Stan wrote:
.. At present I am considering that, if we allocate the same energies at
each level, then the remaining degrees of freedom in the higher levels will
benefit from having stronger embodiment than would have been possible in the
lower levels.That is to say that, e.g., behaviors which could only be weakly
supported in,
say, the biological level, become more possible to be manifested in, say,
the social level.
This reminds me of Konrad Loren'z conjecture expressed in his famous book
"The so called Evil", that moral rules in human societies arise as a
compensation for a weak suppressing mechanism for intra-species aggression
at the genetic level. Genetic mechanism for aggression suppression in animal
species is positively correlated with their naturally weaponry (strong claws
and teeth). As humans do not possess strong somatic weapons but have
developed in the course of cultural evolution a strong ensemble of
extrasomatic ones, their biological basis for aggression suppression has
been further enhanced at the social level.
The best
Igor
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stanley N. Salthe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2006 10:56 PM
Subject: Re: [Fis] The Identity of Ethics
Replying to Pedro's query below, we can have:
{physical / chemical affordances {biological behaviors {cultural norms
{social guidance {personal past learnings {{{...{continuing process of
individuation}}}}...}}}}}. Some of us would place ethics somewhere
between
social guidance and personal past learnings. An interesting question in
this scheme is 'where is transcendence?' The problem is that there is
added, with each integrative level, further constraints. At present I am
considering that, if we allocate the same energies at each level, then the
remaining degrees of freedom in the higher levels will benefit from having
stronger embodiment than would have been possible in the lower levels.
That
is to say that, e.g., behaviors which could only be weakly supported in,
say, the biological level, become more possible to be manifested in, say,
the social level.
STAN
Dear FIS colleagues,
The question recently raised by Luis, but also in a different way by Karl,
Stan and others, is a tough one. How do our formal "disciplinary"
approaches fare when confronting the "global" reality of social life? My
point is that most of knowledge impinging on social life matters is of
informal, implicit, practical, experiential nature. How can one gain
access
to cognitive "stocks" of such volatile nature? Only by living, by
socializing, by a direct hands-on participation... Each new generation
has
to find its own way, to co-create its own socialization path. No moral or
ethical progress then!!! (contrarily to the advancement of other areas of
knowledge). Obviously, learning machines or techno environments cannot
substitute for a socialization process --a side note for "prophets" of the
computational.
By the way, in those nice categorizations by Stan --it isn't logically
awkward that the subject tries to be both subject and observer at the same
time? If it is so, the categorization process goes amok with social
openness of relations and language open-endedness, I would put. Karl's
logic is very strict, provided one remains strictly within the same set of
reference. Anyhow, it is a very intriguing discussion.
best
Pedro
_______________________________________________
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
_______________________________________________
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
__________ NOD32 1.1454 (20060321) Information __________
This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system.
http://www.eset.com
_______________________________________________
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
