[MD] Social Ants?

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Case,

> [Steve]
> I agree that it is not a matter of sophistication or
> complexity. It is a
> categorical difference between biological and social
> behavior that we are
> interested in distinguishing.
> 
> [Case}
> I believe if you examine social behaviors from a
> functional stand point
> you will find no categorical differences among them.
> They are evolutionary
> patterns that serve to perpetuate the species.

Steve:
I am examining them. I'm not sure what you mean by a
functional standpoint, but it sounds like saying that
for people in Flatland everything looks flat. Why not
take it further and say from an atomic perspective
it's all just a bunch or particles bumping into one
another.

Furthermore, it goes without saying that social and
intellectual patterns serve to perpetuate the species.
They couldn't have evolved if that wasn't true. What
you need to try to see is that while a level evolves
because it helps serve the purposes of the level
below, the new level finds it own purposes.

Is New York City just a bunch of particles bumping
into one another? Is it just a bunch of biological
entities building shelters and looking after their
creature comforts? It is those things but it is more.


> Arlo:
> >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".
> 
> Steve:
> I think you are making a big leap in yor analogy. I
> tend to think that a more appropriate analogy may be
> cell : body as ant : colony.
> 
> [Case]
> Some biologists have proposed treating colonies of
> ants and hives of bees
> as the individuals of the species.
> 

Steve:
I can see some sense in that. Do you know what their
reasoning is?



> [Steve]
> I'd also rather look at specific ant behavior
> patterns
> to make up my mind than considering a colony as a
> possible biological pattern. If ant colony is
> analogous to society then colony is too broad a
> term.
> It would include biological and social patterns in
> that case.
> 
> What ant behavior patterns do you consider social?
> 
> [Case]
> Ants apparently communicate though chemicals
> (pheromones), bees have a
> dance that seems to convey relatively complex
> information about the
> location of nectar sources. 

Steve:
This sounds like the sort of communication that
different parts of a body do to send a message to
another part. It sounds biological, not social.

You'll probably agree here.
 
Case:
> As for the social/instinctual distinction, this
> looks to me like a genetic
> patterns that is shaped by interaction with the
> environment. Same deal as
> happens with human infants below.


Steve:
As I described the view from Flatland before, from a
biological perspective, everything is biological. All
higher level patterns will have correlates to
inorganic and biological patterns, but that doesn't
mean that there isn't something more going on.


> Steve:
> I think unconscious copying is key to understanding
> how social patterns develop in humans. I think so
> more
> and more as I watch my baby daughter hold my cell
> phone up to her ear and mimic sounds on the verge of
> speach.
> 
> I've also thought about emotional sense as a
> biological awareness that is needed to develop
> social
> patterns. I think emotions are biological patterns
> that are the gateway to social patterns as words are
> social patterns that are the gateway to intellectual
> patterns.
> 
> That of course would not be a ssignificant a
> distinction for you since you draw the line at a
> different place.
> 


> [Case]
> Studies of infants babbling indicate that all
> infants not only do it but
> sound the same early on in terms of rhythm and
> intonation. As they grow
> older their babble tends more and more to resemble
> the speech patterns of
> the adults around them. 

Steve:
This may be the birth of the social level for the
child.


Case:
>This happens well before
> they being using words.
> Intellectual patterns develop well before speech.

Steve:
Can you explain what you mean by intellectual
patterns? I use Pirsig's definition of the
manipulation of abstract symbols that stand for
patterns of experience.

If the above were true, how could you tell without
speech?


Case:
> Infants seem to be
> biologically tuned both to respond in certain ways
> and to illicit certain
> response patterns from their mothers. Barry
> Braselton calls this a kind of
> “dance”. Piaget showed a whole sequence of stages of
> intellectual
> development in humans. This is where biology meets
> psychology.

Steve:
I think Piaget's stages of cognitive development
include stages of pre-cognition.




> Steve:
> I really think what Pirsig means when he talks about
> a
> social level distinct from the biological level is
> more like culture (which later also includes
> intellectual patterns once they evolve). It is
> independent of the individual biological entities.
> If
> you hatch a bunch of ants that never had anything to
> do with other ants they would form the same sort of
> colony as any other ants in that species. This sort
> of
> biological determination doesn't sound to me like a
> categorically different level of evolution.
> 
> [Case]
> Wilson argues that if you look at human cultures
> geographically isolated
> from one another across the planet and across time,
> the similarities are
> so striking as to argue for a biological basis. He
> maintains there is more
> variation in insect social organization patterns
> than among human
> societies. He even argues that religion is
> biologically based.

Steve:
Again, from a biological perspective everything a
living thing does is biologically based. But is there
something more going on that can't be understood from
a biological perspective.



> [Steve]
> I recognize that you would draw the line
> differently,
> but can we agree that that is what Pirsig means? --a
> "culture" to what ever level of sophistication that
> gets passed on from biological entity to biological
> entity by some means other than DNA?
> 
> [Case]
> Can’t speak for Arlo but while I agree that this is
> what Pirsig means I do
> not agree that there is such a thing. I think that
> human social sciences
> are an exciting area of study but if you divorce
> them from biology I don’t
> think you are left with much.


Steve:
There  is never a way to divorce the social level from
the biological level. The social level cannot exist
without the biological level.

As for not being left with much, I don't see how
biology could give you a satisfying description of
religion, New York City, Hitler, or the price of tea
in Denmark.

Regards,
Steve


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