I thought this was an interesting article (as per norm from BBC)

news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/e...8174534.stm

as are these you tube vids

www.youtube.com/watch

www.youtube.com/watch

since the appreciation of music offers no obvious evolutionary advantage what might it's psycological benefit be?

I zuppose the starting point is us humans.. why do we make but more to the point enjoy music and would the same reasons apply to other species?

perhaps the word 'enjoy' rather loads the question since the ability to enjoy, to appreciate a thing subjectively, to see or hear beauty, to get 'fun' out of it is surely an indicator of intelligence?

similarly why should we suppose that the trait is ancient? could appreciation of music instead be a consequence of recent cognative evolution? afterall animals, and in particular apes, have been studied for a long time and one would have thought that such a trait would have been noticed before...

anyway... wat you bunch of pscho's think?

regards

GM23