Hi David B., Denis, Anders etc. and all,
DAVID B.
> Walkers: There is a saying in the legal profession that goes something
> like this; Hard cases make bad laws. I think an analogous principle
> applies to our efforts to distinguish between the social and
> intellectual levels; Exceptional cases make bad general rules. I think
> we should focus on the clearest examples first, clear up some basic
> issues, and then we might be able to have fun with the really
> complicated questions.
I must state my strong disagreement with this. I say that exceptional cases
are the ones that show the laws to be bad. Once they show up, it's a sign
that the law needs changing. The BEST laws are the ones where we find no
exceptions.
You can't make good laws by ignoring cases that appear too hard! That was
the whole point of Pirsig's extended PLATYPUS discussion.
DAVID B.
> Its more difficult to see the line between [Social and Intellectual]
> than it is to see the difference between biological and social because
> the former is "material and tangible" while the latter is not some
> "thing" we can put under a microscope. We can't see a language or a
> social structure in the same way we can see a boulder or a bear. And
> finally, I think we have to accept the basic order of the four static
> levels as axiomatic, otherwise were not even talking about the same MOQ.
>
As a professional biologist, I have to disagree too with.
DENIS's phrase
> It's ingrained in their DNA.[snip]
This is what has come to be accepted by countless laymen and short sighted
"molecular biologists.
I consider this a good example of distortion produced by abusing SO way of
thinking.
It's not ALL in the DNA. There's no way to reconstruct life from DNA alone.
You need to provide the correct environment to "read" the DNA, and that
environment is passed down through the generations together with the genes.
That "environment" not only contains many "non-DNA-coded" molecules, but
massively complex interrelationships and patterns. These system(s)
co-evolved interdependently over hundreds of millions of years.
I don't know if ant behaviour colony behaviour can be reduced to specific
DNA sequences, but I *DO* know that a single ant in isolation cannot
demonstrate colony behaviour. The genes are part of it, but the environment
determines how and when those genes are expressed.
I don't know if and when the "Tarzan" child in the example I brought might
have figured out walking for himself, but it is highly unusual for a
4-year-old child not to start walking under normal circumstances. I'm sure
that the human species didn't first appear as a non-walking primate that
suddenly learned walking as a new skill. However,
I believe that the example shows that even simple biological functions like
walking are passed down partly by non-genetic mechanism like behaviour
copying.
Jonathan
MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:12 BST