Drum Machines Don't Have Souls

Loosely based on "The Argument of the Unmoved Mover" by
St. Thomas Aquinas

"The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion."

A skilled drummer, moving her hands over a drum, produces the sounds of organized rhythm. Who can doubt this or not be moved by it during a night of entertainment?

"It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion."

Certainly, we see the hands of this drummer moving in time, 1,2,3,4, while hearing the sound Dum Dum Pa Te Re, Dum Dum Du Pa Ta Te Re emanating from the skin of the drum head and making us want to move.

"Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act."

The hands of this drummer, creating the rhythm that moves us while in the audience, were put into motion by the heart and mind of the drummer, from where else? Ever since the drummer loved this pattern and then learned and practiced the pattern, she's been quite ready to play the pattern, only lacking the opportunity to play it before an audience - that's all.

"For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality."

Before then, she was just a woman desiring to play something recognizably cool on some instrument already known to most cultures around the world as a hand drum. Before then she was just the baby girl in a family who loved to perform music in front of her siblings. Before then she was conceived in love by her mother and father after a night of dancing at Ricky Ricardo's nightclub.

"But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality."

But first, it took seeing herself capable of loving, learning, and playing such an instrument. In most cases, prior to becoming a drummer, one needs:
two hands-check,
a belief in ones own sense of rhythm-semi check,
a love of music-check,
vainglory for the adoration of an audience-bold check, and
perhaps even a genetic disposition to perform music-check (she had brothers that were in a band).
Love first, to get her through all of the purchasing of instruments, lesson books, tapes, private lessons, practice and more practice and then the big leap into performing music next.

"Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it."

One day, finally, standing straight before her audience, tapping her foot in time 1, 2, 3, 4, out comes the pattern from her heart and mind, to her hand, to the drum head, Dum Dum Pa Te Re, Dum Dum Du Pa Ta Te Re.

Now, we too feel this love of music, fully evolved in a passionate delivery of rhythm over a hand drum. Hearing it moves us and the rest of the crowd and we begin to sway and tap our feet to the beat.

"Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold."

While the drummer is right on the mark with her drumming, those of us in the audience continue to feel this incredible pull to get up and dance, which we all do, but some of us can dance while the rest of us cannot; we are all moved by the beat to try anyway, maybe even someone in the audience will be so inspired now to take up drumming too.

"It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another."

She sees us dance and is filled with joy, making her want to also dance, but she cannot, as she is the one providing the very beat that we are dancing to.

"If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again."

Driven by her own music genealogy, mutated forward from the million plus year old primordial soup she originated from, she could try to seamlessly switch on her pre-programmed drum machine, set a drum loop, and leave the bandstand and join us in dance. As she comes toward us we might envision the programmer of the drum loop having sat in some home studio operating some music software created by some mathematical formula translated into bits and bytes, in some office run by some person who took 4 years of electrical engineering at some college formed by some board of directors, managing the assets of some wealthy donors…..

"But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand."

….and precisely conclude drum machines don't have souls and wouldn't move us quite like our human drummer with love in her heart.

"Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God."

- Gary Edward Geraci