[MD] What is SOM?

[Peter Corteen]

Hi Ham,

I hope you enjoy this festive period too.

Existentially yours,

-Peter

On 24/12/2007, Ham Priday <hampday1 at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
> 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
>
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