[MD] Social Ants?

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Case, 

[Case]
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.



Steve:

I’ll return to your first objection further down.

As to whether the levels have metaphysical or
metaphorical significance, I think we have to think
about Paul’s point about thesis 1 and thesis 2 of the
MOQ. In this case I think the MOQ says that the levels
have metaphysical significance within a metaphysics
that considers itself a metaphor.





Case:
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.

Steve:
This may not be a major blasphemy against the MOQ.
Maybe you just draw the line at a different place than
RMP. Can you still distinguish biological patterns
from social ones? If so, how do you do it?






> [Case]
> Some biologists have proposed treating colonies of
> ants and hives of bees as the individuals of the 

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:
I thought it was interesting to read the example about
how ants find the shortest route to food. The
appearance of intelligence turns out to be something
quite different.




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

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

Steve:
Then it was poor word choice on my part. I just mean
that I think his stages of cognitive development
include stages that are not really thinking as Pirsig
defines it for the intellectual level.





[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


Steve:
I would say that Concrete Operations are necessary for
a child to participate in intellectual patterns. It
would be interesting to discuss this issue in more
detail. This group talked a lot about defining
thinking over the years. I don’t recall trying to draw
the line for what constitutes thinking in Piaget’s
terms.





[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.

Steve:
I think of the levels as discrete, but I also think
that it may be impossible to isolate specific types of
patterns in describing behavior of people.

For example, I think it is reasonable to say that
there is a qualitative difference between life and
death and that that distinction is typically thought
of as metaphysical, yet when we try to apply that
distinction to categorize the state of a human being,
doctors would point out that there are lots of ways
that we could draw that line. And the fact that
different people would prefer to draw the line in
different places doesn’t make any of those people say
that there is no real difference.

So the moral of the story is that we can think of the
MOQ levels as discrete as is Pirsig’s intention for
them, while still disagreeing about how to apply them
to categorize patterns of experience.

So we shouldn’t say that the MOQ levels are not worth
thinking about and trying to apply to types of people,
political conflicts, evolution of worldviews,
cognitive development, etc. It’s just that we can come
to different conclusions about how the MOQ applies
without that meaning that the MOQ levels don’t work or
aren’t really discrete.

I think that error comes from people like Platt
conflating the definitions of the levels as types of
patterns of value with applying the levels to types of
people. Types of people, political views, worldviews,
developmental stages, etc. are not discrete. Each
represents collections of patterns of values of
various types.

Regards,
Steve


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