[MD] Zen

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Krimel]
I am about half way through Tomasello's book as we speak. I suspect 
your comments will be lost on Platt who doesn't buy into the whole 
"Oops" thing.

[Arlo]
Not "lost", deliberately distorted into something like "neoliberal 
socialist agenda" or some such talk-radio nonsense.

[Krimel]
Platt wants to say that what is significant is X. I would say that 
what is significant is the magnitude of 'n'.

[Arlo]
As I think I must've said umpteen times, its never a matter of 
"individuals as opposed to collective activity", but "individuals 
engaged in collective activity". Certainly were it not for 
"individual red blood cells" there would be no human body, but a 
million individual red blood cells sliming around the ground does not 
a human make. It is from this engagement (individuals in collective 
activity) that we see the evolutionary steps that led from the first 
"AHA!" point of shared attention to the creation and authoring of the MOQ.

As always, Platt's trying to wage a dichotomous war where the only 
options are to wag your dick about the Lone Individual or be a 
sniveling, commie bastard. But then, comrade Krimel, we've been down 
that road umpteen times as well.

Yes, I think Tomasello's use of latching provides another nice 
parallel with Pirsig in pointing not just to the B/S 
point-of-evolution, but in pointing to the Dynamic-Static process 
that is the ongoing process of evolution.  BTW, Pirsigians who follow 
Pirsig's idea that the social and intellectual levels are reserved 
for humans will also find parallel in Tomasello who ascribes symbolic 
use solely to humans (on this basis of said neurobiological adpation).