[Mark]
Yes, you are pointing to the distinction between
mind and matter, something that has always been
at the center-point of religions and
philosophies, particularly the metaphysical.
[Arlo]
Not sure how you get this, but its not what I
said. You said "SOM is used for communication",
and this is an incorrect use of the term "SOM".
"SOM" is a specific metaphysical position that
declares "subjects" and "objects" to be the primary division of "reality".
The fact that we communicate (often) using
"subjects" and "objects" has nothing to do with
the SOM premise. In other words, "SOM" does not
mean the grammatical use of "subjects" and
"objects", but again refers to a very specific metaphysical position.
[Mark]
What, if I may ask, is doing the selection?
[Arlo]
Pirsig approaches this topic in his discussion
about hypotheses, and brings Poincare and
Einstein into the mix. Pirsig uses the analogy of
a "knife", Einstein is quoted as describing it as
""Evolution has shown that at any given moment
out of all conceivable constructions a single one
has always proved itself absolutely superior to
the rest," and let it go at that." (ZMM)
Poincare, Pirsig mentions, "hypothesized that
this selection is made by what he called the
"subliminal self," an entity that corresponds
exactly with what Phædrus called preintellectual awareness." (ZMM)
Peirce, I'd add, talks about this via his ideas
on Abduction, saying that "we often derive from
observation strong intimations of truth, without
being able to specify what were the circumstances
we had observed which conveyed those intimations"
(Peirce), something Eco describes as "an instinct
which relies upon unconscious perception of
connections between aspects of the world" (Eco).
To me this intuitive, knife-wielding,
sympathetic, unconscious, subliminal self is what
you are asking about, and I don't think there is
any way to approach this apart from analogy, and
I think far better ones were given above than I could give.
In the language of Hofstadter, you are attempting
to use a mirror to reflect itself, and the only
thing you'll get is infinite regress. Not that
this is a bad thing, it points to the missing
space in the center of Magritte's The False
Mirror, the unavoidable paradoxical recursion
that is at the heart of any symbolic system that
is turned back on itself (which is, in effect, what you are doing).
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