[MD] Social Ants?

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

[Steve]
So though Pirsig generally suggests that it is best to think of social patterns
in terms of people, he does also say that it is possible that animals could
have social patterns too.

[Arlo]
I think it's more than possible, it's true. Obviously, as I said to Platt, I
find each "level" of the MOQ inhabited by gradations of complexity.

On the biological level, at one end are simple amoebas and at the other are
human bodies. Both are "biological patterns of value", but obviously they are
not "equal". Generally, the more complex biological patterns at one end are
made up of collectives of less complex biological patterns, in gradation down
to the most simple biological patterns.

On the social level, too, I believe are such gradations of complexity. Obviously
again, I would place social patterns that emerge from ant biological activity
to be quite crude and likely the barest example of social patterns at all.
Primates, as I had said, display more sophisticated social patterns (or,
rather, "social patterns emerging from primate biological activity are much
more sophisticated than social patterns emerging from ant biological
activity").

Social patterns emerging from collective human biological activity are of course
the most complex and sophisticated (that I know of). No one, least of all me,
is claiming that ant social behavior is in any way similar in sophistication to
human social behavior. But its also foolish to say that because their behavior
is not exactly as sophisticated as ours, then they are not social.

[Steve]
In the quotes that Platt provided, for the most part, what RMP wants to explain
is  that "goup" does not equal "society." A pile of rocks is not a society of
rocks. I don't think we should use such quotes to say that the MOQ says that
social behavior among non-humans is impossible.

[Arlo]
Nor would I say a group of rocks is a society of rocks. Indeed, I'd say that
inorganic patterns of rocks were too "unsophisticated" for biological patterns
to emerge. No biological patterns, no social patterns, as according to the MOQ,
social patterns emerge out of the biological level.

[Steve]
Instincts are biological while learned behavior is social. I guess we even need
to be more specific about types of learning. The sort of conditioning with
treats that we do to train a dog is making use of biological patterns. If a dog
copied another dog's behavior out of its sense of that behavior having Quality,
that would certainly be social learning. I don't know enough about dogs to say
whether that ever happens.

[Arlo]
"Insticts" versus "learned behavior" is an interesting distinction. However, I'd
say that reduces social patterns to the level of the biological individual. I'd
say that whenever biological individuals work together to achieve something
greater than what each could achieve alone, you are witnessing social pattern
of value. That "ant colony" is a "higher form of evolution" than "individual,
biological ants" in the same way that "a city" is a higher form of evolution
than "individual, biological humans".

"He also used to wonder if there was a higher farmer that did the same thing to
people, a different kind of organism that they saw every day and thought of as
beneficial, providing food and shelter and protection from enemies, but an
organism that secretly was raising these people for its own sustenance, feeding
upon them and using their accumulated energy for its own independent purposes.
Later he saw there was: this Giant. People look upon the social patterns of the
Giant in the same way cows and horses look upon a farmer; different from
themselves, incomprehensible, but benevolent and appealing. Yet the social
pattern of the city devours their lives for its own purposes just as surely as
farmers devour the flesh of farm animals. A higher organism is feeding upon a
lower one and accomplishing more by doing so than the lower organism can
accomplish alone."

However, I would place "instinctual social behavior" on the very primative and
crude end of the social level. And "learned behavior" on the more sophisticated
end.

[Steve]
Personally I don't think that ants display learned behavior or copy the behavior
of other ants. The roles that different ants play seem biological rather than
social to my understanding of the levels. There are no ant celebrities, for
example. The queen has a special role but the other ants don't subconsciously
try to be like her.

[Arlo]
Again, I'd only comment that the social patterns emerging from ants certainly
don't display the level of sophistication we find among humans. But this is
like comparing a "cell" to a "human body" and saying that because the cell
doesn't have a "nervous system" it must'nt be biological.

[Steve]
I also heard of gorillas being taught sign language who then taught it to other
gorillas. Again, that sure sounds like social behavior to me.

[Arlo]
And it is.

[Steve]
Arlo, as I'm sure you noticed in the recent discussions between Platt and I,
Platt sees the levels as types of people rather than types of patterns of
value. If you want to discuss defining what a social pattern is you won't get
far with Platt. He doesn't want to talk about types of patterns of value unless
you are talking in terms of the values of the individual, i.e. politics. I
don't think he has an interest in seeing how the MOQ levels couuld be applied
to zoology or in any arena other than politics.

[Arlo]
Yeah. It's only ever about one thing, warping the MOQ into an apologist
philosophy for Neoconservatism (which has its roots in fundamental biblicalism
- hence the Divinity of Man over the lowly biological beasts) and the modern
status quo.

Arlo