[MD] What is SOM?

[MarshaV]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <skutvik at online.no>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 4:30 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] What is SOM?


Joe and Marsha

11 Aug. Joe  wrote:

> On Monday 11 August 3:29 AM 2008 Marsha Asks Bo:

> What exactly is SOM? Do you think it has an essence?  Seems to be it's
> _evolved_ over the past 2000 years?  Evolved.  Meaning different
> things at what points in its evolution?  What are you arguing
> for/against?  You cannot mean the conventional view because there has
> always been quite a difference between the philosophers/scientific pov
> and the laypersons pov.  The SOL seems to dissolve when you understand
> that s/o has been a moving target.

Bo:
Marsha,
I did not notice this, due to my "exile". An essence? ... well in the
sense of essence being the innermost reality as opposed to the
irreal, only appearing reality, in this sense ESSENCE IS SOM! I
cannot see the SOL dissolving due to SOM has gone through
many phases, (with Plato) the "essential" aspect were IDEAS and
with Aristotle it became SUBSTANCE, later OBJETS, because my
contention is that SOM is the distinction, what the essence has
been at any historical period is of lesser interest. And why I dislike
Quality as "our" essence with the MOQ some arbitrary "finger".
MOQ takes leave of all SOM's essences with its DQ/SQ
metaphysical divide.

Marsha:
Essence and SOM are the same only in that they are trying to define similar 
points-of-view.  Both are definitions and nothing more.  Essentialism and 
SOM are both like trees in a forest.  Quality, to me, is a tree, the forest 
and beyond.

It's interesting to me that while Buddha, Nagarjuna and others moves beyond 
subject and object, the topic is still subject and object, or more 
accurately not subject and object.  It's the moving beyond that is the moon. 
I think the topic (not sure you can call it a metaphysics) of Emptiness 
belongs with SOM in the Intellectual Level.  For this reason, and the fact 
that the MOQ represents a synthesis of East and West, that the SOL doesn't 
work for me.


                               ---------------

Joe continued:
> 44 years ago, for three years I studied the philosophy of Thomas
> Aquinas in a Dominican monastery in Providence R.I..  Aquinas based
> his thought on the writings of Aristotle.  When the Pope makes a
> pronouncement of Faith in Rome the Summa of Aquinas lies next to the
> bible, the only two books in the room. In scholastic thought, Aquinas
> is highly regarded.  However at the end of his life he wrote: ³What I
> have written is as straw!² I suppose he meant there was not much food
> value for the mind in his writings.

Bo:
Hi Joe, this was impressive stuff ("beautifully wirtten" to cite
Marsha) and I will return to it to do it some justice. Coming soon to
a computer near you ;-)


Marsha:
Joe, indeed, has a beautiful voice.


Marsha