Five questions about music, which are really different versions of the same question

There are a few internet forums where people can ask questions about the basic nature of music and the science thereof.

For example, https://www.reddit.com/r/musiccognition/, or https://www.quora.com/.

Within these forums, every now and then, someone will be motivated to ask one of the following basic questions, or some minor variation thereof:

1. What is music?

2. What is the definition of "music"?

3. Why do people like listening to music?

4. Does music have a biological function?

5. If so, what is it?

All of these questions relate to our fundamental ignorance about the basic nature of music. Music is simultaneously very familiar, and yet very mysterious.

The easiest way to see the relationship between these different questions is to substitute "music" with something else for which we do have answers to those questions. For example, "food".

We get:

1. What is food?

2. What is the definition of "food"?

3. Why do people like eating food?

4. Does eating food have a biological function?

5. If so, what is it?

The difference between food and music is that we do know the basic answers to all these questions for food, and those answers are all the same answer, more-or-less.

That is:

1. Food is any substance that provides the chemicals that our bodies need in order to survive, grow, repair themselves and to perform actions in the world.

2. The definition of "food" is any substance that provides the chemicals that our bodies need in order to survive, grow, repair themselves and to perform actions in the world.

3. People have evolved to like eating food, because if they didn't like eating food, then they wouldn't eat, and they wouldn't get the chemicals that their bodies need in order to survive, grow, repair themselves and to perform actions in the world.

4. Yes, eating food does have a biological function ...

5. The biological function of eating food is to get the chemicals that our bodies need in order to survive, grow, repair themselves and to perform actions in the world.

In the case of food, the basic mystery has been solved.

In the case of music, the basic mystery remains very mysterious, and what seem like different questions are just different ways of asking the same question.

And the correct answer to all those questions about music, given the current state of our scientific understanding of music, is the following:

• We don’t know. Scientists don’t know. Musicians don’t know. Famous musicians don’t know. No one knows.