[MD] Distinguishing Levels

[Michael Hamilton]

Hi Craig,

> [Mike]
> > the "social habits"  - procreation, mothers
> > and/or fathers caring for offspring, etc...
> [Craig]
> Insofar as they are activities carried on by all mammals, these are on the biological level. Only if you include joining the PTA, teaching language, etc., would they be social.
[Mike]
Fair enough. But can we agree that family has both a biological and a
social component? And that child-rearing patterns of value are partly
biologically encoded (DNA) and partly imitated from one generation to
the next?

> [Mike]
> > Imitation of elders must play a part, too, but imitation also
> > requires that the imitator individuates patterns to be imitated.
> > Hmm...
> [Craig]
> I don't see the requirement.  If I paint someone's portrait do I have to distinguish his ears from his nose?  And his left and right nostrils?  And all those nose hairs?
[Mike]
Perhaps, and perhaps not. But without a doubt, you will have to
individuate the portraitee from his or her surroundings. Or if you're
including some of the surroundings, you have to individuate what's
going in the portrait from what isn't. I also strongly suspect that to
paint a high quality portrait, the painter will indeed have to make
countless other distinctions/individuations, many of them far more
intricate than distinguishing ear from nose. The same goes for any
imitator seeking to imitate any complex pattern of value. I think this
is because it is the nature of a pattern to be constituted of smaller
parts, which of course are patterns unto themselves.