[MD] Social Ants?

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

[Steve]
The discussion group over the years has revolved around an assumption of social
level=bad and intellectual level=good and trying to associate one’s own views
with intellect and one’s opponent's views with society. In reality these are
two types of good and quality on each of these levels must be defended.

[Arlo]
I'd certainly never say that "social levels are bad". Indeed, its only Platt's
perversion of everything to the Party that attempts to paint this as a
Evil-Collective v. Noble-Individual issue. I've long maintained that this is
not only a false dichotomy, but simply a distortion for political ends. 

[Steve]
My position on what type of behaviors would constitute social rather than
biological patterns is as you say to try to distinguish instinctual behaviors
from socially learned ones.

I don’t think that your “whole is greater than the some of it’s parts” idea
defines social achievement. That happens across all scales as a molecule is not
just a bunch of atoms and an organism is not just a bunch of cells.

[Arlo]
Well, my point was that the levels are defined by continuing stages of "whole
greater than the sum of its parts" (cells over its parts, human body over
cells, etc.), but that at some point in this gradation of complexity, a shift
occurs when the sum is no longer just "greater" but something entirely "new".

That is, there is intra-level biological patterns that increase in complexity as
collective behavior forms something greater, but as this complexity increases
(from proteins to human bodies) eventually a level of complexity is reached
where a new level "emerges".

In retrospect, I should not have said ant colony behavior is social because the
colony achieves what no individual could accomplish alone. This phenonmenon is
a basic principle of emergence that functions at all levels. And so, I take
this one back.

As I think about it more, I am finding myself in more agreement with the
"instinct - learned" split, especially as it emphasizing genetic programming
versus the knowledge held and transmitted by the collective "abiologically". I
need to think about this some more, but I think the idea has merit.

[Steve]
This social learning is distinct from biological patterns because it is not
passed on through genes but instead forms a culture that is passed on through
other means.

[Arlo]
Yes, this make sense.

[Steve]
I think we should be looking for something like celebrity and an ability to
respond to celebrity among animals to think that they have social patterns.

[Arlo]
Well, my view has always been that the levels of the MOQ contain a range, or
gradation, of complexity. So long as we are looking for, and accepting as
social, perhaps "primative" or simplistic exemplars of celebrity, I could agree
here too.

[Steve]
As for social patterns being contingent on some biological trait, I’ve
speculated that a capacity for emotions may be this trait. An emotional
reaction may be the biological correlate to a response to social quality.

[Arlo]
Tomasello's main argument is that it was a biological trait, a specific
neuro-biological configuration, that enambled social patterns to emerge from
human collective activity. Namely, "shared attention". This, for Tomasello,
explains why collective activity by other biological individuals never gave
rise to a symbolically based collective consciousness. I don't agree with many
of Tomasello's conclusions, but his argument is interesting.

More soon,

Arlo