> [Dan] > If social patterns are not intellectual, > how do we discriminate them from other patterns? > Are they hard-wired into our nature?
[Craig] No, if they were hard-wired they would, of course, be biological. IMHO social patterns must be learned & there is a "right vs. wrong" aspect to them (this last is the subjective aspect, but see below). If you itch, it is not right or wrong to scratch, it just is a biological response. But if following a social ritual, there is a right or wrong wrong way to do it. If in addition, there is a reason for doing it a certain way (other than, "that's just the way the ritual goes"), then we are in the intellectual realm. [Krimel] Hardwiring in biology is a metaphorical term. It does not mean being programmed in act in an inflexible ways. It means being programmed with a set of possible reactions to probable events in the environment. Behavior is the interaction of biology with the environment. It is not determined by biology or the environment alone but by their interaction. Smiling and frowning are biologically programmed behaviors but they are triggered by events in the environment. A social ritual like say a religious service is an intellectual pattern which specifies a set of rules and symbols to evoke social behaviors and express social emotions. Right and wrong are intellectual assessments of how well the ritual was performed in the service of social aims. 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/md/archives.html
