[MD] Distinguishing Levels

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

[Platt]
Exactly. So much for your claim that a picture of a city shows a social
relationship.

[Arlo]
Wha..? When did I claim this? You're playing with me, aren't you? It was your
claim that a picture of ants was proof that ants don't belong on the social
level. All I did was toss out the counter claim that if this is so, then isn't
a picture of humans proof that people don't belong on the social level too? A
camera can't capture ant-social behavior any more than it can capture
human-social behavior.

[Platt]
IMO it strengthens the MOQ by emphasizing the exceptional qualities of  human
societies compared to any others we might wish to make anthropomorphic.

[Arlo]
Yes, there are "exceptional qualities" of human societies compared to others. As
I've said all along, the strength is in the complexity of analogues. It is,
though, a difference of degree, not of kind.

Using "human societies" and "ant societies" demonstrates the two far ends of the
social-level spectrum. One can place "bee societies" higher than ants (I'd
argue), and primates even higher, and dolphins likely even higher still. But
that human societies are the most complex social patterns I have no doubt. That
ONLY humans experience social patterns of value I have nothing but doubt.

[Platt]
Is "symbolic mediation" the same as thinking?

[Arlo]
Yes. No. I don't know. Maybe? 

[Platt]
I take it you also disagree with Pirsig's description of how life emerged from
the inorganic level beginning with the carbon atom? His version says nothing
about collective inorganic behavior reaching a point of complexity where life
emerged.

[Arlo]
You must have read a different Lila than I did. Note the concluding sentance in
the passage below.

"What makes all this significant to the Metaphysics of Quality is its striking
parallelism to the interrelationship of different levels of static patterns of
quality.

Certainly the novel cannot exist in the computer without a parallel pattern of
voltages to support it. But that does not mean that the novel is an expression
or property of those voltages. It doesn't have to exist in any electronic
circuits at all. It can also reside in magnetic domains on a disk or a drum or
a tape, but again it is not composed of magnetic domains nor is it possessed by
them. It can reside in a notebook but it is not composed of or possessed by the
ink and paper. It can reside in the brain of a programmer, but even here it is
neither composed of this brain nor possessed by it. The same program can be
made to run on an infinite variety of computers. A program can change itself
into a different program while it is running. It can turn on another computer,
transfer itself into this second computer and shut off the first computer that
it came from, destroying every last trace of its origins-a process with
similarities to biological reproduction.

Trying to explain social moral patterns in terms of inorganic chemistry patterns
is like trying to explain the plot of a word-processor novel in terms of the
computer's electronics. You can't do it. You can see how the circuits make the
novel possible, but they do not provide a plot for the novel. The novel is its
own set of patterns. Similarly the biological patterns of life and the
molecular patterns of organic chemistry have a "machine language" interface
called DNA but that does not mean that the carbon or hydrogen or oxygen atoms
possess or guide life. A primary occupation of every level of evolution seems
to be offering freedom to lower levels of evolution. But as the higher level
gets more sophisticated it goes off on purposes of its own."

Increasing complexity on a level eventually hits a point where "it goes off on
purposes of its own". As for your other point (on collective inorganic
behavior), here Pirsig says...

"The chemistry of life is the chemistry of carbon. What distinguishes all the
species of plants and animals [BIOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALS] is, in the final
analysis, differences in the way carbon atoms [INORGANIC INDIVIDUALS] choose to
bond [COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR]."

But this, again, demonstrates extremes, and passes over the gradations inside.
Animal bodies are collectives of cells, which are collectives of their own
(proteins, DNA, etc.), each of which is another collective... all the way down
the initial collective of atoms. Somewhere between the carbon atom and the
plant, the level of complexity (of collective behavior) got sophisticated
enough that a new level emerged, the biological. Same with biological-social.
Same with social-intellectual.

Arlo