[Ian]
So the previous social pattern isn't fossilized in all its glory in the
future biology, but it does preserve traces / shadows, which reinforce
the advantage on the next cycle, and so on.
[Arlo]
But clearly you mean that these traces/shadows are recorded in some form
of genetic sequence or code, no? Now, I do think, as I've said (and
Tomasello describes) that there is feedback from the social level
influencing biological patterns.
There is fossil evidence, for example, that since the Late Pliostene (~2
million years) human morphological evolution showed the greatest changes
in increasing brain size and reduction of the bony skull superstructure
coinciding with the first evidence of what we would consider
sophisticated social behavior. Clearly, the trajectory of human neural
evolution owes in large part to the "flexing" of certain neural areas,
rather than simply evolving in response to the inorganic environment.
This I will agree with, that the neurobiology of the human brain has
evolved over the past million years specifically adapting to social and
(later) intellectual activity. In this case, yes, the human is
"predisposed" to enter the world with the tools necessary to quickly
assimilate and appropriate culture and intellect.
But, this is a bit different from suggesting (if you are) that social
and/or intellectual patterns become embedded in the genetic sequence so
that even a human devoid of human culture (and hence human intellectual
activity) will be able to spontaneously reproduce those patterns in some
way.
[Ian]
Hmmm - need to wind my brain back to old discussions - but use of the
word social behaviour here with social animals (and ants and bees ?) is
not necessarily the same as Pirsigian social level patterns, is it?
[Arlo]
No, its not. Pirsig had stated that the social and intellectual levels
are reserved for humans, and that is probably the one point of
contention I have with his ideas.
[Ian]
Surely we need symbolic communication and sharing of social patterns
between the individuals - not just instinctive, biological , biochemical
"social" behaviours ?
[Arlo]
Right, and my point about wolves includes more than just instinctual
behavior. I think we do see evidence of (perhaps very crude) symbolic
mediation. Certainly nothing even remotely as sophisticated as the most
primitive human languages, but I also see the levels as gradations that
begin with extremely simple patterns of activity and scale to the
ultra-complex patterns we see near the next point of emergence.
To me, then, the distinction between the very crude symbolic
communication among wolves and their instinctual biological behavior is
really right there in that fractal point between the two levels. To
make a point, the more sophisticated symbolic communications among
primates and certain other species (humpback whales, perhaps), even
being crude by human standards certainly far far outsurpasses what we
see among wolves. So don't think when I say we see evidence of social
activity among wolves that I think wolves have some elaborate language
and barter goods and invent myths and hold ceremonies, etc.
[Ian]
This is why I always qualify these points with the self-other individual
consciousness aspect.
[Arlo]
Tomasello's main argument in "The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition"
is that deep in phylogenetic history, a biological adaptation in a group
of primates would cause them to evolve along a unique trajectory away
from the other herds of primates and into what would become the human
species, and this singular biological adaptation was the ability to
perceive conspecifics as intentional-- and later, mental-- agents like
the self.
To be clear, Tomasello would not argue that this specific neural
adaption was FOR this to occur, it likely had some other significance,
but it nonetheless became the springboard by which the entire edifice of
the social level was able to launch. He calls it the ability for "shared
attention", and while that sounds like "self-other" I think its worth
noting that for Tomasello the key is that the other becomes an
intentional agent like the self. As I said, a mouse has the awareness of
"self" and "not self" in the sense that it has an awareness of where its
body ends and "not me" begins. But that isn't enough, according to
Tomasello, the "self" has to also recognize that an "other" shares the
same intentional attention as the self, that is it sees others as not
just "not me" but "like me".
One final note, Tomasello's position is likely more in line with
Pirisg's than my own, in that for Tomasello, social and subsequently
intellectual endeavors are unique to the human species.
[Ian]
Did I mention I was reading Ian Gilchrist ?
[Arlo]
You mean Iain McGilchrist? :-)
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