Hi Steve, I can't pretend to understand all the subtleties of Bo's pronouncements. He speaks with surety but often says things that I can't quite get my head around, sometimes I think I have understood him and find I disagree, other times I am persuaded by his explanations.
I agree with you and Bo that symbol activity, or signification, is at all levels. I quoted Thomas Sebeok to Bo; since I like the quote so much I'll give the rest of it too now: 'The world is composed entirely of signs, and therefore, I think of the whole world as my oyster; whereas for some people only the human world, and then only a small portion of that, is their oyster.' Most usage of signs though is not deliberate, or rather below the level of consciousness, whereas I think of symbol manipulation as a more deliberate usage of signs, perhaps using symbols that refer to other symbols, or in programming even treating a function or algorithm as an object. I just had a look at the wikipedia entry for 'metaphysics' and after reading the first paragraph thought that the meaning of that word could be condensed down to mean 'beyond matter'. Subject Object Metaphysics, our SOM, is a philosophical talking point; perhaps something that can only be done by intellectuals. Logic is the manipulation of subjects and objects. Thinking is done by making logical inferences. Perhaps SOM could stand with equal legitimacy for Subject Object Manipulation and would still amount to the same thing as our usual SOM. Clearly,it's still all quite vague for me! Regards -Peter On 20/12/2007, Steven Peterson < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi Peter, > > >Guys, if you are not satisfied with this then how do you account for > >intuition and mystical experience? perhaps you explain them as ethereal > >dynamic quality entering directly into the brain; top-down straight into > the > >intellect? I am sure you see such a view would be SOM based. > > I've never had an experience that I would classify as mystical. In MOQ > terms I think of it as referring to dynamic quality in some way. I do think > that there is an underlying validity to religion in that I think something > significant really did happen to Moses on that mountain or Jesus in the > desert or Paul on the road to Damascus or Siddhartha under the whatever tree > and Pirsig has done more than anyone else I've read to describe opr explain > it as in his "break down" in ZAMM. > > > >Steve, subjects and objects don't necessarily have to align with mind and > >matter. Take the short sentence that Pinker mentioned also in that same > >book: 'Bummer'! The implied subject refers to some awful event that has > >occurred, the implied object is the person to whom the said awful event > has > >occurred. Steve, I think you are right that SOM's dualistic view of the > >world as composed of mind and matter, God and the World, substantial and > >insubstantial pose unresolvable philosophical problems, but that is a > >different issue to symbol manipulation, subject object logic that I have > >been talking about. > > I think you may be right to say that language is usually S/O in nature. > The rules of grammar require subjects and objects in sentences. But in > poetry the same symbols are manipulated often without subjects and objects. > Math "sentences" (equations) have to subjects and objects. But this is even > beside the point that Bo wants to make with his SOL. It seems like you are > not really agreeing with him. You are saying something quite different. > > He's not argiuing that symbol manipulation is S/O and so intellect is S/O > as you are. He is saying that symbol manipulation happens at all levels and > is a bad way to define intellect and that intellect comes about when we > start making subjective/objective knowledge distinctions. > > I agree with Bo that the key to SOM is it's subjective/objective knowlegde > distinctions, but I don't see such distinctions as inherent in language or > intellect. > > Regards, > Steve > > > 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/ > 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/
