[MD] a view

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[John]
Well you can't say that and expect to continue this argument with me. You're
completely correct and I agree completely.  What fun is that?

[Arlo]
Well.. more fun that Platt's ongoing displays of willful ignorance. But hey...

[John]
And yes, I agree completely there too.  I also see this process of objectifying
social patterns and analyzing them objectively as that supreme 4th level
activity which human societies have always engaged in, as long as there have
been human societies.

[Arlo]
I don't think such meta-analysis is found until recent human history
(considering the tens of thousands of years that preceded the modern era). I
also think the word "objectifying" is problematic, although you'll score some
points from Bo. I think "objectifying" is one aspect to the activity of
considering symbols are entities of inquiry in-and-of-themselves. It is the
primary aspect of an SOM, and the basement to western culture, to be sure.

[John]
Primitive societies were no more "social" as opposed to intellectual than our
own, that we have any evidence of.  In fact, I'd hazard a guess as to the
opposite.

[Arlo]
Well, if you wanted an area of disagreement, this may be it. There is not much
evidence that early societies embarked on any meta-analysis of their symbolic
code, this seems to be a phenomenon of more recent cultures. I suppose like
everything in else in the MOQ hierarchy, a level has to reach a certain level
of sophistication before a higher level can emerge. Societies only appear atop
a foundation of a certain complexity of biology, e.g..

[John]
Well Arlo, not in a simplistic, straightline, mechanistic way, no.   Whales
have more massive brains than humans and porpoises come close or exceed. Yet
they haven't built any libraries (probably, but who knows? 

[Arlo]
Not sure if its weight of neural mass, so much as components. Tomasello, in a
brilliantly insightful theory, argues that you can pinpoint the neural area
responsible for "shared cognition", and it is this particular neural hub that
has allowed the subsequent emergence of social patterns.

[John]
Speaking of big brains, it's "John" with an "h".  I wouldn't care about getting
all pedantic on ya, but another Jon joined recently and I'd hate to be the
source of confusion.

[Arlo]
Corrected. My apologies. Mere laziness on my part.

[John]
Yeah, you would.  But then you'd just be showing off, wouldn't you.  I'd
just quote more Jackie at ya, doing the same thing, but in my own way. (showing
off, that is.)

[Arlo]
Us elitists have little else to do, you know, apart from plotting to outlaw
liberty and enslave conservatives.

[John]
And if you think about it, even the most rigorous science is dependent upon
intersubjective agreement before it's discoveries are deemed "real".

[Arlo]
Stop using big words, you're scaring Platt. But yes, this is very true.

[John]
But it's weird to have this discussion with you Arlo, because I remember
starting up with you over whether we share emotions with animals.  Which I say
we do.  Mammals at least.  Mammals share social patterning and emotional
reasoning with humans.

[Arlo]
I don't ever recall saying animals don't experience emotion. What I said was
there is a spectrum of emotional experience that begins in the biological plane
(fear, hunger, panic, etc.) that extends into the social, and the more complex
the social strata of the animal, the more complex the emotion.