[Platt] Here's one place where he says it: "Societies" is used figuratively here as a more colorful word meaning "groups." If I had known it would be taken literally as evidence that cells belong in the social level I would not have used it. Maybe in a future edition it can be struck out. One can also call ants and bees "social" insects, but for purposes of precision in the MOQ social patterns should be defined as human and subjective. Unlike cells and bees and ants they cannot be detected with an objective scientific instrument. For example there is no objective scientific instrument that can distinguish between a king and commoner, because the difference is social. (SODV Note 49)
[Krimel] Thanks Platt! I would also like to point out a major flaw in what he is saying here. No instrument can distinguish between red and blue or hot and cold or any other perceptual phenomena either. Those kinds of distinctions are in the eye of the beholder and are only objective in so far as different beholders agree on those aspects of their share experience that can held in common. Instruments can distinguish one frequency of light from another or one temperature from another or one individual from another. But it is the observer or community of observers that determine the meaning of these distinctions. After all instruments can only tell use that this is a bee and that is an ant and that is a cell and there are so many of each. The determination that they have "social" behavior lies not in the instrument but in the people using the instrument. Instruments of any kind extend our sensory capacity but perception, what we construct with our senses, is only effected in the sense that it has additional data to synthesize. I would go off on how "social" is no more "subjective" than "biological" but perhaps another time. 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/
