[MD] Social level for humans only

[Magnus Berg]

Hi Andre

> Andre:
> Correct, but you seem to be doing the thinking for the ants: concepts
> such as 'self'-'sacrifice'-'common'-'good' are human inventions at the
> social-intellectual level and may or may not be a useful way of
> describing OUR interpretation of behaviour going on at the biological
> level.
>
> Concepts such as 'self-sacrifice' and for the 'common good' appear to me
> to be typically social (religious/political) patterns.

I agree they *are* social, but it is we who have conceptualized them. 
They weren't concepts until we made concepts out of the behaviour. But 
if you google for "ant self sacrifice" as I suggested to Craig, you'll 
find a bunch of articles about exactly that behaviour among ants. Some 
species of ants every night send a few ants out the front door of the 
hill and expect them to "close the door" from the outside. Those ants 
die before the hill opens up the next morning. There were other examples 
as well.


> Magnus:
> 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.
>
> Andre:
> I agree that 'organic' is a more comprehensive term for the level in
> question. By 'inherited' I assume you mean 'hard-wired'. If it is not
> also a biological pattern of value how has it become biologically
> hard-wired then?

Yes, I mean inherited is the same as hard-wired. However, I also mean 
that social behaviour can be hard-wired, i.e. inherited. I disagree with 
Craig that says that all hard-wired behaviour is biological. Biological 
value, to me, is individual egoism. And in the case of ants, that means 
that each ant would have a inherited behaviour to be egoistic and as 
such never sacrifice itself for the cause of the hill. But ants don't do 
that, they are social. Any zoologist would agree that there are social 
animals such as ants and bees. And I think *that* is the difference 
between biological and social value. Not whether the particular 
behaviour is inherited or learned. In fact, I think the fact that some 
animals *can* learn stuff other than what they have hard-wired from 
birth to be evidence of being able to react to intellectual patterns. To 
be able to learn is way more dynamic than being able to inherit a set of 
hard-wired behaviour. It's a game-changer for animal behaviour. And 
since it's a game-changer it's a new level.

> Magnus:
> 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.
>
> Andre:
> You have to explain this further Magnus, we are talking about the
> organic level yes?

Actually, no, the anthill's increased dynamic freedom would be the step 
into the social level.

Think of it this way:

Before ants became ants and started living in hills with other ants, I 
think they were living just like other insects, each proto-ant was 
minding his own business and had to fight for food with other insects 
including other ants. It was probably pretty cumbersome for the ant when 
trying to hatch eggs and at the same time find food for itself. I of 
course don't know this, but I did find an article about how ants might 
have evolved. It seems an organ called metapleural gland is important 
for the social structure of the anthill, and that gland wasn't found in 
fossils from 92 million years ago. Perhaps those were the proto-ants 
that later evolved that gland to organize themselves into societies. The 
article is here: 
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/29/us/fossil-shows-ants-evolved-much-earlier-than-thought.html

Sometime, an ant developed a new behaviour that made them cooperate with 
another ant with a slightly different behaviour. Perhaps one behaviour 
was more inclined to look for food and the other more inclined to hatch 
eggs. These two behaviours worked very well together, and that was the 
first step to a society. Such first steps are almost exclusively just 
two different behaviours that happens to work well together, and we 
usually call it symbiosis. I think that's the first step into the social 
level. Together they are stronger than two of the old type of ant. But 
this new behaviour is still biologically inherited, just like humans 
have the DNA for both boys and girls, so does every ant have the DNA for 
all types of ants.

Ehh, did I answer your question or did I just go off in some other 
direction?

> Andre:
> Good to hear that we are allowed to see the MOQ from the 'human
> perspective'. Afterall it was invented by someone who had only one
> mission in mind and that is to make the world a little better place to
> live in, to improve it.

Only that? I wonder. Anyway, if that's all you want, the MoQ would work 
for that too. I just think it can be tweaked into working for much more 
than that.

> I regard each human to be 'composed' of inorganic,organic, socila and
> intellectual patterns of value with a capacity to apprehend Quality.

Me too. But some, like Craig, doesn't seem to think that. He seems to 
think it stops at the biological level for humans.

> Despite a few attempts I have not been able to get through with the
> 'stack' link. Perhaps I should try again to get a better idea of where
> you are arguing from Magnus.

Actually, as I've said a few times (in other threads), the stacks aren't 
required, they just makes it possible to focus on one context at a time. 
The stack link is a PDF document and is located at 
http://www.moq.org/Docs/Stacks-1.pdf . The Stacks thread starts here:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/2010-July/thread.html#51262

	Magnus