Wim, 3WDave, Bo, all
WIM
We agree that new levels starts in the service of the next lower level. Even
the biological level Bo! You should keep in mind that a new level doesn't
necessary serve ALL lower level patterns of value. Because of being served
by a higher level pattern of values some lower level patterns of values get
an advantage in their competition with other patterns of values of the same
level.
Carbon outcompeted other chemical elements by developing life and changed
the face of the earth!
MARCO
Agreement 100%
WIM
Humanity outcompeted anthropoid apes by developing culture. The chances of
anthropoid apes of developing culture on their own have been sharply
diminished by being outcompeted by us. And if they would develop culture
with human help, it would essentially be human culture and not ape culture.
(According to Pirsig in a note on p. 32 of 'Lila's Child' culture = social
patterns of values plus connected intellectual patterns of values. I would
not call it just 'knowledge we can exchange and store without genetic
replication', Marco, but 'know-how that perpetuates itself, forms a pattern,
by being exchanged and stored without genetic replication'.
MARCO:
Here I don't agree. Anthropologists offer at least 100 definitions of culture. The broadest and simplest definition is that culture is what we learn from the others. It is opposite to biological knowledge (all that we already know as it is embodied in our DNA) and what we learn by ourselves – that becomes culture when someone else learns it from us. We can learn through teaching, or simply through imitation. If our culture is much more developed than any other animal’s it’s because we have a better way to communicate.
I think this broadest definition fits perfectly with the MOQ. Indeed human culture is connected with intellectual patterns of value: intPoVs arise from rituals as first form of knowledge (according to Lila). That means that rituals outcompeted the other social patterns. But that doesn’t mean that other social animals can’t have their culture, still not developed up to the “ritual stage”, and therefore not connected with intellect.
There’s a famous example about a group of apes in Japan, who use to wash food before eating. This behaviour has been developed in the 50’s and since than it has become usual only within that group.
You probably will find interesting this article:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/healthscience/science/2001-06-05-animal-usat.htm
WIM
I don't think, 3WDave, 'that man and only man can be or will be ever capable
of accessing the higher social or intellectural levels'. I do think that
another species can only successfully develop culture in isolation from
humanity. Otherwise it will be thwarted by humanity once it becomes a threat
to homo sapiens in biological competition. So we only really have to fear
the aliens...
MARCO
Here I agree, if you drop the term culture. Animals can’t develop intellect from their culture as this process needs millions of years, and we are much more quick. This is another point that explains what does it mean to be “more dynamic”: the higher the level, the quicker the ability to experience reality and evolve. Once the new level has become stable, it becomes “all there is”... in the sense that the outcompeted patterns are left behind.
Ciao,
Marco
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