[MD] Discrete & Dependen

[Arlo Bensinger]

[DMB]
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.

[Arlo]
Not that familiar with Wilbur, but "transcends and includes" captures 
pretty well the way I see the evolutionary hierarchy of the MOQ. That 
is, there must be a "catalyst" on the lower level upon which the 
higher level emerges. Between the inorganic and biological levels 
Pirsig points to the unique properties of the carbon atom, and from 
these properties spring the potentiality for transcendence (in 
retrospect, at the time, as Pirsig notes, nothing in those properties 
in-and-of-themselves suggests the power to unleash a biological world).

Tomasello gives us consideration for the catalyst between the 
biological and social levels, and this same idea is also the main 
thesis of Hofstadter, namely the evolutionary appearance of 
neurobiological complexity in primates (and, I'd argue, certain other 
species). Like the carbon atom, nothing in this complexity 
in-and-of-itself suggests a power to unleash a social world, but it 
is from this that the potentiality for shared (social) activity 
derives. To make it short, while the catalyst between inorganic and 
biological levels is the unique properties of the carbon atom, the 
catalyst between the biological and social levels is the unique 
properties of advanced "brains".

I'd argue that the "catalyst" between the social and intellectual 
levels is (was?) the evolutionary complexity of man's social symbolic 
system that led to the potentiality for recursion and self-reflexive 
consideration (Hofstatdter, here, is a great resource). Thus there is 
nothing in man's social-symbols themselves that reveals the 
intellectuality it undergirds, but it is from this "recursion" that 
the intellectual level emerges. To make it short, while the catalyst 
between inorganic and biological levels is the unique properties of 
the carbon atom, and the catalyst between the biological and social 
levels is the unique properties of advanced "brains", the catalyst 
between the social and intellectual levels is the unique properties 
of symbolic recursion.

Whether or not you agree with my specific catalysts suggested here, I 
think that this highlights that any MOQ level has to grow out of 
"something" on the level beneath it. It just does not appear out of 
the blue, with no relation to the levels beneath it except to 
dominate them. So if the fractal boundary between the biological and 
social levels is NOT neurobiological complexity (on one side) 
allowing shared attention (on the other), I'd be interested in 
hearing other's ideas as to what it IS. Same with 
social-intellectual. My interest, then, is not so much looking at a 
pattern and asking "is this social or intellectual?" (a valid and 
valuable endeavor, btw), but asking what stradles the fractal border 
between the levels (my answers are given above).