[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Platt Holden]

[Gene] 
> We all think we're right, that's why we argue so strenuously for our
> ideas. One should mentally append "probably" to everything I say. It's
> just inconvenient to do it physically. I pretty much assume everything I
> know is provisional, but it's easier to talk as if you believed what you
> said.

I assume you mean add "probably" to everything you say when you are 
talking about philosophical ideas. If it's raining outside do you think 
you need to add "probably" when you report, "It's raining outside? Or 
the "U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima?." Or  "My great, great 
grandfather is dead?" 

> What if I were to claim that Every level has individuals and
> collectives. A single carbon molecule, and DNA. One, and Many.
> Biologically, a cell and a raccoon. Does the cell try and destroy the
> raccoon? No. A virus might. So let's say the Virus is an Individual
> biologically, and it is attempting to destroy the collective of the
> Raccoon. Is it moral? That's the best analogy I can come up with to the
> social level. Here, a single Human, and their Culture are the individual
> and collective, no? So is it moral for one man to try and destroy his
> culture? It's like a virus attacking the man. And on the intellectual
> level, a single idea would be the individual, and a complex web of
> ideas, such as physics let's say, would be the collective. So that one
> idea could try and destroy the collective. However if the collective is
> resilient it'll only Alter it.
> 
> What I'm trying to say is that individual human beings Only have
> importance as such on the social level. Me vs. Everyone, is not
> Intellectual Quality vs. Social Quality. It's Social Quality vs. Social
> Quality. It's part of the natural cycle of a society. The Brujo story
> has nothing to do with Intellect vs. Social, it's about Dynamic vs.
> Static. Purely on the Social Level. The misfits and outcasts in any
> society are the most likely to perceive DQ and lead the society towards
> it, because they're outside it slightly. This story never even touches
> on Intellectual Quality at all.

The misfits and outcasts are individuals wouldn't you say? That's been 
my point all along. They are the catalysts for moral evolution, not the 
mob. 

> The only thing an idea can destroy, is other ideas. Sure a person had
> that idea, but most ideas don't pick up force until that person has
> given it away to his followers. A single idea can only destroy a larger
> idea, if it carries social backing behind it. Intellectual patterns of
> value, shared by a social collective, are the most likely way to change
> anything. A single man, fighting the system, Can accomplish things, but
> never on his own. Not anymore, I'd say.
> 
> Do you see what I'm saying?

All you are saying IMO is that no one person every painted a picture or 
designed a war memorial or came up with an original theory or saved a 
Zuni tribe from extinction.  Everything is done by committee. I don't 
buy it for a minute.

Platt