From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Sun Oct 13 2002 - 14:11:18 BST
Dear ? (naming her/himself Squonk),
You asked 11/10 20:23 -0400 for views on social patterns of value. (How come
you seem to be sending your e-mails from an American time-zone when you're
English?)
This is part of what I wrote before in this list about that subject:
4/2/02 0:31 +0200 (addressed to David B.):
'Regarding the question HOW TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN LEVELS, I'd suggest to
LOOK FOR DIFFERENT TYPES OF STATIC LATCHES AND 'MORE DYNAMIC' ONES THE
'HIGHER' THE LEVEL. For the social level and those that border on it I hold
that the static latch latches are:
- of the biological level: DNA (preserving/reproducing species via copying
processes in which RNA, proteins and procreating individuals appear)
- OF THE SOCIAL LEVEL: HABIT (PRESERVING/REPRODUCING CULTURES VIA COPYING
PROCESSES IN WHICH UNCONSCIOUS BEHAVIOR AND RAISING NEXT GENERATIONS APPEAR)
- of the intellectual level: motives (preserving/reproducing ideologies via
copying processes in which stories, paradigms and education appear)'
5/2/02 0:10 +0200 (addressed to David B.):
'I'd say that a pattern is preserved/reproduced by a process ('things' doing
'things'). You can distinguish different TYPEs OF PROCESSes, different WAYs
OF PRESERVING/REPRODUCING A PATTERN OF VALUES (e.g. copying
DNA/proteins/organisms, COPYING BEHAVIOR/HABITS/CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS and
copying motives/ideas/knowledge.'
9/2 20:56 +0200 (to Roger):
'Preserving or reproducing a society, holding together its constituent
entities, is a social pattern of values.
...
A social pattern of values is reproduced by people copying behavior of other
people over generations; its
static latch is reproduced behavior or "culture", "accumulated ways to do
things". Without win/lose interactions with external entities (even if only
with the predators an isolated hunter/gatherer society meets in its natural
environment) there is no need for internal win/win interactions, no drive to
meticulously copy "ways of doing things" that have proven conducive to
survival.
...
a society (family, country, group of people subscribed to a mailing list,
etc.) is not in itself a social pattern of values. It is the way in which
its constituent entities are held together that constitutes the social
pattern of
values that is associated with that society.'
10/2/02 12:28 +0200 (to Jonathan):
'The 3rd level was in my opinion a new level when it started to grow from
the 2nd level, because it had found a new type of static latch.
The type of static latch of the 2nd (biological) level is DNA replication.
Biological patterns of values have at their core the replication of (nearly)
identical DNA strings which lead to comparable -instinctive or
circumstance-and-genetic-ability-dictated- behavior.
Social patterns of value have at their core replication of cultural habits,
"ways in which one ought to do things" that are emulated because of the
status attached to them in a social hierarchy.
...
In my opinion the social level does NOT require language yet. The first
humans that created social patterns of values did not have or need
substantially more language skills than anthropoid apes. They only needed a
little bit more "sense of individuality" to create the 3rd level.'
3/3/02 1:00 +0200 (to Marco):
'At the lowest level of DQ that is secured by a static Q-level, that level
has barely come into existence. Its patterns of values can only hope to be
stable, to be a firm latch, by being of service to the lower level.
...
For the 3rd level, I agree with David B. (17/2 16:31 -0700) that Marco &
Rog's "Together is better than Alone" & "It is better together" lead into
trouble by suggesting a contest between individual and group. As an
alternative I'd suggest "Proven practices are better than unproven ones" or
"It is better to do that which worked before". This encompasses both
individual habits and group practices that are copied by those who feel they
"belong". This principle creates both stable patterns of individual behavior
and stable, recognizable groups.'
26/8 20:22 +0200 (to 3WDave):
'Q-social has nothing to do with the distinction between
"individual"/"social", but -according to me- with the ability of societies
to reproduce and perpetuate "culture" without "hardwired biological
instinct". I agree that some other species than homo sapiens may also have
created a rudimentary social level. This not only requires "sufficient
intelligence and memory to recall and act based on some values other than
hardwired biological instinct", however. It also requires the ability to
preserve these patterns of behavior over a lifetime (i.e. strong habits) and
to reliably pass these patterns of values on to the next generation (i.e.
the inclination to copy behavioral patterns of older/higher status group
members and to "train" younger/lower status group members to follow one's
own behavioral patterns). This means that we need not push back the jump
from biological to social as far back in time as you suggest. I'd put it at
some 2 million years ago (the first hominids).'
I can also recommend
http://members.iglou.com/hettingr/pirsig/DefiningSocial.html
I don't appreciate that you try to exclude John B. and Matt K. from this
discussion.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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