Welp, I'm jealous. If I had a son, that kind of stuff is one of the many conversations I'd enjoy the hell out of having with him.
What you're relaying about what he says about consonance and dissonance in absolute terms is exactly what I was referencing earlier. If you have an F-major chord with a C in it, you won't even blink, it sounds so nice. If you have a C-major chord with an F in it, you might find yourself thinking "That's nice, but there's some tension that needs to be resolved." Well, okay, I realize that a C-major chord would not technically have an F in it, so I should just say a C chord of some sort, but you get the idea.
Same two notes. Different contexts make your brain think different things about how they sound together. Weird, huh?
Then consider how some power-hungry bass player can change everything you think about what you're hearing without the permission of a single other band member. The guitarist, pianist, cow-bellist, everybody....can play a C-major chord with C, E, and G, and think they're safe. But no, a rogue bass player could decide to hit an A, and suddenly all anyone can hear is an Am7 chord, despite the best efforts of the rest of the band.
Bass players are bastards like that.