Bio-soc parallels

-----Urspr�ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Bob Artigiani <artigian@novell.nadn.navy.mil>

[Bob, on analogies bio - soc]
 I suspect there are qualitatively different things going on but that the
processes follow similar patterns. If, e.g., we could try to track some
parallel between how experience is recorded and stored in social structures
and biological organisms we might be able to trace the qualitative changes
arising from membership in social systems.

[Stockinger]
Yes, also in my opinion interchange bio - soc is fruitful, as e.g. ongoing
discussion about "fitness" already shows. Personally I learned a lot from
genetics (molecular biology). As we know, genetics has been the first
applied sciences area using the notion "information" (contained in DNS) to
devellop its evolutionary paradigm. We know that at this genotype level
information is stored and recorded in triplets using 4 bases (G,T,C,A ? if
i remind correctly), where always two of them (G-T, C-A(?)) are combined on
both sides of the replication string. This information is "read" when
replication occurs. There are also special sequences which indicate the
beginning and the termination of the information-replication process.
I think that an analogy with soc-processes can be done at that level by
"comparing" bio-genetic information codes to (on the soc side) letters or
words and biogenetic-sequences to sentences or statements about social
values etc.
By doing so, we could get close to a socio-genetics approach, that is to
explain emergence and reproduction of social facts.
Further on one may continue the analogy by introducing the bioterm
"mutation" (linked to all that "selection of the fittest" stuff), and
create a social change theorem where, similary to the bio-level, changes in
information-code (due to environmental, casual or internal fluctuations)
lead to variety and new value-landscapes selected.

[Bob, previous]
>But I would still want to concentrate on SOCIAL SYSTEMS ....
We could work out more precisely how this happens from better understood
biological etc models. You guys need to do that. But the point would be
to look for ways to understand how Pedro*s *translation or ...
reverberation of biological fitness* works. I would expect there to be a
rather large, symmetry-breaking discontinuity between propensities
generated biologically and actions chosen morally.
...I would bet you cannot find any way to deduce VEMs from genetic
concerns. <

[St]
As I see it, Pedro does not apply e.g. "biological fitness" to influence
the sociological one, or to deduce social values from biogenetic aspects.
That would be the old discussion of how human behaviour is bio-genetically
determined etc. Thats not the question here: we are talking about
"methodological" analogies. We may not be deducing VEMs from bio-genetic
material, but we may look at VEMs like socio-genetic material (social
information) which provides social structures and changes it.

[Bob, prev.]
That is because what VEMs map is not just what individuals do but what
individual choices and actions MEAN.

[St]
Thats it, its the meaning that matters. Well, the meaning is sequenced in
time and structure (sequences in bio, sentences and statements in soc). And
(different from psy issues), we dont go on the individual level, but deal
with collective actions and choices. Social complexity starts here.

[Bob, prev.]
 VEMs perform tasks in this realm comparable to DNA in biology*they enable
societies to replicate by catalyzing the behaviors characteristic of Social
Roles, which are the non-material elements constituting social
organizations. <

[St]
I think this analogy (DNA - Social Roles) is not quite correct. DNA is a
genotype matter, Social Roles would be (in comparison) phenotype matter.
So, correspondence with DNA on social level should be the information codes
contained in Social Roles, while Social Roles should be compared on
bio-level with organic (adult) structures.

[Bob, p.]
To be sure, biological givens play a part in ratcheting the potential for
cooperative action upward. But I suspect that there is an even more
dramatic change once a social system self-organizes than Pedro suggests.
It looks to me, as if there is a new criteria introduced for fitness, as he
says.

[St]
Once more, I think we are not talking about biogenetic influence on social
behaviour. Of course, in social self-org is a "more dramatic change", there
are new criteria of fitness (social ones), I think thats out of question
when talking about society. But the selection process may be similar, when
looking at the information-processing level. Here the role of info-science
becomes clear as an intermediator between scientific areas. On both sides,
bio and soc, we talk of information, of something that reduces uncertainty,
that selects, that generates structures and changes them etc.
I think thats really fis-stuff, to work on a common concept (not to reduce
one to the other).

[Bob, prev.]
But these more complex social systems would take time to evolve, and their
first systems for storing ordering information would probably not be VEMs.
I think the anthropologists are right*it was rituals and rites which first
stored information about successful collective efforts. <

[St]
I would agree when viewing social "phenotype"-like structures. But on the
social genotype-like structures all we can look at are
communication-processes that lead to rites and furher on to values etc.
Is it possible that we keep this two levels (geno - pheno) at the social
levels: social events emerging by communications processes ("conceiving" or
"growing" social structure, geno) - and - social events realized within
roles, rites etc (mature social structure, pheno)?

[Bob, prev.]
Suggesting that some societies are more complex than others will, I know,
open the door to accusations of Political Incorrectness and complaints that
Comtean positivism is being restored. But unless everything is the same
and nothing happens in history, I think we need to recognize that degrees
of complexity exist between societies. I also think that as the complexity
of social systems increases the information storage capacity of its symbol
systems must increase, as well.<

[St]
Indeed we would get problems with discrimination acts and other
accusations. But thats not the only hazzle. I think we dont win anything by
creating a scale of complexity, more or less, from simple to complex etc.
Because: in non-linear systems, simplification also may leed to an
evolutionary step, to an increase of information storage. E.g., when
computers where introduced, it was seen as a complexification of society
etc. Now, that the problem is already a routine, computers have simplified
a lot of social interchange.
Rather than speaking about different complexity-levels, we should look at
the different ways to handle complexity, was to deal with it. (But thats
just an hipothesis up to now).

[Bob, prev.]
We should not want to reduce social information to biology but we do want
to test the value of analogies/homologies in social applications. Can
those better equipped to lay out some of the biology do that, allowing the
rest of us to then flounder foolishly about reaching and straining for
parallels? This way we could get an interdisciplinary attack on the
fundamentals of information science because we can trace parallels between
fields.<

[St]
Yes, I thing thats the same I meant above. Not reduction, but analogue
application.

Regards

Gottfried Stockinger
Received on Fri Oct 23 20:03:14 1998