Hi Andre
Andre:
Correct, but you seem to be doing the thinking for the ants: concepts
such as 'self'-'sacrifice'-'common'-'good' are human inventions at the
social-intellectual level and may or may not be a useful way of
describing OUR interpretation of behaviour going on at the biological
level.
Concepts such as 'self-sacrifice' and for the 'common good' appear to me
to be typically social (religious/political) patterns.
I agree they *are* social, but it is we who have conceptualized them.
They weren't concepts until we made concepts out of the behaviour. But
if you google for "ant self sacrifice" as I suggested to Craig, you'll
find a bunch of articles about exactly that behaviour among ants. Some
species of ants every night send a few ants out the front door of the
hill and expect them to "close the door" from the outside. Those ants
die before the hill opens up the next morning. There were other examples
as well.
Magnus:
But as I also said in the same reply, the fact that some behaviour is
biologically inherited doesn't mean that it is a biological pattern,
which is a reason why I sometimes use the "organic" name for that level
instead.
Andre:
I agree that 'organic' is a more comprehensive term for the level in
question. By 'inherited' I assume you mean 'hard-wired'. If it is not
also a biological pattern of value how has it become biologically
hard-wired then?
Yes, I mean inherited is the same as hard-wired. However, I also mean
that social behaviour can be hard-wired, i.e. inherited. I disagree with
Craig that says that all hard-wired behaviour is biological. Biological
value, to me, is individual egoism. And in the case of ants, that means
that each ant would have a inherited behaviour to be egoistic and as
such never sacrifice itself for the cause of the hill. But ants don't do
that, they are social. Any zoologist would agree that there are social
animals such as ants and bees. And I think *that* is the difference
between biological and social value. Not whether the particular
behaviour is inherited or learned. In fact, I think the fact that some
animals *can* learn stuff other than what they have hard-wired from
birth to be evidence of being able to react to intellectual patterns. To
be able to learn is way more dynamic than being able to inherit a set of
hard-wired behaviour. It's a game-changer for animal behaviour. And
since it's a game-changer it's a new level.
Magnus:
The single ant is very statically linked to the anthill
of which it is a member. But the*anthill* has more dynamic freedom than
a single ant,*that's* what counts.
Andre:
You have to explain this further Magnus, we are talking about the
organic level yes?
Actually, no, the anthill's increased dynamic freedom would be the step
into the social level.
Think of it this way:
Before ants became ants and started living in hills with other ants, I
think they were living just like other insects, each proto-ant was
minding his own business and had to fight for food with other insects
including other ants. It was probably pretty cumbersome for the ant when
trying to hatch eggs and at the same time find food for itself. I of
course don't know this, but I did find an article about how ants might
have evolved. It seems an organ called metapleural gland is important
for the social structure of the anthill, and that gland wasn't found in
fossils from 92 million years ago. Perhaps those were the proto-ants
that later evolved that gland to organize themselves into societies. The
article is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/29/us/fossil-shows-ants-evolved-much-earlier-than-thought.html
Sometime, an ant developed a new behaviour that made them cooperate with
another ant with a slightly different behaviour. Perhaps one behaviour
was more inclined to look for food and the other more inclined to hatch
eggs. These two behaviours worked very well together, and that was the
first step to a society. Such first steps are almost exclusively just
two different behaviours that happens to work well together, and we
usually call it symbiosis. I think that's the first step into the social
level. Together they are stronger than two of the old type of ant. But
this new behaviour is still biologically inherited, just like humans
have the DNA for both boys and girls, so does every ant have the DNA for
all types of ants.
Ehh, did I answer your question or did I just go off in some other
direction?
Andre:
Good to hear that we are allowed to see the MOQ from the 'human
perspective'. Afterall it was invented by someone who had only one
mission in mind and that is to make the world a little better place to
live in, to improve it.
Only that? I wonder. Anyway, if that's all you want, the MoQ would work
for that too. I just think it can be tweaked into working for much more
than that.
I regard each human to be 'composed' of inorganic,organic, socila and
intellectual patterns of value with a capacity to apprehend Quality.
Me too. But some, like Craig, doesn't seem to think that. He seems to
think it stops at the biological level for humans.
Despite a few attempts I have not been able to get through with the
'stack' link. Perhaps I should try again to get a better idea of where
you are arguing from Magnus.
Actually, as I've said a few times (in other threads), the stacks aren't
required, they just makes it possible to focus on one context at a time.
The stack link is a PDF document and is located at
http://www.moq.org/Docs/Stacks-1.pdf . The Stacks thread starts here:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/2010-July/thread.html#51262
Magnus
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