From: Elizaphanian (Elizaphanian@members.v21.co.uk)
Date: Wed Nov 20 2002 - 10:44:48 GMT
Hi Pantophobic,
As I understand it, the 'sacrifice' of a bee can be fully explained through
the genetic benefit to its own DNA (I'm sure one of our 'resident'
biologists will correct that if I'm wrong, or if I'm phrasing that in a
clumsy fashion). My point is that there comes a point where the sacrifice of
an individual creature cannot be explained by reference to DNA (that is, by
reference to natural selection, ie selective reproduction of DNA strands).
To explain that sacrifice (unless its just random of course) requires
reference to something 'higher' - which I would say was the social level, eg
a peasant dying for their King. It requires an analysis in terms of
motivation, so 'reasons' rather than 'causes'. The bee example is different
because (I believe) there is some genetic 'pay-off' for a worker bee in
defending the hive. This interpretation matches quite nicely with Pirsig's
perspective, which is a good or bad or irrelevant thing depending on your
prior perspective.
I don't want to artificially restrict the social level to the humans; I'm
quite open to the idea that other creatures are capable of developing a
'society' understood in this sense. I just don't know of any.
Sam
www.elizaphanian.v-2-1.net/home.html
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