Hi Steve
17 Dec. you cited yours truly
> > I repeat that "symbol/what's symbolized" is just one of SOM'
> > many facets.
and went on:
> I don't see why this distinction is an SOM product that we'd like to
> dissolve. I don't think it is JUST one of SOM's many facets for you.
> It seems to be the basis of equating intellect with SOM.
I wonder why you regard "symbol/what's symbolized" as special,
but for now.
> Here are a couple quotes concerning what Pirsig means by SOM:
> In the SOM conception
the universe is composed of subjects and
> objects and anything that can't be classified as a subject or an
> object isn't real.
"Objects" in the "substance" sense isn't all of SOM, the adjective
form is part of it, and in the most subtle ways, as in "an objective
fact" where the fact may be an abstract. The below is from LILA.
page 45 (digital)
The defect is that subject-object science has no provision
for morals. Subject-object science is only concerned with
facts. Morals have no OBJECTIVE reality. (my caps)
In this quote "science" is a representative for SOM and we see
that the trouble is that morals are considered subjective and thus
irreal.
(Steve)
> A subject-object metaphysics is in fact a metaphysics in which the
> first division of Quality-the first slice of undivided experience-is
> into subjects and objects. Once you have made that slice, all of
> human experience is supposed to fit into one of these two boxes. The
> trouble is, it doesn't.
(Bo)
This (involuntarily) demonstrates that the opening move of
Reality=Quality that can be split in arbitrary ways - the MOQ just
one possibility - is invalid. Quality split the S/O way is just as
"bad" as ordinary SOM. In other words, the opening move is
Reality=DQ/SQ! (inside the MOQ intellect splits Quality the S/O
way, but that's a static value)
The ZAMM quote again :
Anaxagoras and Parmenides had a listener named
Socrates who carried their ideas into full fruition. What is
essential to understand at this point is that until now there
was no such thing as MIND and MATTER, SUBJECT and
OBJECT, FORM and SUBSTANCE. Those divisions are
just dialectical inventions that came later.
(Steve)
> I see mind/matter, subject/object, form/substance as equivalent
> philosophical distinction. Here Pirsig seems to be talking about the
> birth of Western philosophy which I don't equate with the birth of
> the intellectual level. Do you have evidence that Pirsig means for
> his intellectual level to have the same birthday as Western philosphy?
(Bo)
Pirsig started out wrong and the (what to become) SOL
interpretation keeps popping up, but when that happens he
reverts to SOM as something that intellect "invented". For
instance this quote (LILA p.104)
The intellectual level of patterns, in the historic process of
freeing itself from its parent social level, namely the
church, has tended to invent a myth of independence
from the social level for its own benefit. Science and
reason, this myth goes, come only from the objective
world, never from the social world. The world of objects
imposes itself upon the mind with no social mediation
whatsoever. It is easy to see the historic reasons for this
myth of independence. Science might never have
survived without it. But a close examination shows it isn't
so.
The 4th. level's purpose is to free itself from the 3rd. To do so he
says intellect has invented a myth of science and/or reason
(which is SOM in plain text) But what is left of intellect if SOM is
subtracted? He makes it sound as if there was an objective world
that science could claim was its source, but intellect arrived with
SOM that created science and all S/O's in its wake.
Pirsig's focus was the situation in the sixties and seventies when
social order deteriorated. To show that intellect is dependent on
social stability was his agenda, but because he earlier had
presented intellect as some neutral facility an evil (that wasn't
intellect) was needed.
> Steve:
> These derivatives seem to refer to the problems of western philosophy
> that Pirsig called Platypi:
In a subject-object classification of the world, Quality is in
the same situation as that platypus. Because they can't
classify it the experts have claimed there is something
wrong with it. And Quality isn't the only such platypus.
Subject-object metaphysics is characterized by herds of
huge, dominating, monster platypi. The problems of free
will versus determinism, of the relation of mind to matter,
of the discontinuity of matter at the sub-atomic level, of
the apparent purposelessness of the universe and the life
within it are all monster platypi created by the subject-
object metaphysics. Where it is centered around the
subject-object metaphysics, Western philosophy can
almost be defined as "platypus anatomy." These
creatures that seem like such a permanent part of the
philosophical landscape magically disappear when a good
Metaphysics of Quality is applied.
The SOM created its derivatives and platypus in parallel. I can't
date them but with the mind/matter distinction did the "how can
mind influence matter" paradox come to be and with the
nurture/nature did the enigma who of the two determines human
behavior arrived.
> I disagree that "symbol/symbolized" is this sort of philosophical
> platypus. This seems to be an important point that you'd like to make
> in order to equate the intellectual level with SOM. What is the
> problem with distinguishing symbols and their referrants that the MOQ
> solves? In what way is symbol/symbolized inherently based on an
> assumption that "the universe is composed of subjects and objects and
> anything that can't be classified as a subject or an object isn't
> real"?
The SOM has much subtler S/O pairs. In ZAMM the development
of SOM is seen from Socrates' Opinion/Truth to Plato's
Appearance/Ideas and Aristotle's Form/Substance, but Pirsig
spotted the SOM under all these phases. So I see no objection to
the symbol/what's symbolized as an advanced S/O ...that has
created its own platypus, namely the language/reality one.
Full stop!
Bo
Moq_Discuss mailing list
Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
Archives:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
