LS SOM as MOQ intellectual level


Ant McWatt (ant11@liverpool.ac.uk)
Thu, 12 Mar 1998 18:18:46 +0100


On Mon, 09 Mar 1998 23:33:25 +0000 Bodvar Skutvik
<skutvik@online.no> wrote:

> I will hasten to say that I know Pirsig's own
> "Inorganic+Organic=Objective/Social+Intellectual=Subjective" (SODV
> paper), still I take the liberty to - again - launch the
> "SOM-as-Intellect-of-MOQ" (SAIOM) idea again.
>

Dear Bodvar and the Squad,

>From what I understand about the MOQ and the SOM is that
the MOQ contains (what the Buddhists call) the
unconditioned (Dynamic Quality) and the conditioned (static
quality) while SOM only contains the conditioned. Pirsig
says (especially in ZMM though he doesn`t use this Buddhist
terminology) that the conditioned can be divided many
ways (e.g. classic/romantic, hip/square, subject/object, or
inorganic/biological/social/intellectual).

The difference therefore between the MOQ and SOM is that
the latter does not "contain" the (mystic) unconditioned
(Dynamic Quality, Tao, Dharma) and that even in the
division of the conditioned (which is done for pragmatic
reasons in the MOQ and not because of some ultimate truth
which is supposedly out there) the MOQ and SOM differ. In
SOM, more or less, the inorganic/biological patterns are
reduced to objects and the social/intellectual patterns are
reduced to subjects.

I think what you are getting at is that as the conditioned
(static quality patterns) is the conceptualised, so in a
sense, all our concepts of the universe are intellectual.
However, the social, biological and inorganic patterns
still have an independent existence from the intellect so
to say the SOM equates with the static intellectual quality
level in the MOQ seems to be incorrect from a static point-of
-view.

Maybe, I`ve missed something here so I would
be interested in hearing anyone else`s opinion on
whether or not SOM equals the intellectual level of
the MOQ.

Anthony.

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