John: Hello, I have a profound thought I wanted to talk about with you.
Socrates: A profound thought? What is it?
John: Well, I noticed a really interesting parallel between music and reality. I was talking to my brother once about sameness and change. Apparently, the earliest philosophers had to wrestle with this question: is all of reality sameness or change?
Socrates: Yes, and like a lot of people do, some chose one side, other people chose the other side.
John: Yeah. Some philosophers, my brother told me, chose the first option: that all reality is sameness. But this leads to absurdity because all differences between things would only be illusions. Some philosophers chose the second option: that all reality is change. But this also leads to absurdity because then nothing exists. Either way, nothing would be as it seemed.
Socrates: So what is the solution to this dilemma?
John: Both sets of people made the mistake of assuming that it was either one way or the other. But why couldn't it be both? Couldn't things change in some ways, and yet remain the same in other ways? I think that they could. We can observe this truth in the way that objects in the universe have accidents (changing features) and essences (unchangeable, necessary features).
Socrates: Certainly. So how does this relate to music?
John: Well, I've noticed that music seems to strongly resemble reality in that it is a balance of sameness and change--or at least it should be. Music with too little change is minimalist, while music with too much change is total chaos. So good music has a balance between these two extremes. That is why I consider works like "Duel of the Fates" and "Battle of the Heroes" from "Star Wars" and Beethoven's Fifth, Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 4(?) etc. to be so great, because they are so much the same throughout, but they change so much.
Socrates: Yes, indeed.
John: Sorry for doing all the talking, Socrates. I hope you don't feel left out.
Socrates: Left out? No, I'm just listening. I'm sure that I will have plenty of questions to ask next time.
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