[Bo]
Then to Arlo's question about " ... an example of something that
responded to DQ before "man" appeared on the stage..." (cut)
As said a man-borne biological pattern "reacted to DQ" and became its
stepping stone to the social level.
[Arlo]
So before "man-borne biological patterns", give me an example of
something that responded to DQ? To use your words, give me an example
of a "non-man-borne biological pattern" that was able to respond to
DQ prior to man's appearance. Since you skirt the issue, let me
remind me I suggested a return to the Mesozoic, a span of time
accounting for about 200 million years of history. (1) Did something
respond to DQ during that timeframe? (2) Speculate as to what?
Plants, cells, animals, dinos? What?
I am NOT asking about what biological patterns became the "stepping
stone" to the social pattern. I am saying that before man existed,
before primates existed, WHAT responded to DQ?
I'll give you my answer. Everything. Plants responded biologically,
as did dinosaurs, and sabertooths, and mammothes, and bugs. All these
things responded to DQ biologically (and according to their
bio-complexity) as they CONTINUE to do today. If you propose that
they "lost" their ability to respond to DQ (as Platt does), then I
ask firmly for an example of what an animal could do BACK THEN (in
response to DQ) that it CAN NO LONGER DO today. What were DQ-enabled
animals in the Mesozoic able to do that present day UNDQ-ed animals
are no longer able to do?
Certainly you see the absurdity in saying that things "lost" the
ability to DQ when "man" appeared. (Another follow-up would be
"when?" Did animals in North America suddenly "lose" the ability to
respond to DQ when the first primate appeared in Africa? Or did
animals only lose this ability when they encountered man (when man
spread across the Siberian passage and into North America?)
[Bo]
There was nothing biological dynamic enough to provide a "stepping
stone" to the social level.
[Arlo]
Ah now here's a crux. Dynamic "enough"! Maybe there is a scintilla of
agreement between us. But again, seen this way all these other things
(that were not Dynamic enough) still responded to DQ, and would
continue to do so til this day, albeit with a repertoire of responses
less complex (or "not complex enough") to provide a foundation for an
emergent level to grow from them.
So again, I say that it is not that "some things respond to DQ and
some things do not", but that everything responds to DQ but those
responses are mediated (enabled and constrained) by the level that
pattern resides, and its complexity within that level. An atom most
certainly responds to DQ, but it does so with perhaps the most
limited, mundane, unimpressive, repertoire of responses imaginable.
An amoeba has a wider repertoire of responses, which include
responses made possible only to patterns residing on the biological
level. A wooly mammoth (or my dog) has a greater range of responses
than that amoeba (due to its greater biological complexity), but its
response repertoire is still one that is biologically mediated.
Humans (biological patterns of great complexity) when they started
the social processes that enabled a social level to appear were
bestowed with an exponentially greater repertoire of responding to DQ
(namely, socially). Etc.
The critical thing I am arguing is that man is not "unique" in his
ability to respond to DQ, but is "unique" in the repertoire of
possible responses her/his intellectual-social-biological-inorganic
composition affords (nod to Mel for clarifying his use of "unique",
which I adopt here (I hope)).
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