Re: biting the hand that feeds us?

["Arthur W. Protin Jr." (GC-ACCURATE) <cbmvax!uunet!PICA.ARMY.MIL!protin>]

Folks,
    Lojbab just posted as he says:
> I respond, hopefully apolitically, to the first of his two repostings,
> which argued the definition of 'society' that allows 'society' to have
> needs.
While I can not comment on the scope of the practice of the
> tendency to personify any and every concept that is personifiable
I am quite comfortable with it and do not feel that he adequately
describes it.  The corporate personality is quite distinct from
the mass of corporate personnel.  I consider Mr. Person to be very
different from society, and while I believe I understand the concept
(I liken it to Classes in OOPS (Comp.Sci.)), I find very few occasions
where I would use it.
    I consider society to an organism whose personality is not some
composite of the personalities of its component individuals so much
as it is a model of the behaviour of society.  The behaviour on the
other hand is a rather simple composite, but it is possible for combined
behaviour to be totally at odds with the combined thinking.  Thus, the
hunger of the individuals is not immediately relevant to ascribing
hunger to society.  Society's actions have to be the actions of a
hungry organism for me to ascribe hunger to society.  Thus I might
view a society as being sated even though some individuals were
dying of hunger.
    Similarly, a hive is not a mass of bees (or ants or ...).  A
very interesting reference to this concept is in one of the
"parables" sections of Goedel, Escher, Bach, by Hoffsteader.
I think it was called "A(u)nt Hillary".
    The only usage of the concept of Mr. Person that I am
immediately aware of is in the arguments of the civil liberties
activists.  That each suspect apprehended is an instance of Mr.
Person and because you are also such an instance, any treatment
of that suspect is transitively a treatment of you.  This argument
of protecting Mr. Person is totally at odds with the arguments
about protecting society.

    I hope I was sufficiently clear in this message

    thank you all,
    Arthur Protin


Arthur Protin <protin@pica.army.mil>
These are my personal views and do not reflect those of my boss
or this installation.