John to Andre:
Is SOM inextricably tied to modern society?
Andre:
Look John, 'modern society' is the way it is. Is this perspective based
on a subject-object metaphysics? No, because a SOM does not accept the
reality of values. SOM _simply_ says that only subjects and objects are
real. I think the first quote dmb provides by Livingstone captures it
well: pragmatism and postmodernism:
"...do not believe that thoughts and things inhabit different
ontological orders: they do not acknowledge an external or natural realm
of objects, of things-in-themselves, which is ultimately impervious to,
or fundamentally different than, thought or mind or consciousness.
Accordingly, they escape the structure of meanings built around the
modern subjectivity, which presupposes the self's separation or
cognitive distance from this reified realm of objects."
John:
Whether or not anything is ultimately subjective or not, seems a pretty
inane point to make in the context of the MoQ's insights onto the
relativistic nature of "subjective". So if you are correct and this is
dmb's and Dan's main point to me, I fail utterly to grasp it's relevance.
Andre:
Sorry to hear this John. From your response it appears to me that you
are mixing the MoQ insights (eg the 4 levels as patterns of value) and
interpret those from a SOM perspective. And this is where the confusion
comes in. And I guess led to Dan's observation that you do not
understand the MoQ.
John:
No problem here. The fact that the self is derived (from social,
intellectual, biological patterns) is not a problem for me. The
assertion that the self does therefore not exist, is.
Andre:
And here you are doing it again John. This is NOT what the MoQ argues.
The self is NOT derived from the patterns (here we enter the realm of
self/ego formation, internalization and objectification something our
parents, conventional authority, religion and the education system is
very good in).
We ARE those patterns. Nothing derived from...we are the patterns. You
argue a 'separation' and 'cognitive distance' from the patterns (see
dmb's quote above). You thereby reify them and set yourself apart from
everything. This is SOM as well and something the MoQ obviously
disagrees with.
John:
So to recapitulate: your, David's and Dan's view (and Pirsig's in your
opinion) that the Giant - and social systems in general, work according
to no conscious plan or guidance and just sort of evolve?
Andre:
Strange conclusion to make John and I smell Ham in here (with his
intelligent design) and/or some sort of religiously conceived plan. I
mean 'work according to a plan'? What plan? You mean an intelligently
conceived plan? And when did this plan start then? You mean to say that
before the beginning of the earth, before the sun and the stars were
formed, before the primal generation of everything, this intelligent,
conscious plan existed?...Sitting there, having no mass or energy of its
own, not in anyone's mind because there wasn't anyone, not in space
because there was no space either- this intelligent, conscious plan existed?
If that plan existed I honestly don't know what a thing has to do to be
/non/existent. It seems to me that this intelligent conscious plan has
passed every test of nonexistence there is. There is no single attribute
of nonexistence that that plan doesn't have. Or a single scientific
attribute of existence it does have. And yet you still believe that it
exists? (freely adopted from ZMM,p32-3)
John:
Are the evolutionary impulses mysterious or are they explicable? Can
they by encapsulated by some label and can you (or Dan or David or
Pirsig) then answer my question as to their necessity?
Andre:
The MoQ suggests that evolution occurred due to 'spur of the moment
decisions' based on Dynamic Quality i.e. undefined betterness.
'Dynamic Quality is not structured and yet it is not chaotic. It is
value that cannot be contained by static patterns. What the
substance-centered evolutionists were showing with their absence of
final 'mechanisms' or 'programs' was not an air-tight case for the
biological goallessness of life. {nor goal of life programs of divine
ordination or Ham's essential intelligent design, for that matter). What
they were unintentionally showing was [that]...the patterns of life are
constantly evolving in response to something 'better' than that which
these [physical] laws (or intellectual design plans) have to offer.
(Anthony's PhD, p 91)
That 'label' you are looking for John: Dynamic Quality.
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