[MD] Social Ants?

[Case]

Horse,

Cheers indeed! I am going to put my own spin in this. Your grasp of
networking is out of my league but see if this resonates with what you are
saying.

If you take the internet as an example of a network, consider its structure.
Your email starts at you computer in runs out a small cable into a bigger
and bigger cable, into a fiber pipe line. The fiber pipes carry huge amounts
of data including your e-mail which is routed into smaller pipes and smaller
pipes until it hits a small cable that runs into my house. This structure is
replicated in the road outside my house which leads into a four lane and
into town and out to the interstate and out to other towns. The roads cross
over a river that is fed by a system of tributaries. 

The same structure exists in the tree outside my window as it stretches to
the sky to catch sunlight and into the ground to soak up nutrients. The
identical form is found in the blood stream of my dog, in her lungs and her
nervous system. 

It can easily be conceived in social relationships where most of my
communication occurs between my family members and co-workers but branches
out to acquaintances and retail clerks.  When I think about my dog she is
for me the pattern of all dogs but the idea of dog branches out to include
great Danes and shiatsus. I remember my phone number but am hazy about the
number I used in college years ago. This pattern of values exists as you say
in the inorganic world, the biological world, the social world and in our
intellectual patterns.

It is self similar across scale. It is ubiquitous. In each instance the
function and structure are similar. The structure is fractal self similarity
and the function maximizes the number of possible interactions. The trunks
exists were the probability of interaction is high and the branches and
twigs represent increasing less probability but create more possibility. The
trunks are more static (predictable) and the branches more dynamic
(uncertain) and open to new possibilities.

I am no mathematician but there is an underlying math to this structure that
is breathtakingly simple. 

When you see an idea that it that universal and that simple and
transcendent... Well, let me put it as plainly and crudely as I can: I
mentioned in an earlier post, lumpers and splitters. I am a lumper and to
see all that lumping going on across scale - across dimensions just flat
gives me a woody.

Back when I first read Lila I was reading about chaos and fractals, networks
and self similarity. When Pirsig was talking static and dynamic patterns of
value I though yes, yes and that pattern looks exactly like broccoli.

Case


Hi Arlo, Case, Steve and other interested parties

I'm still considering much of what follows so any comments would be 
enormously appreciated.

I've been following the recent discussions about individuals, ants, 
bee's and other related stuff and thinking about the way in which you've 
been looking at these ideas. The idea of apparent 'societies' of cells, 
ants etc. doesn't seem to make sense in terms of the MoQ.
I was thinking to myself "How can a group of similar entities working 
together which, apparently produces something greater than the sum of 
its parts not be a society?". Then a thought popped into my head - 
they're not societies of anything - they're networks!
I'm not sure if this will help in any way but it just seemed so obvious. 
A society is a particular form of network but a network isn't 
necessarily a society. Most of the things you've been discussing here 
might be explained in this way. And the other interesting thing about 
networks is that when you think in these terms you have to include the 
connections between them - i.e. a network is a set of nodes and their 
connections. Where you gents have been referring to 
atoms/cells/bees/ants/individuals etc in past posts you could insert the 
term 'node'. The relationships between atoms and cells and bodies etc. 
are the network connections. Nodes don't generally exist in isolation.

An atom is a collection of sub-atomic particles (nodes) and their 
relationships or ways in which they're connected. So an atom is (in 
simple terms) a connected network of protons, electrons and neutrons.

I'll use shorthand from here on. For 'connected network of X' read 
'collection of nodes of type A and/or B and/or C etc. and the way in 
which they're connected' - or something like that.

A molecule is a connected network of atoms.
A cell is a connected network of molecules (actually if you consider 
Lynn Margulis's - or maybe that should be Konstantin Mereschkowsky's - 
symbiogenesis idea then a cell is a symbiotic grouping of subnetworks of 
other items).
A body/organism is a connected network of cells.
A hive/nest is a connected network of bee/wasp/ant bodies.
A society is a connected network of primates/humans !!! .....

And so on - I assume you get the general drift of my thinking.

Complexity and emergent systems also come into this view as you can 
think in terms of multiply connected (complex) networks emerging from 
lower order or simpler networks.
Instead of thinking of atoms, molecules, cells, bodies etc. think of 
inorganic/organic/social/intellectual patterns of value and how each is 
more complex and emerges from the previous level.
Each of the MoQ's levels could be considered as networked patterns of 
values varying in complexity.
That may (or may not - assuming you're still with me) go some way to 
accounting for static patterns of value but I was also thinking about 
where DQ fits in?
Consider Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela's thesis on autopoiesis:

======================

from wikipedia

"...the term autopoiesis refers to the dynamics of a non-equilibrium ( 
or non-equilibrium thermodynamic (NET) (Dyke, Charles, 1988, ch. 9)) 
system; that is, organized states (sometimes also called dissipative 
structures) that remain stable for long periods of time despite matter 
and energy continually flowing through them."

"From this very general point of view, the notion of autopoiesis is 
often associated with that of self-organization."

=======================

A stable system in a state of non-equilibrium could well be thought of 
as static patterns of value within a dynamic system - which seems, to me 
anyway, similar to the way Pirsig describes the SQ/DQ relationship.

As you can probably tell from the disjointed state of the above this is 
just a brief outline/sketch of my thoughts. I'm still thinking about 
this, tossing various ideas about and reading various related items but 
this germ of an idea might possibly be useful. Anyone fancy trying to 
expand this idea into something workable or coherent? Let me know what 
you think.
Anyway, this post's getting far too long so I'll sign off, don my 
asbestos suit and await any replies that may be generated.

Cheers folks


Horse