[MD] Arlo's Rant and 3rd levels

[craigerb at comcast.net]

[Will/mark] 

> To think that our social institutional level is somehow much more > than that of bees and ants is a bit presumptuous.  I'm sure they do 
> not think so. 
That they don’t think so (& are unable to do so) is part of the evidence why it is true. 
[Will/mark] 
> How is our social institutional level different?  Is it because we 
> use more sounds, create more symbols?  Build more complex buildings? 
> Create languages based on abstract concepts? 

  You’ve got part of the answer.   But complexity is a symptom not the cause. 
Bees were making complex hives, when humans were making simple mud huts. 
What has allowed us to pass them by?   Our institutions & ideas: language, 
mathematics, transference of knowledge, etc. 
[Will/mark] 
> Are these abstract concepts any different from smell or sight, which 
> are also an abstract interpretation of an energy of a certain 
> wavelength or a chemical of a certain structure. 
Yes, the former are 3 rd or 4 th level, the latter 2 nd level. 



  [Krimel] 

> In fact Pirsig, mistakenly I think, asserts that the social level is 

> entirely human as well. 

> I think it was unfortunate that Pirsig termed the third level as 
> "social"… Or if he were really as up on anthropology as he claims to 
> be, he could have used ‘culture'. 

’Culture’ doesn’t do it.   Even bacteria are immersed in culture. 
‘Institutional’ it is. 

  [Ham] 
> The behaviors exhibited by bees or ants or people reveal nothing of 
> their thoughts or feelings. 

  This can’t be right.   This view leads to solipsism & nihilism. Craig