Bodvar Skutvik (skutvik@online.no)
Thu, 14 May 1998 20:24:32 +0100
Thu, 14 May 1998 09:20:50 +0000
Horse wrote:
> Hi there
> There doesn't seem to have been much traffic recently. Are people
> getting bored with trying to define the SOM. Is it proving to be as
> elusive as a very elusive thing on a very elusive day. I was under the
> impression that this was at the heart of the fight to elevate the MoQ
> to the predominant system of thought. If the MoQ is superior to SOM
> then how can we show this, if there is little argument to find out what
> it is that MoQ is superior to. Are we to take the MoQ to the doors of
> Science and Academia with a note explaining that whilst we aren't quite
> sure what a SOM is we're quite sure that MoQ is superior, so would you
> please put aside all your ideas and carefully structured belief systems
> built up over the last 2500 years and just accept what we say.
Well put Horse, but don't we know what the Subject-Object metaphysics
is? It is the division of reality into its two realms. Within the SOM
the materialists/positivists/realists like to dismiss everything
subjective, but it can't be done. The idealists goes to the other
extreme, but that is impossible too. And history has seesawed
around this fulcrum for ages producing platypi .
> >> 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.
> > I agree with Magnus here.
> Whoa there! Hold on. If at some point every world view is a dualism,
> then how can SOM avoid being synonymous with dualism. Something is
> amiss!
The "agreement" is mine and I still uphold it. Dualism is
not detrimental in itself. I wrote this entry a few days ago:
SOM is dualistic but Its great "sin" is not that, rather that
the division is at the wrong place. The MOQ's fault-line
runs along far different lines (I called it Chaotic/Orderly
and not Subjective/Objectively (and Richard protested!)) and
because of that it is (more) in accordance with experience
(I don't say "reality" because it evokes 'objectivity')
Regarding the the two other criteria: economy and
consistency it is about equal to SOM.
> Not all world views are dualist. World views can be either monist,
> dualist or pluralist (dualism is pluralist, I suppose, being greater
> than one ). It also depends upon where or how you consider a world view
> or at which level. MoQ starts with Quality, this is divided into DQ and
> SQ, SQ is divided into Inorganic, Organic, Social and Intellectual. So
> is MoQ monist, dualist or pluralist. It's all three dependent on where
> you look.
I seem to remember Pirsig saying that SOM is also a "Quality
metaphysics", only that it divides the undifferentiated whole into
subjects and objects while the MOQ divides into DQ and SQ.
The only difference that the latter is the better division. Does this
sound feeble and not so earth-shaking as we want it to be? Not at
all. It is radical enough for the next ten millennia.
> Second Point:
> Synonymous does not mean, nor did I intend it to mean, identical or
> exclusive. The phrase itself implies that it is dualist, but is this
> inclusive, or exclusive. Is reality divided into ONLY subject OR object
> or is it subject AND object.
Good question, I would say it depends: S OR O for the purists of
either side, S AND M for daily use.
> In previous posts I have stated that
> Pirsig does not refer to THE SOM, but to *A* SOM. There is a
> difference. Subject/Object, Substance/Form, Mind/Matter, Sense/Idea,
> Living/Non-Living, Person/Non-Person. Are these inclusive or exclusive.
The last two don't belong here. To be alive or to be a person
has no subjective counterpart as I see it..
> The SOM seems to indicate that they are exclusive. But this doesn't mean
> that this is the whole of SOM.
> Pirsig makes the point that SOM is a system which excludes Value/Quality
> as a major part of the metaphysics or at least reduces it to 'mere'
> subjectivity and then reduces subjective to "just what you like" - in
> other words, 'mere' opinion. This is reminiscent of the Logical
> Positivist view. If a statement cannot be tested or measured or
> expressed mathematically then it is meaningless. Philosophy, according
> to the positivists is merely the analysis of language and subjectivism
> is merely emotivist rambling.
I agree to a point, but it isn't only the Logical Positivists and
their likes who opposes the Quality notion, the idealistic
counterpart is just as hung up in SOM. Yes, they are the tough ones.
Anyone can disprove a materialist, but to counter a spiritualist
sounds so "cruel". I know a lot of good people who listen to
spiritist channels Leah, Michael, Findhorn plus plus and think that
the Quality I speak so much about is some sort of NewAge thing, but
it isn't. It's beyond the mind/matter trenches.
> This seems to be at the heart of the problem in defining SOM. Whatever
> you say it is there is always a school of thought that says that this
> not the REAL SOM or that there really isn't a SOM and then in the next
> breath tell you that you are not being objective or rational, or you
> are being emotive etc.
Yes, that's right. No one will acknowledge any Subject/Object
metaphysics. Pirsig's great achievement was to point it out. Back
when I had my insight of the invalidity of the SOM I had not the
strength and "recanted". But the meeting with Pirsig's ZMM
and knowing that somewhere there was a person who had had the same
insight and "worked on the problem" was the road to courage and
health for me. Which shows the enormous influence such a basic world
view has, and also that once a seer has told us that the emperor
is naked, the spell is broken.
> Where Pirsig seems to take issue most is where there is a denial of
> value in SOM - hence the example of the stove. This denial of value as
> anything other than 'just what you like' is probably most emphatic on
> the part of the positivists. What he is most frustrated with is not
> just the SOM, but the attempt to reduce everything to Object
> Metaphysics. Subjectiveness is meaningless there forethere is only
> objectivity and hence objects are the whole of reality.
> So where does this leave us?
> 1) There seems to be little doubt that SOM refers to any system that is
> at least dualistic.
As long as SOM ruled, EVERYTHING was forced into its mould. Even if
big portions kept popping out it was overlooked.
> 2) It would appear that the dualism referred to is of the exclusive
> either/or type.
Right!
> 3) The attempt by the Logical Positivists to reduce the nature of Value
> to emotivism or subjectivism, neither of which have any relevance.
> I think that this last item is the key to the SOM.
> SOM is any system of belief which reduces Value/Quality to 'mere'
> opinion. Value cannot be measured using empirical method.
> Value is
> relative so it is not certain, therefore it is not rational. Value
> cannot be observed so no truth value can be extracted from an
> observational sentence, in fact no observational sentence can
> constructed that pertains to Value.
> SOM is the denial of Value as a REAL thing.
I take the above to be the Logical Positivist stance as you interpret
it?. If so I agree, but as said the "subjectivists" are just as
opposed to the Quality idea.
Do we have the SOM cornered now?
Bo
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