From: Elizaphanian (Elizaphanian@members.v21.co.uk)
Date: Tue Nov 19 2002 - 22:09:19 GMT
Hi Wim,
You wrote:
> Anyone who has a better suggestion for a 'sharp distinction' between
> inorganic and biological patterns of values on the one hand and social and
> intellectual patterns of values on the other hand? (Or anyone who still
> wants to defend Pirsig on this point?)
Some not-yet fully formed lines of thought:
For humans, language is the key to the 'innovation' of the social level.
So perhaps something equivalent to that across the biological spectrum,
pheromones in ants, bird song, monkey calls etc.
The different levels always have their roots in the earlier levels.
So perhaps the root of the social level is precisely this 'proto-social'
level of communication.
Of course, language in itself is not the specifically social thing.
That comes when there is a 'unit' of more than one individual creature, and
that 'unit' generates its own internal (self-organisation?).
Perhaps a sharp distinction might be that the social level exists when the
DNA of any individual creature is no longer the guiding force of choice for
that individual, ie that the individual can 'sacrifice' to the social good
(and where that social good can't be 'cashed out' in long-distance DNA
preservation, eg kin preferences etc). That would - I think - restrict the
social level to the human (so far as we know).
I'm going to go off and read Marco's earlier posts. As I say, these aren't
fully formed, just suggestions.
Sam
www.elizaphanian.v-2-1.net/home.html
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