The earth has continued to change, from rapid climatic changes that have caused the glaciers and the ice sheets to basically bulldoze the landscape and cause species compression in the tropics and cause mass species extinction - you know, all these huge changes. In terms of evolution, every species is doomed to eventual extinction. The natural world is constantly changing. So, to deal with "environmental problems," in quotes, totally misses the issue. That is not the way we want to define our problem if we're going to find our solution.
Gordon HemptonAcoustic ecology is the study of information systems: the shared acoustic environment and how species send and receive messages in this shared acoustic environment. What these messages mean - meaning, what are the consequences and the changes of behavior in any species. And it has as much to do with us individually and biologically as it does with the shaping of cultures and beliefs.
Gordon HemptonWhenever you're in a natural system and you're making sound, you are putting yourself at risk. As you go up the evolutionary ladder, from insects to frogs to birds and on up into mammals, the higher intelligence recognizes that when you vocalize, you put yourself at risk. So mammals generally vocalize or make noise much more rarely than, let's say, insects or frogs. And when they do, and put themselves at risk, it has to be worth the risk, and have true meaning, such as signaling during a hunting party, calling in prey, some religious or spiritual ceremony, something like that.
Gordon HemptonI'm very thankful, hearing impairment or not, that I've brought listening into my life. I will never say that I'm a good listener, however. Thinking that I was a good listener was one thing that kept me from being a good listener. It's a very dangerous thought. I just want to be better.
Gordon HemptonIf you're listening to a symphony, you're getting all the information, including the audience around you, the delay from the sides of the concert hall, the whole thing. If one of those musicians is sharply out of tune or starts to play a different piece of music than all the others in the orchestra, you immediately notice. When you analyze systems by listening, you can just listen, and you can tell whether the system is healthy or unhealthy. What I've created for you is a perfect model of how we should be listening to our stock market, rather than trying to see it graphically.
Gordon HemptonThe most sensitive frequencies are at the resonant frequencies of the auditory canal. In other words, the ear has shaped itself to naturally amplify certain bandwidth. And that corresponds to sounds in that bandwidth that were most important to our evolving ancestors to hear, in order to survive. And it doesn't match the human voice. It matches birdsong.
Gordon Hempton