[Ian]
In the same way as biological patterns can be fossilized in the
physical. Social (and intellectual) patterns can be "fossilized" in the
biological.
[Arlo]
I have no doubt that intellectual activity shapes the trajectory of
social evolution, and social activity shapes the trajectory of
biological evolution, and that biological activity shapes the trajectory
of inorganic evolution, in similar form the foundations shaping the
trajectory of subsequent emergent levels.
But social patterns are NOT biological patterns, and cannot be reduced
to biological patterns. You can encode, say, an intellectual pattern in
the inorganic electrical signals of a computer, but that computer will
not spontaneously write a book. For the encoding to have meaning, it
takes (in addition to the encoder) and decoder capable of understanding
and interacting with patterns on that level.
While the data is slim (who wants to apply for an IRB release to drop a
newborn child onto a deserted island?), the data we do have
categorically denies your position, the "feral children" we have
witnessed (who even WERE socialized for several years) exhibited no
greater behavior or agency than a wild animal. Helen Keller described
her pre-language time as a wave that never grounded, she had no
thoughts, no social behavior, and was until the point she, through the
shared attention with another human, learned "water", she was an animal.
She had no spontaneous language or intellect that emerged in her head
because of some biological fossilization.
And to say that a socialized adult is dropped onto a deserted island
demonstrates that we don't need others to form social or intellectual
patterns is inane, of course we have the capacity for memory. But even
the little data we have on adults being kept in isolation indicates that
there is a rapid loss of social and intellectual capacity when the
social and intellectual surround is removed.
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