Quoting Magnus Berg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > Seems to me a "thing" belongs to the level of its highest evolved state. > > Thus, > > while a jellyfish consists of inorganic level "things" (atoms, molecules and > > such)but belongs as a manifestation to the biological level -- and so forth > > on > > up the evolution of consciousness ladder until you arrive at the independent > > thinking human individual, the highest form of evolutionary progress to > > date. > > It may seem simpler at first sight to do that. But it backfires pretty fast > for > (at least) three reasons: > > 1. You get the fuzzy borders between the levels A little fuzziness here and there is OK. I don't know of any category that can't be accused of being a little fuzzy at the edges. For example, biologists are still arguing about what constitutes a species. > 2. The dimensional aspect of the levels gets hidden and is replaced by a > ladder > view, which only causes arguments about what thing belongs where. The > inorganic > value of a thing is not removed just because it's alive. In other words, you > still have weight, even though you happen to have legs to move that weight > around. If you keep in mind that upper levels are supported by the lower I don't see a problem. As for arguments, they will always occur no matter how you divide up experience. So they're unavoidable. > 3. In my view, animals are societies of organs, but that doesn't mean they > lose > their biological value. If you use your level rule above, it would end up in > the > social level, but that might not be the best way to describe an animal. (In > fact, I'd even raise it to the intellectual level. Please read back a few > posts > in this thread to see why.) Like Pirsig, I would reserve the social level to human beings so as to avoid the issues you raise which muddies the waters without adding much to the evolutionary moral hierarchy. Platt ------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/ 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.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
