[MD] Intellectual and Social

[Steven Peterson]

Hi John,


>>
>> Steve:
>> Whether or not economic activity involves emotion is not really the
>> issue here. The question is whether emotional activity can manifest
>> without social patterns.  I still say it can.
>>
>>
John:
> I say it can't.  But I conclude that the self is a social pattern.  Without
> some sense of self, there is no emotion possible.

Steve:
The self, as in a personality, is a social pattern, but I think "a
sense of self" as in "self-consciousness" or "sentience" is an
intellectual pattern. The self is an abstraction, an idea about the
unity of a collection of patterns.

In any case. I don't see how a sense of self would be required for
emotions. As I understand the subjectivity of animals or human
infants, there is no "I am scared" there is just the experience of
fear.

Consider Piaget's sensory-motor stage of cognitive development. Babies
are considered "ego-centric" in that they are completely incapable of
considerring other's wants, needs, or perspectives. They do not have a
developed ego or sense of self that is distinct from the environment.
Fear, distress, annoyance, and anger, like hunger, are physical
sensations. To a hungry baby the world is hunger.


Steve:
>> At any rate, what I've argued as key to distinguishing social and
>> biological patterns is that biological patterns are "hard-wired"
>> through DNA while social patterns are learned. Fear seems pretty
>> clearly to be this sort of "hard-wired" response to biological threats
>> rather than a behavior copied from one individual to the next through
>> social learning.
>>
>
John:
> Young horses don't know what to fear.  They pick this information up from
> their mothers during the infant nurture phase I've been ranting about.

Steve:
You probably know more about horses than I do, but I'll weigh in
anyway. I don't doubt that they can be taught WHAT to fear, but I
don't think they can be taught TO fear, they either have this
propensity hard-wired or not. Is there nothing that horses will fear
without being taught? Loud noises? Heights (will they walk across a
glass floor over a chasm)? Flashing lights? I suspect that there is
much that they fear that is hard-wired that they need to be trained
not to fear.

Best,
Steve