[MD] Step two

[ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR]

[Dan]
If you are talking about the MOQ, then social patterns have nothing to do with groups of individuals.

[Arlo]
I this this is right. On all the MOQ levels we can see 'individual' patterns and 'groups' of patterns. This is why I think what we are looking for (in locating the catalyst-agent from which social emerges from biological) is 'shared attention' (which, to clarify, can occur even with one body present). Obviously, there is an evolution of complexity within the social level, just as within the biological level (amoeba to human body), so the earliest, simplest social patterns would have consisted of brief, simple moments of 'shared attention', while on the other end of the level we see the complex social patterns underlying such activities as the World Cup (and probably at this complex level we see also an interplay or co-presence of both social and intellectual patterns). 

[Dan]
Social patterns cannot be seen. They exist in the mind, not in physical reality.

[Arlo]
I'm going to disagree with you here. Or I think I am. Maybe its just the wording. But I'd say social patterns exist 'in the activity'. I think juxtaposing 'mind/physical reality' here reinstates an S/O view I know you don't hold. And so, I'd say, we most absolutely can see social patterns. I recently saw a beautiful one that won the World Cup for Germany, but really I see them around me all the time. We are awash in social patterns, to the point where I'd say its almost hard to NOT see them.

[Dan]
No matter how closely you examine the man you will find nothing to lead you to believe that he is President of the United States.

[Arlo]
Well, no, if you are suggesting looking for a social pattern by looking on the biological level. But let me watch five people engaged in their genuine activity and I'll tell you right away which on is President of the United States. So, yes, microscopes are useful tools for making biological patterns more visible. But here you're just suggesting the wrong tool for the job. 

The basis for social patterns is, IMHO, "activity" (in the Russian sense; purposeful, agenic, semiotic, mediated). And the root, the carbon atom, for activity is shared attention.