[MD] Discrete & Dependen

[Ian Glendinning]

DMB, Gav, et al,

So much in there I agree with DMB, and a key point I am going to have
to understand better, and a question.

The agreement is with you against the "George Thoroughgood theory if
human nature" (I like that). The red-in-tooth-and-claw dog-eat-dog
caricature of neo-Darwinian evolution is so wrong, as I said many
times. Also translates into this puerile misconception as Gav points
out, that arguing is about "winning", rather than evolving better
understanding of truth.

The bit I recognize there that I have trouble with is this
"discreteness" of the levels. I'm OK with the levels being additive
... biological being physical as well, social being biological and
physical as well, etc .... but I still get left with the recurring
problem of what makes intellect discrete or distinct from social.
Social over biological is clear, the emotional contagion for example,
and most of your de Wall references here focus on that as you say. Do
you think de Wall helps with the intellectual / social distinction too
?

Ian

On Sat, Aug 30, 2008 at 1:21 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ron, Krimel, Arlo and all MOQers:
>
> Pirsig wrote in LILA:
> "This classification of patterns is not very original, but the Metaphysics of Quality allows an assertion about them that is unusual. It says they are not continuous. They are discreet. They have very little to do with one another. Although each higher level is built on a lower one it is not an extension of that lower level. Quite the contrary. The higher level can often be seen to be in opposition to the lower level, dominating it, controlling it where possible for its own purposes."
>
> Pirsig wrote to Paul Turner:
> " When getting into a definition of the intellectual level much clarity can be gained by recognizing a parallel with the lower levels. Just as every biological pattern is also inorganic, but not all inorganic patterns are biological; and just as every social level is also biological, although not all biological patterns are social; so every intellectual pattern is social although not all social patterns are intellectual."
>
> dmb says:
> I've been reading Frans de Wall's "PRIMATES AND PHILOSOPHERS: How Morality Evolved" and found some ideas that support the MOQ's conception of the levels as being both discrete and dependent. He's interested in making a case against the "veneer theory" of human morality. According to that theory human morality is a thin and unnatural layer on top of the brutish, selfish, animals that we are. This, he says, is basically the doctrine of original sin dress up in Darwinian evolution. He attributes the contemporary veneer theory to T.H. Huxley, a man who is known as "Darwin's Bulldog". This bulldog took a Hobbesian view of the natural state of human life as nasty, brutish and short. This idea was given a boost by Freud's theories, where nearly all of human culture is little more than a sublimation of aggression and the sexual impulse. This view is also expressed in Ghiselin's famous slogan: "Scratch an 'altruist,' and watch a 'hypocrite' bleed" (10). I believe Ayn Rand (THE VIRTUE
>  OF SELFISHNESS) was fond of that idea. And more recently we see this in Dawkins. The last sentence of "THE SELFISH GENE" says, "We, alone on Earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators" (9). There are many others singing this same song but I like to think of it as the George Thorogood theory of human nature. We're b-b-b-bad. Bad to the bone. The problem is, de Wall says, is that "Huxley ...did not represent genuine Darwinian thought in any way" (12). The veneer theory, he says, is based on the the idea that the evolutionary process is ruthless, cold and cruel. And this dog-eat-dog process can only produce ruthless, cruel dogs. The author calls this "the Beethoven error" (57). Apparently the famous composer wrote beautiful music in a outrageously messy environment. His apartment was a rat hole but great art come out of there nevertheless. De Wall points out that morality evolved naturally, that there are "sound evolutionary reasons for the capacities invol
>  ved" in animal sociality and in human morality (53). You could say that the evolutionary process ruthlessly selected kindness. Or even more simply, he's only saying that morality has survival value. A harsh process can make a gentle product. He's not saying that competition and selfishness are unreal. He's merely saying that they are not more real or more natural than empathy or compassion. And, as the title indicates, he uses studies on primates and other animals to make a case for natural moral evolution.
>
> In terms of the MOQ, his case focuses on what we'd call the transition from the biological to the social level, from the second to the third level. There are many gaps yet to be filled in if we want to clearly see the transition for social animals to moral humans, he admits, but we can see the outlines of it by looking at the stages of emotional development. The first stage is a capacity for automatic, reflex-like responses. One startled bird, to use his example, is enough to make the entire flock take off nearly all at once. The one that hesitates becomes lunch and has no babies. Its almost as if the fear of the first startled bird radiates out in waves to effect the whole flock automatically. They all feel it's pain. He calls this "emotional contagion". He says, "advanced forms of empathy are preceded by and grow out of more elementary ones" (23). "Empathy encompasses - and could not possibly have arisen without - emotional contagion, but it goes beyond it" (26). He says, "
>  Evolution rarely throws anything out. Structures are transformed, modified, co-opted for other functions, or 'tweaked' in another direction - descent with modification, as Darwin called it" and "the old always remains present in the new" (21). "Surely, not all empathy is reducible to emotional contagion, but it never gets around it" (40).
>
> Ken Wilber talks about evolution this way too. In his terms, we'd say that empathy "transcends AND includes" emotional contagion. I think this is exactly what Pirsig was saying about the levels in the quoted letter to Paul. And as I've been trying to tell Krimel, this is a move against reductionism. There can be no brainless mystics and no road trips without fuel but surely, mysticism is not reducible to brain states and adventure is not reducible to locomotion. Mysticism and tripping "could not possibly have arisen without" brains and transportation but they go beyond them. The levels are discrete because they represent existing structures that have been "tweaked in another direction" and co-opted for other functions" and yet the newer function has to "grow out of more elementary ones" and it "never gets around" them. I think Ron can see how this basic concept reconciles the two quotes and I think Arlo can see how it supports the case he's been making in the "Consciousness a
>  la..." threads.
>
> De Wall uses Russian dolls as his central metaphor, because of the way they are nested one inside the other. Concentric spheres or circles are a more geometric version of the same idea. If the elementary structures didn't continue to operate in human morality, he says, we all be as disconnected and bewildered as Mr. Spock. I tend to think its worse than that. We can never have any kind of logic or rationality or even language and thought without those more elementary foundations.
>
> There is an especially amusing section on "monkey fairness". His experiments demonstrated that even monkeys are in favor of equal pay for equal work and became angry at such injustice, at least when they were the victims of it. They found that even rats were reluctant to get a treat if it meant a painful shock to the neighboring rat. Even rats are opposed to torture. My point? Even monkeys and rats are morally superior to the Republicans. That's funny because its true.
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