[MD] The SOL-ution

[Laird Bedore]

Hi Bo!

Glad to see you back here - hopefully it won't be too short of a visit, 
we can use some more insightful voices!


>> [Laird]
>> So back toward the original topic again... does a revised SOL improve
>> the big picture? SOL/SOM as just one (though dominant) mode of
>> intellect, objective reality within intellect 
>>     
> [Bo]
> IMO no revision is needed. "SOM as just one mode of intellect" is  
> exactly what causes the mess. The 4th. level isn't just 
> "objectivity", subjectivity is its inextricable counterpart. (ZMM 
> page 367):
>
>     "What is essential to understand at this point is that until 
>     now there was no such thing as mind and matter, subject 
>     and object, form and substance. Those divisions are just 
>     dialectical inventions that came later."  
>
> Again: Intellect is the value of the subjective/objective DIVIDE!  
>
>   
..(snip)..
> [Bo]
> Intellect is the VALUE of splitting existence into materialism and 
> idealism, matter and mind, and the many S/O derivatives
>   

[Laird]
Yes, Certainly subjectivity is the inextricable counterpart of 
objectivity. That's fundamental to SOM, making "SOM as just one mode of 
intellect" cover both subjectivity and objectivity. I'm failing to see 
any mess-causing going on.

I think the keystone of (at least my) questions circle around one 
specific point: Is the subject/object divide found in every intellectual 
pattern, or does the intellectual level include other patterns devoid of 
the subject-object divide? SOLAQI (subject-object logic AS 
quality-intellect) implies in its very name that the split is 
exhaustive... while many here (myself included) are taking the stance 
that the S/O divide is not and cannot be exhaustive.

In fact, the ZMM p367 quote above is one I'd quote to support this 
point. " Those [root S/O] divisions ... came later", and in some 
cultures didn't come at all. Should we say that patterns without S/O 
divisions cannot be intellectual patterns? What of Zen, and other 
Eastern patterns?


> [Bo] 
> What's more, the SOL was hinted at in the first proto-moq. Check 
> ZMM's diagram page where Classic Quality - subtitled 
> "intellectual" - is split into subjective/objective. Why Pirsig 
> dropped Phaedru's great insight is a mystery, but by doing so he 
> robbed the MOQ of its enormous potentials.  
>
>   

[Laird]
I think Pirsig realized between ZMM and card-catalogging LILA that 
subjects and objects were not inherent pieces in his philosophy - not 
because they have no place, but because their place is unimportant to 
the core philosophy itself. Their place is still very important to us 
(as practitioners perhaps more than philosophers), and so we've kept 
looking for a better fit. After enough post-LILA prodding, Pirsig gave 
an answer I think was a dismissive, "here's a candy, now shut up" type 
answer on the subjective/objective front, and we're still untangling 
ourselves from the sticky strands of that candy-answer.


-Laird