[MD] Discrete & Dependent

[Magnus Berg]

Hi DMB

> dmb says: For whatever its worth, I do usually read your posts and, based on
> your recent claim that the inside of a cell is a society, figured you'd
> disagree with me on this. And yes, of course I have thought about what the
> social level is. And yes, I do take Pirsig's word on what Pirsig means by the
> term "social". If we extend the term down to the biological level it no
> longer has the same meaning and we've only erased a useful distinction.

Hang on. You're talking as if the distinction was useful in the first place, but 
I claim it's not. I have spent quite a few hours thinking about why, and the 
result is in my essay.

> I'd
> say this is relevant intellectually, if that's what you mean by
> metaphysically relevant. I mean, these descriptions and distinctions are just
> Pirsig's way of carving up experience. They're not supposed to be absolute or
> objectively true or any such thing. But they do have to be coherent and
> consistent with the MOQ as a whole and I think that expanding the definition
> of the social to include the non-human world is destructive of that coherence
> and consistency. If cells counted as social, for example, we might expect
> intellect to emerge from a cell and it otherwise makes the system fairly
> ridiculous.

Regarding metaphysical relevance, I explain what I mean with that term in the 
"Discreteness" section of the essay if you're interested.

Regarding "ridiculous", I thought that a metaphysical system that claimed to be 
discrete and dependent, but at closer examination turned out not to fulfill any 
of those, was rather ridiculous. And there's where the essay starts. I claim 
that if you really want to make it discrete and dependent, the result is the 
levels I describe in the essay.

	Magnus