[MD] What is SOM?

[Ron Kulp]

[Krimel]

If we are not separate entities perhaps you will recall what kind of
beer I
had for lunch.

Ron:
I am not aware of the many processes of my body yet they are me. But you
probably had root beer.

[Krimel]
Regardless of where it originates the idea that dynamic quality is good
or
better or best strips it of being meaningful or useful. It once again is
Pirsig pointing at the moon but missing the mark.

Ron:

Greek Excellence is the state or quality of excelling, it is an act of
doing. It is dynamic. 

[Krimel]
These are the attributes that Pirsig ascribes to Quality in ZMM. DQ is a
product of Lila. I have said over and over that it is a mistake to
conflate
the two. It amounts to nothing less that removing Quality from the
Metaphysics of Quality.

Ron:
What it does is assert that Quality is not an entity neither are DQ and
SQ.
Quality is experience and DQ and SQ are descriptions of that experience.


[Krimel]
Ron, please stop quoting the Wiki to us. Either pass on a link or put it
in
quotes or better yet tell us what you think it means.

Ron:
You didn't seem to know what essentialism in the classic sense was and
you
didn't seem to know what the Greek concept of "good" was, since your not
into research I just thought a quote was more efficient to get the idea
across. 


[Krimel]
I don't think that's what Dave is saying at all. What you describe was a
version of "essence" that in modern times would be subsumed under set
theory; essence as the defining characteristics of a set. These
characteristic would not as you claim be the defining attributes of any
particular thing but would determine whether a particular thing is a
member
of a sets. What I was criticizing was Dave use of essentialism as
synonomous
with monism.

Ron:
If you would have read that wiki quote instead of correcting it for
grammar
you would have noticed that "set" is used in the context of defining an
entity, an entity is a set of qualities that an object possesses, being
divided and distinguished by them "for any specific kind of entity,
there is a set of characteristics or properties all of which any entity
of that kind must possess" and " It should be noted that essences do not
simply reflect ways of grouping objects; essences must result in
properties of the object."

Monism is an essentialist notion of ontological reductionism.

Krimel:
And I have never pointed to any single way and said it was THE way.

Ron:
You are certainly advocating essentialism as "common sense" reality.

Krimel:
 Dave
appears to be saying that within the MoQ there is no ontology. As I
understand it ontology is about "what is".

Ron:
Again, if the Quote was read, "It seeks to determine what entities can
be said to "exist", and how these entities can be grouped according to
similarities and differences."  ENTITIES, it functions on the concepts
of entities and how they are grouped and said to "exist".
Ontology operates on the axiom that this is "what is".

Krimel:
 If, within the MoQ there is
nothing, as he says, that really doesn't leave us much to know. Since
epistemology is supposed to be about knowing that pretty much eliminates
that. Without ontology or epistemology Dave's metaphysics seem little
more
than a Cheshire Cat grinning in a void.

Ron:
Pirsigs MoQ is anti-essentialist. Being anti-essentialist it does not
subscribe to the traditional notion of ontology. MoQ ontology is
therefore
more like the traditional definition of an epistemology. It takes
Quality
off the chess board, making you jump to Cheshire Cats in voids when
essentialism, ontological reductionism and analytics evaporates
like the Cheshire grin it is.

It's all grinning in a void, isn't that what you once said?