Hi Soj:
You wrote:
> You believe that because you don't believe that there is such thing as "the
> hive" or "the herd", even though people who work with animals do use those
> terms. Why do people who are familiar with bees refer to "the hive" or "a
> hive"?
>
> Because the hive is a lifeform unto itself. If you die, your blood cells
> die too. If the hive dies, the bees die.
>
> Where else do we get a "pride" of lions or a "parliament" of owls or
> a "gaggle" of geese or my favorite, a "murder" of crows? I am not
> asking you what their etymology is, I'm asking you why did people
> ever feel the need to come up with these names in the first place?
I didn't mean to infer that there were no such things as the hive or the
herd. I meant simply that such groupings are irrelevant to "society" as
Pirsig uses the word in LILA. Whether a bee hive is a lifeform or not is
also irrelevant.
As for why people feel the need to come up with names for various
groups, the answer is simply the need to stereotype or "profile" the
data of experience so one can get something done. For the vast
majority, thinking is the waste of time between seeing something and
knowing what to do about it. By categorizing similar data, thinking is
greatly expedited and facilitated. If we had to think about each bit of
data as it appears, tigers and other wild beasts would have obliterated
us eons ago. Unlike tigers who come equipped with tooth, claw and
instinct, man must think to survive. Lumping similar data together in
abstract mental symbols lightens that task.
Platt
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:01:46 BST