[MD] LC Comments

[David Thomas]

On 7/10/10 5:20 AM, "Magnus Berg" <McMagnus at home.se> wrote:

> Look, take a house. It has social value, right? But to have that it must
> depend on biological patterns? Using the same reasoning as Pirsig, the
> house is built by people, i.e. biological patterns. Ok, fine.
> 
> *BUT*! Take the series of caves at the southern tip of Spain where
> Neanderthals lived some 20-30 thousand years ago. They were carved by
> the sea, but were used just like a house and had just as much social
> value for them as houses have for us. I bet they even reserved the
> biggest and finest cave to the most important member of the clan.
> 
> So, how did that happen? If some of you don't think a house has social
> value, I can come up with thousands more examples to show the same thing.
> 
> A house *has* to have a direct line of dependency through all levels
> down to the rock bottom of the level ladder. Every pattern has to have
> that, otherwise it falls apart and is *not* such a pattern it was, it dies.

Does a house have (hold or maintain as a possession, privilege, or
entitlement) social value? I think not. Only living beings can possess,
privilege, indeed create social or intellectual value. A house is inorganic
(concrete, bricks, et al) and organic(dust mites, mold, et al) patterns of
value which humans place a social value on. The house is a reflection of
human social values but it does not possess them. If the police station
possessed the social pattern of value of "police stationness" when the
police moved out how could it ever be anything other than a police station?

This is why I suggested sometime back (per Wilber) that human artifacts are
special cases. 

But that is just my opinion.

Dave