I am reminded of a quote attributed to von Uexkull by Buytendijk (cited in the French philosopher Merleau-Ponty’s Structure of behavior): “Every organism is a melody that sings itself.” (Merleau-Ponty, himself, says something similar in his Phenomenology of Perception.) As I have mentioned, what is remarkable in the homuncular language philosophers and psychologists use to explain perceptual and cognitive experiences is the need to invent something other than ourselves to understand ourselves. We search outside and appeal to gods or inside and appeal to homunculi or brains, instead of confronting ourselves as a totality.

To understand the whole of human psychology, one cannot get lost in the inside/outside, internal/external, mind/body, innate/learning, genes/culture dichotomies of language. To choose between is to lose. What was important about the “Playing the Building” exhibit was neither me sitting at the organ’s keyboard nor the building itself. The building and I were both necessary components, of course, but what was important was respecting and acknowledging the brief life of the notes played, as well as taking note of those who heard the music and decided to play their own.