[MD] What is SOM?

[Platt Holden]

> [Platt]
> I'm afraid your finger points in only one direction -- down. Such 
> reductionism can be helpful at times, but it utterly fails, as Pirsig
> said, 
> to answer, "Why does any life survive?" 
> 
> Maybe you should take another look at the direction Pirsig's finger
> points.
> 
> [Krimel]
> Ok I was wrong. I overestimated your ability to even tell which way his
> finger points. Pirsig clearly begins at the lower levels and points up.
> I
> began a rather detailed account of how the levels emerge from one
> another
> not long ago. It addressed why this happens and what are some of the
> critical features of each level that make them different. It does answer
> some of the childish "Whys?" you keep asking if not completely then
> certainly with more precision than your "Poof" answer.
> 
> It can be found in the archives at:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/htdig.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/2008-August/027
> 38
> 9.html
> 
> It was posted Aug. 17 at 13:05:46 pm 2008

Well, well, well. Asking "why" as in Pirsig's question, "Why does any life 
survive?" is now childish. So being childish like Pirsig I took another 
look at your long, drawn out answers to some questions about evolution and 
found once again that your "precision" explanation was nothing more than 
"spontaneously arising configurations of order." 

Another words, "Oops."

As for finger pointing, Pirsig clearly begins with Quality and points in 
many directions, including the teleological view of evolution. But I never 
underestimate your ability to reduce all experience to the firing of 
synapses in bulbs of nerve tissue. Why? Your answer: "Don't ask."