[MD] extricating MOQ from SOM

[jjengele]

I recently changed ISP's and I've been off list for about 
a week.  There were some things I wished I could have 
addressed sooner but, better late than never.



Heather quoted this from a quote from my letter to the list:

> "  In spite of this Pirsig repeatedly - inadvertently
 - returns to his initial correct insight and
 presents intellect as the S/O divide alone. He says
 that he saw no need to define intellect, everybody
 know what it means and my dictionary says: "The
 power of the mind to reason contrasted with feeling
 and instincts". "Mind" can be omitted without losing
 any meaning and because reason is objectivity itself
 and feeling is subjectivity itself .. intellect is
 the S/O distinction. What screws it all up is the
 notion of a mind doing the intellectualization,
 while it's intellect that does the
 mind/matter-ization. "

 >   Can you please explain this?

 >Heather Perella


those are the words of Bodvar Skutvik, not mine (Jim Engele).
I took them from his letter which is linked to on the MoQ.org 
main page titled "The SOL".  

He's saying that the SO divide really is the intellectual level.   
They are one and the same.  In fact, consciousness itself is 
neatly defined by the intellectual level.  The action of Subject 
meeting Object is consciousness and the view  through that 
prism is intellect.   This is SO in its dynamic (present 
moment) form.

The scientific method is the use of the SO split to analyze
(static pattern of reality) and learn from dynamic reality.  
I think that different people place more or less value on 
subject or object depending who they are.  Or at least this 
is how I can understand it at this point which I admit I'm not 
entirely clear about.  For example:  'Beauty is in the eye of 
the beholder' is a concept that people have generally 
accepted as true.  Well that is because it is subjective and 
that is more valuable than saying our society dictates what 
we must accept as 'beauty' (however, as you can see, this 
is a battle which is still raging).  Subjective and objective 
truths  are both of a superior position to sociological values 
if, and only if, they are generally accepted.  They all are, 
however, static patterns created to aid in the understanding 
of dynamic reality(which we experience consciously as 
described by the subject meeting object in the present 
moment).  


To use your example of a walk through the forest:  Sure, the 
forest exists whether you are aware of it or not, but when 
you(subject) and the forest(object) meet in the dynamic 
aspect of quality (present moment) then you are aware of 
reality(dynamic quality).  Analysis of this snapshot in time is 
how we learn (we apply subjectivity or objectivity to the 
moment in question).  This is obviously done intellectually 
after the fact.  The intellectual products created are constructs 
that may or may not be accepted as useful.  Good ideas are 
contagious.  

One cannot be aware of reality without your personal 
perspective and it is impossible to experience reality without 
some sort of object for the subject to experience.  This is the 
intellectualization of reality, the division of subject and object.  
Of course, in the present moment, reality happens whether 
you are aware of it or not.  Awareness is the subject object 
divide.  

This is at odds with what RP had to say as he waffled between 
the placement of S&O parallel with inorganic and biological 
levels and subject with sociological and intellectual and with 
the placement of S&O in some other fashion.  I felt confused 
with RP's discussion of SO but almost instantly at peace with 
Bodvar's. 

I'm sure there is a better and more thorough explanation 
than this but that's roughly how I see it.  I may have made some 
errors in this explanation.  This is formulating in my mind as I
write and I've cut and changed things many times to be as
accurate as I can.

"Who's listening?  The
woods are.  Who am I on this walk?"

Bodvar says you are not your mind!  And now so does the MoQ.

Jim Engele