[MD] extricating MOQ from SOM

[Jaclyn Engele]

  > Sounds to me like those are people who interacting in a very real way with
  > Dynamic Quality, and not building up static intellectual patterns to try 
  > and
  > explain it.

  > Gene 


Thank you.  I'm learning and moving into areas which I need more clarification on.

OK, I'm now thinking of things in terms of static/dynamic (which I should have seen) but now I wonder about the relationship between static/dynamic and subject/object?  I've just been reviewing Bodvar Skutvik's essay on the SOL realizing that I'm trying to understand the same thing:

Pirsig; Lila:
My earlier view when I was concentrating on the confusion of subject/object thinking, was to get rid of them entirely to help clarify things. Later I began to see it's not necessary to get rid of them because the MOQ can encase them neatly within its structure. The upper two levels being subjective and the lower two objective.


Bodvar even has the chart in his essay which I tried to bring to this list in my first email on this thread.  The chart was helpful but it still didn't seem right.  Bodvar explains:

  Pirsig:
  In the MOQ, all organisms are objective. They exist in the material world. All societies are subjective. They exist in the mental world. Again, the distinction is very sharp. For example, the president of the United States is a social pattern. No objective scientific instrument can distinguish a President of the US from anyone else.. 
  Bodvar:

  Inorganic instruments only detect inorganic value. But more serious; what has subjective/objective and mental/material to do with quality patterns? In LILA Pirsig (correctly) shows that inorganic value does not correspond to substance, thus intellectual value doesn't correspond to mind. No level corresponds to any of SOM's categories. This makes a SOM-like split open up between biology and society .... at best, more likely between Intellect and the rest and nothing is gained. It's SOM in a quality garb. 

  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. 


Thank you Bodvar Skutvik!

What do the people on this list think of Bodvar Skutvik's revelation?  I think it clears up all the confusion I was having.  I don't know about you guys but I'm moving on.  I think this problems solved.



  Case Case at iSpots.com 
  Thu Oct 26 16:19:38 PDT 2006 

  ...if you are asking how does this kind of thinking (MoQ) effect what one
  does rather than how one thinks, hopefully you develop a sense of humor and
  thick skin. You are going to need them. Most every one around is probably
  thinking in pretty rigid terms. Things are right or wrong, either because
  that's what they feel or that's what they think. Being able to see things
  from multiple perspectives is not going to make you popular. 

  The more you think about things the more out of step with everyone else you
  become. If you can't make superficial conversation and talk about sports
  life can be pretty lonely.

  Oh well, I sure hope I am wrong.

  Case

Don't worry, I've been out of step my whole life.  I get annoyed but I have learned to deal with it.  I bottle it up inside until one day I will snap in a violent outburst, just kidding, or am I...

Jim Engele