughness. Life is not a straight path and there come moments when the best you can do is endure. This requires bring out the fighter within you. It may also require you to stay focused. 

Look out for the following objects in the video, which carry the symbolism as described below:

• Light sources (light bulbs, lanterns, etc.): ideas that could help you get through the difficult times
• Switched off TV screen with headphones over it: the feeling of emptiness
• Guns, glasses and the helmet: self-defense mechanisms 
• Male and Female characters: your body (male character) and your soul (female character)

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Beautiful Roses (opus 1601)

The inspiration for this composition was a discussion with the Composer Hans Roosenschoon, during which I presented to him some of my musical works, and also had a chance to listen to some of his unpublished works. I composed the piece the next day after the discussion. It was originally intended to be only the first sketch of the composition.

This piece signifies beauty of creativity. The video shows two contrasting characters, which represent the mind and the soul in a creative process. The roses are the creation. They appear in different color, form and contexts, to signify diversity of creation. Thus, the video provides a symbolic interpretation of the process and product of creativity.

Elaboration of some of the symbolism in the video:

• The bud with the sun in the background shown at the start of the video represents an idea that starts the creative process. 
• The rose opening up, which is repeated three times in the video, represents the anticipation of the fulfillment, the fulfillment, and the reflection on the fulfillment of the creative process.
• The first character, dressed in conservative clothes, symbolizes the mind. The second character symbolizes the soul. The first character is reserved in her display of emotions as well as in her interaction with the roses. The second character is spontaneous and emotional, who interacts more intimately with the roses and displays enjoyment in such interaction. These represent the rational approach of the mind and the contrasting intuitive approach of the soul in a creative process.
• The first character wears black top throughout the video. The second character wears brighter tops. The first represents the critical approach of the mind and the struggles of the creative process, while the second represents the positive approach of the soul and the joy of the creative process. The positive/critical disposition of the soul versus the mind is symbolized also in the brighter lighting background for the second character versus the first character. 
• For the most part of the video the character representing the mind has roses separated in bottles in the foreground. This represents the attitude of the mind to concentrate on the details in isolation from each other. The character representing the soul is, in contrast, shown with a bucket of flowers. This symbolizes the holistic approach of the soul in the creative process. The single flower that the second character appears to have isolated from the bucket symbolizes the driving idea behind the creative process. 
• At the end of the video, the flowers in front of the character representing the mind are no longer separated in their bottles. Instead they appear lying in a heap in front of her, with one flower from the heap in her hands. This represents the conclusion of the creative process, when the mind dismisses the details and brings them all together, leading to the emergence of the contour of the bigger picture as a detail of its own.
• Just before the last scene, the character representing the soul passes the single rose she is holding towards the screen. This symbolizes disengagement of the soul at the end of the creative process. In the final scene, however, the other character remains with the roses. For the first time here, she smiles, but momentarily, while smelling the flower she is holding. This symbolizes that what remains after conclusion of the creative process is just mental image of what has been created. The excitement has subsided and there is only one emotion left, the unique positive experience of the mind in the process, which lasts only for one moment, making that moment worth the creative process: the feeling of accomplishment.

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Imagination (opus 1011)

The video shows two dancers, a man and a woman. The woman exists in the imagination of the man. Perhaps it is someone he knew, loved, cared for... Ballet-style gentle dance of the woman is contrasted with a free-style rough dance of the man. This symbolizes the unattainability of the imagination. Half-way in the video the man is shown collapsed on the floor. This scene is intended to reveal that the man has actually been suffering from the unattainability of his imagination. He longs for the woman, who remains to be only a fragment of his imagination throughout the video. Towards the end of the video, the woman dances to a light and playful music. The video ends with the man walking away from the camera. He momentarily stops, looks back, and then confidently makes a few more steps in the direction he was heading, away from the camera, till the video concludes. The man has resolved the problem: the joy of her existence, even if only in his imagination, must overcome the suffering. 

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Monotony (opus 1128)

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word "monotony" as "tedious sameness". For a creative soul, monotony is on par with torture. This piece conveys the struggles of the soul that has been trapped in monotony and is looking for ways to break free from it. The video shows a man performing various free style dance moves as an expression of the struggles. Behind him is a wall on which, in the first part of the video, projects a movie of clouds moving through the sky. This is a symbolism of one's creative aspirations before one becomes a prisoner of monotony. In the second part of the video, the projection changes to showing the dancer in action, from multiple angles. This symbolizes that after a while of monotony, the aspirations dissolve into excessive awareness of one's own self. At this stage, an illusion of having broken free from monotony may arise, which is symbolized by the scene with the chair. The chair is the illusion of freedom, illustrated by the dancer performing various dance moves over and around the chair. During the scene with the chair, the music is cheerful. This scene transitions into a scene leading to the finale, where the chair is gone and the mood of the music drops low signifying the sad realization that the feeling of having broken free from monotony was only an illusion. Right at the very end, the scene shows the dancer up close. A moment after the music has stopped, the dancer abruptly turns his head around as part of what seems to be another dance move, which ends the video. It leaves the viewer uncertain whether monotony has been overcome or not; the intention here is to urge the viewer to contemplate on their own monotony and ask the question whether it has been overcome or not?

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Marine Life (opus 206)

This piece is a celebration of the diversity and the beauty of the inner world of a human soul, symbolized in the video by the marine life: the part of nature that resides within the depths of the seas. The symbolism is revealed towards the end of the video, in the scene with a dressed woman in water. The scene opens with her submerged in water with only her head above the surface of water. She then submerges the head under water too and soon her head rises again above the surface of water, having an invigorated smile on her face. 

The music for this piece, Opus 206, was composed in 2016.

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Alina (opus 99)

A woman in her early 20's improvising some dance moves in front of a camera with the balloons in the background and informal outfit signifying celebration of freedom of expression.  

Alina is a TikToker, with more than 90K subscribers. I am grateful to her for creating the video clips in this music video, which was later matched with Opus 99, an improvisation of mine from 2015. The rhythmic structure of Opus 99 shifts away from the "classical" style common to my work. 

  

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