Horse and Bo:
Horse wrote:
>
> A beehive is a society (SocPOVs) in every respect, just as any Giant. Make
> a comparison with the Victorian pre WWI European states. They sent their
> soldiers to the trenches just like any beehive does when danger threatens.
> The soldiers died mindlessly just as the bees, I'm sure the soldiers
thought
> a lot about what they were doing but they were trained not to. The Giant
> had taught them to protect the Giant with their lives and they did.
>
> Another very social aspect of beehives is the fact that it's still the
> same beehive, no matter how many bees lives or dies, (almost). Just as
> the Giant is still the same Giant no matter how many citizens, mayors
> or schools get replaced.
>
"The blocks are organized in the order of evolution, with each higher block
more recent and more Dynamic than the lower ones. The block at the top
contains such static intellectual patterns as theology, science, philosophy,
mathematics. The placement of the intellect in this position makes it
superior to society, biology and inorganic patterns but still inferior to
Dynamic Quality. The Metaphysics of Quality says there can be many competing
truths and it is value that decides among them. "
[...]
"The social patterns in the next box down include such institutions as
family, church and government. They are the patterns of culture that the
anthropologist and sociologist study.
In the third box are the biological patterns: senses of touch, sight
hearing, smell and taste."
(R.M.Pirsig, SODV)
Pirsig puts the Inorganic and Biological level into a "objective" frame,
while Intellectual and social into a "Subjective" frame. When we face the 4
levels of experience, we must use a good intellectual (metaphysical) tool.
Objectivity is useful in the objective frame, while it's useless in the
subjective frame. I think we can objectively study the bees behavior and get
good results; at the contrary we all know that the same objectivity is
totally useless if used to understand social patterns. I well understand the
analogies between beehives and cities. But there are also a lot of
differences. Principally bees have (seemingly) always a similar behavior,
and no chance to change it. At the contrary people can act in various ways
according to the different social patterns they are participating ( Life in
NY City is very different by Svaalbard or Timbuktu....), and these patterns
are evolving entities. This is the main reason of the uselessness of
objectivity in social level experiences.
"The Metaphysics of Quality says there can be many competing truths and it
is value that decides among them".
There's no utility in a taxonomic discussion about the true (!)
classification of patterns in levels. Every interpretation have value, but
IMHO it's more valuable to put bees in the bio-Level of experience.
But also it's important to note (and I think I agree with Bo) that even if
levels are discrete, surely there are contact points. The "social behavior"
of bees (and ants, wolves, apes....) is maybe a sort of biologic attempt of
creating a new kind of patterns. All these attempts failed, but one. Only
humans were able to create a new level.
tks
Marco.
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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