[MD] The SOM/MOQ discrepancy.

[MarshaV]

At 01:01 PM 12/16/2008, you wrote:
>[Bo]
>Then to Arlo's question about " ... an example of something that 
>responded to DQ before "man" appeared on the stage..." (cut)
>
>As said a man-borne biological pattern "reacted to DQ" and became 
>its stepping stone to the social level.
>
>[Arlo]
>So before "man-borne biological patterns", give me an example of 
>something that responded to DQ? To use your words, give me an 
>example of a "non-man-borne biological pattern" that was able to 
>respond to DQ prior to man's appearance. Since you skirt the issue, 
>let me remind me I suggested a return to the Mesozoic, a span of 
>time accounting for about 200 million years of history. (1) Did 
>something respond to DQ during that timeframe? (2) Speculate as to 
>what? Plants, cells, animals, dinos? What?
>
>I am NOT asking about what biological patterns became the "stepping 
>stone" to the social pattern. I am saying that before man existed, 
>before primates existed, WHAT responded to DQ?
>
>I'll give you my answer. Everything. Plants responded biologically, 
>as did dinosaurs, and sabertooths, and mammothes, and bugs. All 
>these things responded to DQ biologically (and according to their 
>bio-complexity) as they CONTINUE to do today. If you propose that 
>they "lost" their ability to respond to DQ (as Platt does), then I 
>ask firmly for an example of what an animal could do BACK THEN (in 
>response to DQ) that it CAN NO LONGER DO today. What were DQ-enabled 
>animals in the Mesozoic able to do that present day UNDQ-ed animals 
>are no longer able to do?
>
>Certainly you see the absurdity in saying that things "lost" the 
>ability to DQ when "man" appeared. (Another follow-up would be 
>"when?" Did animals in North America suddenly "lose" the ability to 
>respond to DQ when the first primate appeared in Africa? Or did 
>animals only lose this ability when they encountered man (when man 
>spread across the Siberian passage and into North America?)
>
>[Bo]
>There was nothing biological dynamic enough to provide a "stepping 
>stone" to the social level.
>
>[Arlo]
>Ah now here's a crux. Dynamic "enough"! Maybe there is a scintilla 
>of agreement between us. But again, seen this way all these other 
>things (that were not Dynamic enough) still responded to DQ, and 
>would continue to do so til this day, albeit with a repertoire of 
>responses less complex (or "not complex enough") to provide a 
>foundation for an emergent level to grow from them.
>
>So again, I say that it is not that "some things respond to DQ and 
>some things do not", but that everything responds to DQ but those 
>responses are mediated (enabled and constrained) by the level that 
>pattern resides, and its complexity within that level. An atom most 
>certainly responds to DQ, but it does so with perhaps the most 
>limited, mundane, unimpressive, repertoire of responses imaginable. 
>An amoeba has a wider repertoire of responses, which include 
>responses made possible only to patterns residing on the biological 
>level. A wooly mammoth (or my dog) has a greater range of responses 
>than that amoeba (due to its greater biological complexity), but its 
>response repertoire is still one that is biologically mediated. 
>Humans (biological patterns of great complexity) when they started 
>the social processes that enabled a social level to appear were 
>bestowed with an exponentially greater repertoire of responding to 
>DQ (namely, socially). Etc.
>
>The critical thing I am arguing is that man is not "unique" in his 
>ability to respond to DQ, but is "unique" in the repertoire of 
>possible responses her/his intellectual-social-biological-inorganic 
>composition affords (nod to Mel for clarifying his use of "unique", 
>which I adopt here (I hope)).



Greetings Arlo,

Man is unique in the respect that he is one hell of a storyteller.


Marsha




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Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.........
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