Induction is a recording of piano and electronic music intended to please the listener – based on some questions and a narrative idea. What follows is some background on that.

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In the 1990’s I was a science student. I studied enough of it in fact to earn a degree (still somewhere in my basement). I studied atomic structures and the vastness of empty space inside an atom, was wowed by the serendipitous power of the water molecule in organic chemistry. I took courses in human anatomy, taxonomy, genetics, biochemistry and even a little philosophy of science.

By the time I was done…I was sure science was not the answer for me (thanks in part to the philosophy!), I was playing music professionally and I had some questions about life that were bugging me.

One, in particular.

If we’re made up of mostly water (and some other stuff), and water is made of 3 atoms and inside them is mostly empty space – how does consciousness creep in all that “water” and nothingness? And where along our evolutionary trip from pond slime to glorious humans did consciousness pop-up?

I remember reading something about it that went something like “…once biological life reaches a level of complexity suitably high enough, consciousness simply emerges….”

This explanation was then followed by hundreds of pages of details, summarized from decades of human endeavor, about the inner workings of biological life, from the chemical level, to the cellular level on up to the level of the organism. But this essence that I wondered about, the base of our awareness, the light in the tunnel, was completely glossed over.

To me, this seemed a seriously underwhelming cop-out. Perhaps more accurately, it looked like way of saying “We have no idea what’s going on! We’re freaked out! We STILL don’t have any decent answers to fundamental questions. This undermines our position as serious people and limits our power over YOU. Life is still very mysterious…and we don’t like!” Or something like that.

I didn’t really know what to do.

So 20 years later – I started making this music as some kind of response.

(More on that later).