Mind and music: On intentionality, music theory, and analysis

Among current theories of cognition, Gerald Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection is one of the most successful in showing how the mind is grounded in neurobiological activity. Edelman brings together ideas concerning the selective adaptability of the brain and the interplay of neural impulses during perception to show how the brain creates interconnected neural maps from which memory, the foundation for consciousness, is constructed. Such maps are adaptive; they can change in response to a plethora of ongoing associations in the cortex. Hence, perceptions, rather than remaining fixed in memory, are acts of reconstruction, a perspective that encourages one to view music less as a collection of immutable structures and more as a subject for international creative perception. An analysis of Berg's Op. 2, No.3 tests these ideas by bringing intentionalism and the biological basis of the mind to the forefront of the discussion.