Diana McPartlin (diana@asiantravel.com)
Thu, 11 Sep 1997 04:28:00 +0100
Magnus Berg wrote:
> I don't think it's any difference between what we usually
> call a society, and a society of cells.
Well I don't have any good reason for why there should be a difference.
However, if we consider a body to be social value and a cell to be
social value then how far back do we take it? Everything is a society of
something else, right back to atoms, no?
If this is the case then why should the intellectual level emerge from
the social value of the body? Why not from the social value of the atom?
Or, as I suggested, from the social value of the community?
Magnus wrote:
> * Social patterns of value combines organic patterns of value
> into something more valuable than the sum of its parts.
Perhaps your answer is this but I don't see how you can measure it.
Sorry if I've missed something here, I'm just thinking aloud.
Magnus wrote:
> * Inorganic patterns of value that can perform a function for
> a society are more valuable than other inorganic patterns.
> This discrete criteria marks the division between inorganic
> and organic patterns of value.
Organic vs inorganic huh.....I have always thought that the difference
between inorganic and organic was that organic patterns had the ability
to reproduce themselves.
And in an earlier post, Magnus wrote:
> If a society needs a chair, it must have a chairmaker in case the
> chair breaks. in that case, chairs would be organic patterns of
> value, which should make us a little more careful about what we
> say about the organic level, i.e. not set it equal to what we
> call 'life' and so on.
Actually I would have said that the organic level is life and a chair is
inorganic. But maybe it depends on whether you look at a chair in
isolation or in terms of its social function.
I'm starting to think that all this confusion (well I'm confused) is
arising from unclear definitions of what we mean by values and levels
and, in particular, what it means when we say that each level depends on
/ emerges from / rests on / builds upon / is composed of the one below.
Diana
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