Dan,
DAN:
>In the MOQ, the social level is NOT composed of individuals. The social
>level is the sum total of all cultural influences on the individual which no
>scientific instrument can detect.
Yes, this is what the MOQ says, but by bringing up
"scientific instruments" I think you are assuming I intend
"individuals" to be just extensions of matter, which is Pirsig's SOM myth.
Would you feel better about saying "society is composed of individuals" if
by individuals we mean to include not just their inorganic but their
biological patterns, such as sex drives, fight or flight instincts, etc,
which are also not detectable by scientific instruments?
To say that society is the sum total of cultural influences, as you do, is
true but trivial. The MOQ conclusion that "the social level is NOT composed
of individuals" doesn't sound completely reasonable, because if you take away
the individuals, society goes away with it.
You and perhaps others are hung up on the word "compose", much like Pirsig is
when he says that word-processor novels are not composed of magnetic domains.
Naturally, as with causation, you can take composition arguments only so far
until they sound ridiculous. Pirsig, for example, frames an absurd causative
argument when he traces the roots of 20th century insanity back to Aristotle's
invention of substance. I'd be doing something similar with composition if I
argued thusly:
- people are composed of mostly (90%) water
- society is composed of people
therefore
- society is composed of over 90% water
Of course I didn't argue this. I just said "society is composed of people",
which I think is reasonable (certainly more reasonable than its negation).
I don't think you'd balk at the statement that water is composed of
hydrogen and oxygen, would you? But why not, considering that the inputs are
gases and the output a liquid, a liquid that is a surprising new thing with
its own set of patterns of value? It's because "compose" doesn't necessarily
imply equivalence, or that the parts involved in the composition result in
some "inert" "mixture".
Glenn
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