[MD] Social level for humans only

[Magnus Berg]

Hi Andre

On 2010-08-19 23:12, Andre Broersen wrote:
> Magnus to Craig:
>
> Do you see anything about self-sacrifice for the common good like ants do?
>
> Andre:
> Self-sacrifice for the common good? Goodness me. Ants thinking in terms
> of 'common good' and even better: 'self sacrifice'.

I never said "think".

> Magnus, they don't know their arse from a hole in the ground! Are you
> serious?

Perhaps not, but they still sacrifice themselves for the common good of 
the hill. Built-in or by free choice doesn't really matter, but of 
course it's built-in in the case of ants.

But as I also said in the same reply, the fact that some behaviour is 
biologically inherited doesn't mean that it is a biological pattern, 
which is a reason why I sometimes use the "organic" name for that level 
instead.

> You seem to forget or rather bypass one of the 'conflicts' between the
> biological and the social...the social has more freedom. The ant has
> limited freedom to say or think! Do you really believe it is capable of
> saying, well, I have had enough of this...enough of this
> self-sacrificing, I am emigrating to Australia?

Of course not. The single ant is very statically linked to the anthill 
of which it is a member. But the *anthill* has more dynamic freedom than 
a single ant, *that's* what counts.

> It wouldn't even dream of it because the ant simply is what it, is and
> does what it does: anting. Pure, wonderful, lovely, unadulterated biology.
>
> Tell that to a human being: I am (just) being human!!! And what a
> fucking shit s/he'll get over this sense of being: to justify, explain,
> rectify, rationalize, apologize, generalize, apostatize,and what ever
> else you can think of.
>
> When are us humans simply allowed to be-ing?

Not sure what you mean by that? Am I stopping you in some way?

> I do think that the MOQ provides us with a means of arguing in favour of
> all sentient beings. We have to learn to practice this, as the path is
> narrow at present. We have to enable others to experience the liberating
> effect of expanding their own reasoning...one by one...as Phaedrus has
> shown us.

So Andre, listen now:

I don't deny the reality of the human perspective. That the social level 
contains patterns like church, government and all that Pirsig says in 
Lila. *But* when you do that, you do that from the human perspective 
stack, and within that stack, there are no conflicts because you *can* 
regard each human as a biological pattern. But when you leave the human 
perspective stack and look at how that human came to be, a whole new set 
of levels appears. They aren't really a new set, but I think the MoQ 
allows you to focus on one context at a time, and within that context, 
you have the levels. If you want more info about stacks, there's a 
thread about that about a month ago.

	Magnus