[MD] [MD} The SOM/MOQ discrepancy

[Andre Broersen]

Hi Ham, thanks for your comments which are always appreciated:
You say:

What I like about your summary (the SOM part) is that it expresses the
dualism of classical philosophy without resorting to levels or redefining
"intellect" as one of them.  What it is missing, of course, is the value of
this S-O connection.  This "the genius of Pirsig" may have realized but
was unwilling to apply within the SOM framework.

Andre:

Ham, I'm sure you've heard of the expression: 'If you can't beat them, join
them'. Pirsig found that the value of this S-O connection was wrought with
dangers and misunderstandings (in the sense that it did not adequately
reflect/explain reality).Secondly, the premisses of a S-O reality were seen
to be false. To apply changes and stay within the SOM framework would have
meant too many compromises and have rendered his 'reasoning'
meaningless....woolly in SOM's eyes. And SOM'ists would have again missed
the point he was trying to make. Hence a metaphysics based on Quality.

Ham:

I don't know what "injected objects and subjects with a dynamic reality"
means, but your description "nothing fixed...but interweaving, interplaying,
interfering" certainly suggests a dynamic process, whether the system as
awhole is "stable" or not.  Existence (the world according to SOM) is
differentiation and change in process.  It is a DYNAMIC world: its creation
is dynamic; evolution is dynamic; birth and death are dynamic; human history
is dynamic; the entire universe is a dynamic system. And whatever exists
must be CREATED by some source that transcends finitude and process
including that which is "responsive to Reality".

Andre:

Agree with this Ham, and what I tried to say was that static PoV's interact
with eachother in the way that Pirsig describes the way the welder fixed his
chainguard ( ZMM p349). There is a mutual 'responsiveness' in progress as
the welder displays his craft which really is art.

Ham:

When we distinguish the relational (SO) perspective of a finite subject to
its objects from the absolute source of both, we realize that Difference not
only defines existence but separates the subject from its uncreated
Essence.It is this separation from which Value is born and comes into being
through the experience of a sensible agent.  Value is what draws us to the
Source.It is the basis for our survival "instinct", our compassion, our
joys,fears, and sorrows, our morality, and our quest for truth.  The
cognizant Self is spawned from Difference: the difference between
sensibility and otherness.  And what holds this dichotomy in perpetuum is
the Value of Essence.

Andre:

And here Ham, not meaning to be unkind, you are from Mars and I am from
Venus. The MoQ posits that there are no objects or subjects
'differentiated', there are static patterns of value, the 'static'
continuously experienced sense of reality about which we can
intellectualise, realising we are an integral part of this process. And what
holds this process in 'in perpetuum' is DQ/SQ.

Regards
Andre