We cannot be snobs about this. If we are to chase music 'better-ness' in what we do, this has to be (for us) scientifically measurable. Here is our quick, unscientific classification of 'better' in music, based on our body zones and their related sensibilities. In ascending order: visceral (lower body), cardiac (mid-body), and cerebral (upper body). If Elvis, Michael, and REM (gut); or Bing, the Beetles, and Ella (heart); can coexist in quality terms with Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart (head); that will be interesting indeed to find out. If otherwise, that will be interesting too. Music is humanly-audible organized sound. Sound is produced by molecular motions of gases, liquids, or solids induced by work performed on them by electro-magnetic energy. The strength of this energy is determined by waves of different frequencies (higher frequencies, more energy), or equivalently (physics' wave-particle duality), elementary particles, known as photons. The photons do work to put molecules of a physical medium into motion. 'White noise' is the statistically random ground state of electromagnetism. There is no music in, or possible from, sonic white noise. Energy, the capacity to do work as all of us are taught, can neither be created nor destroyed. When work is done, energy is degraded, meaning it is dispersed into a larger number of lower-energy photons in a process called photon multiplication. Energy from the sun showers the planet in higher-energy 'yellow' photons (sunlight), and in various earthly processes (like life, or music production) where work is done these are progressively degraded to a larger number of lower-energy 'red' photons — heat, which cannot at earthly temperatures do work. In music, energy does work to induce motions of molecules at humanly audible frequencies. In doing this work the energy degrades from higher to lower states, and ultimately is dissipated as heat, which is the lowest state reachable at earth temperatures. The further away from this 'heat-death', or maximum-entropy state, music (or for that matter, life itself) is, the higher its quality. In principle, therefore, music quality can be measured; it's not just a matter of human preference or taste. These develop as secondary responses to primary quality factors already inherent in the music. Realizing this, we have adopted the quantification of music quality as one of our 'key lofty questions' (see ABOUT US.2 THE SITTING SECRET IN 'GAIA') and prime research undertakings. Under our tutelage, one of our student music/math majors, Nicholas Lindell, has produced a UGA Masters' thesis on the topic. We hope eventually this mixing of science and music will become one of the most interesting and distinctive features of our program.

The late ecologist Lynn Margulis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Lynn_ Margulis) once said, "Life did not take over the planet by [physical] combat, but by [phenomenal] networking." Networks, be they natural or musical, are of the essence everywhere in planetary organization. Science has shown ecological networks to exist over and over again in many ways. As one example, if you release a radioactive or other tracer substance as a point source into any environment on earth, it goes whoosh! — everywhere. Another 'whoosh' phenomenon has become the internet (physical) and world-wide-web (phenomenal). In just a very few years since their introduction, these technological innovations have spread over the globe to become now ineradicable features of modernity determining human lives everywhere. At the level of substance and signal transfer and transformation, the natural and human worlds both are widely interconnected by transactional energy–matter movements that have been well-patterned and etched into planetary land- and sea-scapes over deep geologic and evolutionary time to become the 'melodies' and 'harmonies' of hidden relational order and organization that all living inhabitants experience when they are alive. Life, as said before, by receiving and processing elements.