[Magnus] > The ant is a social pattern. Biological patterns are senses - taste, smell, > touch - the senses by which the social pattern holds the parts of the ant > together...An ant is [not] a biological pattern.
The Argument from Social Construct: Ants are a social construct. There is nothing "in nature" which forces us to classify ants & termites, for instance, separately. Doing so is a pragmatic decision, made within language, which is a social pattern. The trouble with this argument is that it makes everything for which there is a concept/word into a social pattern. The levels, however, are not populated by words/concepts, but by what words/ concepts apply to. IMHO everything about ants above the inorganic level is biological: the ant's body, its perceptual abilities, its growth, its healing, its locomotion, its reproduction, etc. Craig Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
