Peter and DMB.
On 30 Jul 2008 at 8:50, Peter Corteen wrote:to DMB:
> agreed that we can't reject SOM and that the 'experience of not being
> able to walk through is more real than the "wall"'. SOM is an
> indispensable convention that we are hard wired with. You can't have
> mind without matter and vice-versa; I acknowledge spirit only in terms
> of intentionality. What will be the characteristics of those beings
> who are not limited by SOM?
I suggest that we turn to ZAMM where the emergence of SOM is
described and consequently hints to " .... .what was the
characteristics of those beings who weren't limited by SOM". (see
at the end).
Over to DMB' earlier post on this issue.
> > The fact that we can't walk through walls remains even if we reject
> > SOM. Likewise, adopting the MOQ does not entail any claims about
> > being able to walk through walls. Think of it in terms of reversing
> > the relationship between "objects" and "quality". SOM says the wall
> > is an objective reality, a real substance, and its properties or
> > qualities are such that it can not be walked through. It has
> > hardness and flatness. It offers resistance when we put pressure on
> > it.
The SOM has had an immense long and winding road to the
modern mind/mater variety, this about "substance" as the
permanent part of reality with "appearance" the fleeting one was
the Aristotelian stage and as far as ZAMM pursued the issue. No
objections this far.
> The MOQ says that these qualities come first and that the "wall"
> > is secondary, an interpretation of the qualities felt in experience.
> > And of course the idea of a "wall" works well with many other ideas
> > such as doors and windows. (The idea of a wall also connects to
> > paint, to floors, ceilings, houses, gardens, towns, Berlin during
> > the Cold War, China during the Mongol invasions and, the line
> > between church and state, a place of blindfolded executions, to a
> > lesser or greater degree, to every other idea in the whole lang
> > uage system.) In the MOQ, the experience of not being able to walk
> > through
> > is more real than the "wall".
The MOQ does not only say that MATTER (substance) is
secondary (static) it also says that MIND is secondary, in fact that
the S/O distinction is a static configuration, and one must be hell
bent on not seeing what looms large, namely that ZAMM describes
the emergence of the intellectual level. That book even makes
SOM = intellect, and - as said - had Pirsig continued the MOQ in
this vein it would have been complete, ZAMM an LILA would have
been harmonized. As it is no one knows how ZAMM is to be
interpreted in a MOQ light.(except this person that is)
> As in the hot stove example, the
> > "wall" is subsequently ascribed as the reason or cause of not being
> > able to walk through.
Well, the hot stove example is a variety of the "Leading Edge"
logic in ZAMM.
He simply meant that at the cutting edge of time, before an
object can be distinguished, there must be a kind of
nonintellectual awareness, which he called awareness of
Quality. You can't be aware that you've seen a tree until
after you've seen the tree, and between the instant of
vision and instant of awareness there must be a time lag.
"Nonintellectual awareness" translates into DQ, this is followed by
"intellectual awareness" that translates into SQ. At this stage of
P's reasoning what would become - first Classic then - Static part
of his MOQ only consisted of "intellect", but was made up of a
subject and a world (of objects).
> Rejecting SOM in no way denies the experience
> > from which these ideas are derived, it is simply a matter of
> > stepping back to see that subjects and objects are conventional
> > concepts, useful concepts, rather than the starting point of reality
> > or the cause of experience. The MOQ says that experience comes
> > first, that experience IS reality. In that sense, not being able to
> > walk through is as real as it gets.
Agree, the MOQ does not reject the S/O schism, only its "M"
rank.The remaining S/O (a subject confronting a world) is the
intellectual level, the highest and no more or less conventional
than the social, biological or inorganic levels
-----------
Finally to Peter's most salient question: "What will be the
characteristics of those beings who are not limited by SOM?" If we
read ZAMM by the understand that it describes intellectual value
emerging out of its social origin it's clear that the pre-SOM
existence (not limited by SOM) is what Pirsig calls Aretê. This
mythological era's people certainly knew the hardness of walls and
the difficulties of leaping over them and every limitations there are,
but this was magical times, they were not lame subjects facing an
indifferent reality, they could manipulate it through rituals.
"Magical" is of course intellect peering down on the social reality
contemptuously calling it superstition and/or "believing in the
supernatural", but the non S/O reality neither knew natural or
supernatural or any of SOM's many distinctions.
PS.
This social-magical reality exists today as "religion" (in the said
Semitic sense) but enough for now.
Bo
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