[MD] Social Ants?

[Case]

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.

[Case]
In trying to understand anything, there are a variety of perspectives one
could take, levels if you will. What I object to is:

First Pirsig’s statement that the levels are discrete from one another;
that they are rungs on a ladder rather than points on a continuum.

Secondly, that they are of metaphysical rather than metaphorical
significance.

The fact that they are useful is obvious from the fact that nearly every
college in the world divides its curriculum accordingly. But that affords
them utilitarian not cosmic significance.

There are lots of ways to examine any situation at a variety of levels of
detail. There are interdisciplinary studies that try to reduce the
artificial barriers between fields of study. Or take the field of ethology
which attempts to broaden the focus of observations rather than zero in on
details.

Possibly the most basic cognitive processes are: Generalization and
Discrimination. We are lumpers and splitters. I personally tend to be a
lumper.

I think the analysis of any situation require isolating the relevant
factors: discrimination, and seeing how similar processes interact in
similar circumstance: generalization. At some point in our analysis we may
generalize enough common facts to determine that they can be lumped
together and discriminated from some other set of factors. We can then
begin to talk about, for example orange instead of red.

Finally, while I grant the utility of the levels Pirsig proposes, I object
to excluding the vast array of social patterns in nature from the social
level.


> [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?

[Case]
I am not sure how prevalent this view is but here is one take on it:
http://ai-depot.com/CollectiveIntelligence/Ant-Colony.html


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]
Right, I don’t think ants have a lot going on upstairs.


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.

[Case]
I missed your account of Flatland but it is a good example. The sphere
introduces the square to a whole new dimension. This would appear to be a
discrete level of existence. However, Mandelbrot showed that there are
fractional dimensions and the discreetness is illusory.


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]
Developmental psychologists look at the behavior of prelingistic children.
They track their eye movements. What do they look at or avoid looking at?
What does the child reaches for? What does she shy away from? They check
the emotional content of the child’s utterances. Are they crying or
laughing.

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

[Case]
Piaget studied the development of thinking in humans. Here is as site with
an overview of his stages.

http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/development/piaget.shtml

I believe pre-cognition refers to ESP or some such.


Steve:
Again, from a biological perspective everything a
living thing does is biologically based.

[Case]
I have seen and been involved in lengthy discussions with folk here who
think otherwise glad to hear you are not among them.

[Steve]
But is there something more going on that can't be understood from
a biological perspective.

[Case]
But take a couple of examples we have referred to here already. It is very
useful to think in terms of 1, 2, 3 maybe more dimensions but they are not
discrete and possibly they are not all inclusive. Or look at Piaget’s
stages. He would not claim they are quantum states that we shift through
as we grow up. Nor would even he claim that child development can not be
seen or analyzed in different terms. Setting up metaphorical structures is
fine but what I am hearing some folks claim is that Pirsig is making a
metaphysical claim for his level.