Horse (horse@wasted.demon.nl)
Fri, 8 May 1998 05:43:02 +0100
Greetings from Sunny(!) Cambridge
Magnus wrote:
"Thank you for an interesting and important post. However, I wouldn't say that
SOM is synonymous with dualism. At some point or another, I think every world
view is a dualism. Monisms usually use one kind of stuff to explain two other
kinds of stuffs, and if it's a SOM monism, the two other stuffs are subjects and
objects. The main (and only?) difference between SOM monisms and SOM dualisms
is that SOM monisms have a connection between subjects and objects whereas SOM
dualisms have not. I'm not really sure if this connection is important or not.
As long as it doesn't lead to contradictions within the metaphysics, I'm ok with
a non connection. You can also see all dualisms as monisms. The monism being
ultimate reality. The two stuffs of the dualism is just the first division of
ultimate reality. In that case, the MoQ is also a dualism, or a monism,
depending on how you look at it."
My reference to SOM being synonymous with dualism was as a description of
the way in which it is referred to by Pirsig and the general description
referred to in the PROGRAM posts. There is also the point that pre-20th century
(and post-Aristotelian) western descriptions of the world tend to be in the
form of seperate and incompatible types as a legacy of the Cartesian dualistic
view, which was itself a restating of the Aristotelian division of reality into
Subject and Object. These opposing structures were, more often than not, of the
either/or form.
I accept that the predominant WESTERN metaphysical constructions are
initially of a monistic form. This is then subject to an initial binary,
either/or division in order to place the Monistic thing into two distinct sets
of things of incompatible forms/types. There are then further subdivisions
which generate a hierarchically structured view of reality.
The main point about this division is that all that exists falls into one or
the other of these catagories. Each catagory is seperate and distinct from the
other.
The subject/object split, it seems to me, is a general description of this
either/or form of division. I may be wrong.
Donny recently brought up the subject of persons, which seems to be another
form of either/or division, where living entities are described as persons or
not-persons. This is a subdivision of the living OR not-living division.
It is not always strictly of this form. Empedocles chose to divide substance
into four elements -water, air, fire and earth - with two different forces at
work - love and strife -to bind or seperate the elements. But again we see
reality split into two types - Substance OR Force.
A simple, though not inaccurate, view of current thinking is that there are
particles (substance) and the forces which bind them. Quantum mechanics and
(unified) field theory seems to hold a similar view (I think!!).
Having said that, it is quite easy to accept this idea as complemetary. That
Substance AND Force coexist as a complementary pair. It may be that this view
is more in line with the DQ/SQ split.
The point I tried to make in my last post was that it SEEMS that SOM - as a
euphemism - regards structures of opposites (subject/object, mind/matter etc.)
as either/or structures. Prior to the point in history which gave rise to the
SOM there was a tendency to regard dualistic belief in an animistic sense, that
each was represented by some powerful group or entity. So the forces of order
and chaos, good and evil, etc. were constantly battling to gain the upper hand.
Fatalism was the predominant belief. This was the mythos of which.Pirsig
talked.
"I think the dynamic/static split of the MoQ is an either/or split.Actually,
I'm not sure about the value of such a categorization either."
I would say that although the MoQ splits reality/Quality in a binary fashion it
is definitely not of the either/or form. The 'Static' patterns of value are
what make up reality and encompass both subject AND object. The changes which
occur within those patterns are made possible by Dynamic Quality. DQ is, in
many ways, the evolutionary process. But DQ/SQ are mutually supportive
complementary, if you like. They exist as part of a harmonious whole.
I suppose that in some ways this is more reminiscent of the pre-Greek idea, the
Mythos, except that they are mutually regulator and interdependent.
In MoQ terms the either/or split is of low value, but this seems to me to be
the way that Western thought developed. I'm just trying to figure out what it
is not justify it. :)
When you talk of the "Good" and the "True", you seem to express this in the SOM
way. There is EITHER good OR their is truth.
I would take the view that they are the same thing, but in the Sophistic
tradition I don't believe that their is a single TRUTH. There are many Truths
all of which are Good. I'm not talking here in the sense that something is True
or False.
Maggie:
I agree with much of what you say. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with
dualism, it is how you regard the two forms. Where they are mutually exclusive
and where all of reality is in one set OR the other problems arise. As you
brought up in a previous post, where is the interface of one to the other. How
can two distinct catagories co-exist. If we admit that they are not distinct
but complement each other, are interdependent and part of the same thing then
most of these problems disappear.
What causes the problem in the first place is the either/or split. If I am Mind
OR I am Matter then which am I. The answer is that I am both.
In MoQ I exist as a result of the levels of Static Value - I am created by
them, I do not create them. Inorganic and Organic patterns of value creates my
physical being, Social patterns of value creates the environment in which I
exist and the rules by which I perceive and live within that environment,
Intellectual patterns of value create the means by which I make sense of the
rest.
The DQ/SQ split is complementary not combative.
I think I've written enough for the moment and I've just received Donny's post
so I'd better go and read that.
Horse
"Making history, it turned out, was quite easy.
It was what got written down.
It was as simple as that!"
Sir Sam Vimes.
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