[MD] What is SOM?

[skutvik at online.no]

DMB, All

10 Aug. you gave a most learned and impressive speech:

> dmb says: Thanks to some recent help from Ron, 

Wow, you must have been far down  ;-)

> it seems pretty clear to me now that there are at least two different
> things going on here and they are conflated and confused in various
> ways. I'm talking about SOM and essentialism. These are not identical.
> SOM is a kind of essentialism, but there are other kinds, although the
> former is usually a subset of the latter. I say "usually" because the
> MOQ retains SOM in a non-essentialist way. As is often said, subjects
> and objects lose their metaphysical status within the MOQ and are
> instead understood to be concepts derived from experience and handed to
> us by the cultural eye glasses as we acquire language. SOM is usually
> essentialist in the sense that it takes subjects and objects as the
> ontological ground of experience. Scientific materialism is
> essentialist in the sense that it takes objective reality as
> ontologically real, as what actually exists. 
 
I agree generally, although some of your formulations grates. SOM 
is always essential in the sense that it always have divided reality 
in an essential and a non-essential aspect. About the MOQ 
retaining SOM in an non-essentialist way, complete agreement. 
IMO because it becomes its intellectual level where only the value 
of the S/O distinction remains ...as the highest and best ... the "M" 
taken over by the MOQ.        

> As Ron said of essences, "think of it as objecthood. As isolated
> entities in a vacuum". If logic has been "predicated on truth in being"
> since Aristotle, as he and Paul explain, then truth has been what
> corresponds to objects and these entities are thought to be what
> actually is, what actually exists. 

SOM is the distinction between (what at any time is seen as) the 
objective, essential, true aspect of reality and the subjective, non-
essential one, and why I dislike the notion of Quality as "our" 
essence with the MOQ a mere theory about this essence.  IMO the 
new metaphysical divide is the DQ/SQ one.   

> But this is approximately the opposite of what Plato says and he's the
> original essentialist. Aristotle's metaphysics of substance rejects and
> reversed Plato's theory of forms and yet they're both essentialists.
> I'd like to suggest that a similar thing happens here. 

Right, here is ZAMM's point, namely that SOM emerged as the 
search for a deeper explanation than the mythological (social) one. 
It first manifested as the mere assertion that such an search was 
relevant, that such an explanation - truth called - exists and that 
anything else only appears to be true. From this base SOM began 
its winding road over many S/O variants and ever greater 
complexity. What is true has not always been  "concrete", but as 
often "abstract" (ref. Plato) but the schism has always been 
fundamental       

> The MOQ rejects SOM and essentialism. The latter is so important that
> it might be better to say the MOQ rejects som AS essentialism, AS an
> ontological ground. It can reject this essentialist element even while
> it accepts "subjects" and "objects" as useful concepts. That's how it
> has a place in the MOQ, Bo. 

The MOQ rejects the S/O split as fundamental, but it introduces its 
own DQ/SQ split, one can't deny that.    
 
> Its gonna get confusing if I don't speak about you guys in the third
> person...
 
> I think Gav makes a good point but it doesn't quite address the
> question about "where we are when we are in SOM". I think scientific
> objectivity has produced an affliction we call alienation and the
> objectification of nature in particular is a freaking disaster but I
> suspect Bo's question goes in different direction. Alienation is a
> consequence of SOM but Bo is interested in the nature of the levels
> themselves, thus he rejects Gav's answer because there is no
> "alienation level". Instead of trying to answer Bo's question, I'd
> make a case the question only makes sense if the MOQ is a rival form
> of essentialism. 

A good presentation of  our cases. 

> This is probably the source of many such questions and the basis of the
> theory that SOM and intellect are the same thing. In other words, Bo
> takes the levels of the MOQ as an ontology, as what actually exists,
> rather than an intellectual description that categorizes experience. I
> mean, the MOQ says that experience IS reality, that reality is
> phenomenal and not ontological. 

I take the DQ/SQ split as fundamental - "ontological" if you must - 
the levels however are static, meaning if dissected finely enough 
they merge into the level below, yet inorganic value is "firm" 
enough for the rest of the static levels to build on it. To be honest I 
think phenomenal/ontological is more static intellectual "noise", the 
former S-like, the latter O-like and this is only relevant  inside the 
4th. level, not applicable to the MOQ itself 

End of part I.

Bo