Dhe traditional music of India, the raga, is melodic in relation to a keynote. Occidental music is harmonic, i.e. simultaneous and complex.
In the West, a lot is thought in terms of structures, and for a while there was a lot of talk of structuralist and post-structuralist thinking. Complex systems can be found everywhere: in philosophy, in canonical texts and pictorial systems, in technology and models for explaining the world. An essential basic idea is atomistic thinking. The idea is that the world consists of elementary parts and can be broken down into these in order to be reassembled in a different, more complex or functional way. The living world is dissected in order to understand it. The functioning of these dissected, lifeless parts is understood as a complex, interdependent system in order to explain life.
On the other hand, there is a processual understanding. The world is constantly changing, never standing still, in flux - panta rhei. You can never step into the same river twice. Its counterpart is fire, it is the cause. It draws its energy from the decomposition of organic or the synthesis of inorganic compounds. In doing so, it radiates light. Matter is transformed in fire. It is created in the great fire: e=mc2.
Birth and rebirth. Death is the existential human experience par excellence, but at the same time it is not what it appears to be. Like birth, it is a transition, a transformation.
