[MD] -elitist ideas

[Case]

[Arlo]
This seems to be true, a brain is required for the manipulation of 
said symbols. But when did I say an amoeba experiences social or 
intellectual patterns? I said it experiences biological patterns (and 
even quite unsophisticated ones, compared to a dolphin, as I said to 
Kevin). But experience, it does (says Yoda-Arlo).

[Case]
I am less inclined to deny "experience" to an amoeba than to a rock. Even
though the amoeba responses are hardwired the wiring is modified by
experience. Ron white blood cells are problematic because they do change
permanently as a result of pathogens in the blood stream with the resultant
production of antibodies and so forth.

[Arlo]
Well, I'm not sure how "optimum" doesn't imply choice (in this 
sense). The amoeba would have to experience that Point B was "better" 
than Point A, and then "choose" Point B. It wouldn't be a symbolic 
"choice", of course, indicating that it would be visible only by 
virtue of response, not of intent or reflection (which require 
symbolic activity).

[Case]
I think the issue of choice is critical here. At thermostat can be set to
"decide" when to turn on and when to turn off but is this a "choice" in any
meaningful way? Same deal with amoebae. They have feedback loops not
decision making capability.

[Arlo]
I'm not sure its anthropomorphism, which for me suggests again an 
extra-natural "man" who experiences and values apart from a nature 
that does not experience or value. What it does, for me, is embed man 
IN nature (or refuse to separate the two). Experience and 
value  (Quality) is manifest from Quantum Theory (intellectual value) 
all the way down to the quanta themselves (inorganic value).

[Case]
To me anthropomorphism is ascribing human characteristics to nonhuman
entities. I do it all the time. It is a useful short cut when talking about
computers, amoebas and all manner of things but it is an oversimplification
or perhaps an overcomplication that serves its purpose in casual
conversation. But there is a temptation to push it too far and we see that
here in these discussions all the time.

[Arlo]
The edges are always fascinating, and typically the place where 
intellection breaks down. But you could say the same about "man", 
could you not? That we respond in purely electrochemical ways. Even 
our most complex thoughts rest on electrochemical action. I'm not 
sure what this reductionism does, except posit two levels, "man" and 
"everything else".

[Case]
It is refreshing to be reminded that we are the sum of our electro-chemical
interactions. That does not happen to me often. 

[Case]
This is where I like Whitehead's notion of occasions or events as the 
fundamental units of process.

[Arlo]
You'd have to explain to me the difference.

[Case]
I am still working on Whitehead he is tough to get a handle on and I am only
grasping at one of his straws. I suppose I am hung up on the implications of
the term "experience." It suggests to me a subject on object. It suggests
some ability to process or represent the experience in some way. An event
just occurs. Changes in state may occur as the result of an event but an
event does not imply any unquantifiable values. Experiences in my view are
subsets of events.

[Case]
Experience implies memory and learning; the integrations of the past 
with the present.

[Arlo]
Not to me it doesn't. Reflective experience does, but even that 
amoeba experiences value.

[Case]
This bleed over from reflection is what troubles me.

[Arlo]
I understand this concern, and said the same thing about the word 
"moral". But I think positing "value-experience" (Quality) as a 
natural process from quanta to Quantum Theory represents a 
significant improvement over not doing so. My opinion only, of course.

[Case]
If the use of the term value were applied to inorganic systems especially
and to primitive biological systems in a quantitative sense I would be fine
with it. If the notion of quantitative value were bleeding upwards to the
other levels, I would rejoice. But what seems to happen is that the fuzzy
meanings of the term infect the lower levels.

I could be wrong here but I sense you have some level of uneasiness over
this as well. Sure one can make the necessary translations in whatever terms
are used to extract appropriate meaning. But the whole point of removing
fuzzy values in the first place was clarity. Reintroducing them just seems
to me to be remuddying the water.

I am throwing this in here at the end partly because it is tangentially
appropriate and partly because it cracks me up.

__________________________________________________

Single Cell Preface

Amoebae leave no fossils. They haven't any bones. (No teeth, no belt
buckles, no wedding rings.) It is impossible, therefore, to determine how
long amoebae have been on Earth.

Quite possibly they have been here since the curtain opened. Amoebae may
even have dominated the stage, early in the first act. On the other hand,
they may have come into existence only three years--or three days or three
minutes--before they were discovered by Anton van Leenwenhoek in 1674. It
can't be proven either way.

One thing is certain, however: because amoebae reproduce by division,
endlessly, passing everything on yet giving up nothing, the first amoebae
that ever lived is still alive. Whether four billion years old or merely
three hundred, he she is with us today.

Where?

Well, the first amoeba may be floating on his/her back in a luxurious pool
in Hollywood, California. The first amoeba may be hiding among the cattail
roots and peepers in the muddy shallows of Siwash Lake. The first amoeba may
recently have dripped down your leg. It is pointless to speculate.

The first amoeba, like the last and the one after that, is here, there and
everywhere, for its vehicle, its medium, its essence is water.

Water--the ace of elements. Water dives from the clouds without parachute,
wings or safety net. Water runs over the steepest precipice and blinks not a
lash.

Water is buried and rises again; water walks on fire and fire gets the
blisters. Stylishly composed in any situation--solid, gas or
liquid--speaking in penetrating dialects understood by all things animal,
vegetable or mineral water travels intrepidly through four dimensions,
sustaining (Kick a lettuce in the field and it will yell "Water!"),
destroying (The Dutch boy's finger remembered the view from Ararat) and
creating (It has even been said that human beings were invented by water as
a device for transporting itself from one place to another, but that's
another story). Always in motion, ever-flowing (whether at steam rate or
glacier speed), rhythmic, dynamic, ubiquitous, changing and working its
changes, a mathematics turned wrong side out, a philosophy in reverse, the
ongoing odyssey of water is virtually irresistible. And wherever water goes,
amoebae go along for the ride.

-Tom Robbins - Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.