[MD] What is SOM?

[Ham Priday]

Hi Craig, Steve --


[Pirsig, via Steve]:
> "So what the Metaphysics of Quality concludes is that all schools
> are right on the mind-matter question.  Mind is contained in static
> inorganic patterns.  Matter is contained in static intellectual
> patterns."

[Craig, previously]:
> This has always seemed a slip of the tongue to me.
> Does anyone else think so?

You bet, Craig.  Trying to assign patterns to existence only demonstrates 
the illogic of the whole levels paradigm.  One might as well number every 
experience encountered, from birth to death, assigning greater value to the 
higher-numbered ones on the premise that experiences are more "intellectual" 
as we become wiser.  It makes no sense as an epistemology, and it gets us no 
closer to comprehending reality.  A "pattern", as Pirsig uses the term, is 
an intellectual construct, nothing more.  Therefore, it serves no purpose to 
analyze experience "by the number" or existence "by the level".

All awareness is differentiated by the intellect, whether the differences 
are considered patterned, numerical, polar, oppositional, incremental, or 
relational.  That makes the experience of reality (existence) multiplistic 
in time and space.  It is the intellect that classifies existence as 
inorganic, biological, social, mental, spacial and temporal.  Intellect is 
the cognizant function of a human being, not a property or level intrinsic 
to objective reality.

In the same way, anthropologists divide human history into Neolithic, 
Mesolithic, and Paleolithic periods.  Geologists catalog natural history as 
Cretaceous, pre- and post-Jurassic periods, etc., while historians 
distinguish Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, and Modern ages.  None of these 
divisions are innate in the evolutionary process.  They are convenient 
intellectual distinctions arbitrarily made by scientists to relate certain 
events characteristic of a specific era to a system in transition. 
Evidently influenced by the categorical approach of Science, Pirsig has 
labeled the whole of reality "Dynamic", while applying "Static" to the 
system components, even though we experience them as dynamic.  As I see it, 
this only confuses the issue.

In logic (and metaphysics) difference begins with two.  Experiential 
existence is actualized as a dichotomy of two exclusive but mutually 
dependent contingencies: Subjective (valuistic) Awareness and Objective 
Otherness.  This dichotomy establishes a metaphysical basis for the 
experience of difference and the proprietary cognizance of a multiplistic 
world.  We don't need to block out what we experience into so many levels 
and patterns, stages and periods, quanta and macro events, etc., in order to 
relate finitude to its absolute, undivided source.

Despite our differences, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you all a 
very Merry Christmas.

Regards,
Ham