this is elliot. i had to get a new email server because my college one
stopped sending to people outside the network. This is the reason for my
delay in responding.
Hey dave,
David said:
>Ant communication is biochemical. It not social just because they work in
>a group. The cells of your body communicate at this level too, but its not
>social. Both CAN be detected with scientific instruments and is therefore
>NOT subjective, but social patterns are subjective.
Elliot:
First, I dont buy the whole society of atoms logical reduction. Cells are
qualitatively different from biological organisms. Cells are tied together
through propriopreception, a sixth sense i think proposed by oliver sacks
(misspelled im sure) where the body is aware of its limits. You know where
your leg is without seeing, hearing or feeling it, and there have been cases
of people who have lost this sense and had to watch their feet inorder to
walk, but were not numb. Ants are biological organisms, cells are not, they
make up biological organisms.
Second, cellular interaction can be measured by instruments and the results
predicted through the laws of chemistry. Ant interaction, although using
bio-chemicals, cannot be predicted using chemical laws, but only through
"ant laws" which humans can derive through observation (i think). There is
nothing about a certain chemical that implies "food that way" or "protect
the queen", yet put it infront of an ant and somehow that gets communicated.
Instruments can also detect human vocolizations but cannot detect their
meanings or structures as far as i know, and the same applies to ant
chemicals. there is a difference between detecting the means and the
meaning of communications. This is not to say that ant communication is
symbolic as we understand the term, but just that it is mediated to have a
homoginized reaction different than that of pure chemistry. Ant
communication, like human communication is based on the biological level but
follows different laws than pure chemical ones.
David said:
Oh, boy. This is the Gordian knot of convoluted logic, and like Alexander, I
shall not even attempt to untie it. Words were used and remembered long
before the intellect evolved and are therefore social level things.
Elliot:
Ok, but you didnt answer my question. What is the Intellectual level if it
isnt the static latching of dynamic quality into thoughts and memories based
on social mediations such as language? I cannot understand your view if you
dont give it, I'll give mine here in greater detail:
The social level is the organization of organisms through the process of
mediation. Things like "the law" and language are such mediations. "the
law" is not a goal, domination and victory in war are examples of social
goals (which ants do as well as humans). the intellect began as a tool of
the social level, which radically altered what was known as social. This is
similar to how multi cellular organization and sexual reproduction radically
altered what was known as biological, but still remained biological.
Your definition of social begins only where intellect became a tool. that
seems to me like ruling out asexual reproduction as a biological process.
Intellect is the ability to latch Quality into static patterns of memory and
concepts through mediated social patterns such as language. Thus primates
entered a new phase of the social level when intellect was introduced, but
the intellect did not become its own level untill socrates died (as far as
we know) to establish it as seperate. Please if your definition of
intellect is different than share it, cause i cant argue with it till you
explain it to me.
My problem with your concept of the social level is this: When Humans die
in war it is because they are part of a society with broader social goals.
when ants do the same it is not social. What is sublimation for humans to
society is somehow not for ants. Chemicalls are mediated to have specific
meanings for ants as words are for humans. I dont mean that ants have
symbolic communication as we understand it but the chemicals do have a
response that has been homoginized not by the laws of chemsity, but by a
primitive social order.
Please, tell me what your intellectual level is as i have told you mine.
then we can contrast them and see which is the more logically sound and
consistant. As for that quote i paraphrased, i dont expect you to eatyour
book, its very possible i saw it somewhere else pertaining to the MoQ, on
some website or something. But the test of its validity is not wheter it
can be traced to Pirsig, but if it is logically consistant, varifiable
through empiricism and eloquent. It fits my understanding just wonderfully,
but i havent heard yours...
PS, my definition of social is using the same language as you, but not as
webster. As Pirsigs Quality cannot be found in the dictionary (with static
and dynamic aspects and such), neither is his idea of social or intellectual
exactly the same as the dictionary either. But it can be explained
Pirsigian terms, the social is a pattern of organisms acting in a greater
pattern than biological functions through interaction and socially mediated
action. Does that really not sound so good, to me it is more general, yet
it is correct and doesnt need to specify who counts as a society and who
doesnt in the definition.
Also, i understand the significance of the social intellectual split. its
your understanding of what the intellect is in relation to the social than
confuses me. if YOU define the social and the intellectual as the same
thing, or atleast as developing at the same time, then whats the point? MY
understanding seperates them well. The seperation is in the values: the
inorganic values entropy and singularity (gravity), the biological values
perpetuation, the social values expansion and homoginization and the
intellect, well thats complicated, peace of mind i would call it. Ants are
a pattern of value that homoginize action, therefore they are social. In
your understanding it seems to me that the split between the social and the
intellectual is not as qualitative a split as between the inorganic and the
biological. I think it must be.
Cheers,
Elliot
A few late coming responses, sorry:
Dave said:
symbolic communication begins at the social level, as in the example of
pre-historic cave art, etc. However, the intellectual level does that same
thing.
Elliot:
I say the social is nessicary in mediating language, so language is part of
the social level, but it is arranged in more complex patterns that have
different meanings by the intellect. Are you saying symbolic communication
exsisted before the intellect? isnt symbolic communication the most basic
form of logic (A=B, B=C, thus A=C, isnt this required for symbolic
communication? Jurgen Habermas holds symbolic interaction to be crowning
achievement of the intellect), and what is the advance of the intellect if
social made symbolic communication and therefore logic?
dave:
Again you confuse collective with social. Animals are following the law of
the jungle, biological imperitives, not social goals or "the law".
Elliot:
an ant sacrificing itself for the good of the colony is a biological
imperative? I'd consider that domination of biological impulses, such as
self preservation, by a broader social imperative. like men sacrificing
themselves in wars, THATS not a biological imperative is it? And i think i
dont understand your idea of "the law". how is it a goal? i see it as a
mediation such as language. is language a goal of the social?
thats all
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