[MD] The SOM/MOQ discrepancy.

[Ham Priday]

Andre [Bovar mentioned] --


Gentlemen, I'm certainly not the one to explain Pirsig's meanings or define 
the MoQ.  My reasons for hanging in here are 1) to absorb what I can about 
this philosophy, without the hierarchy of levels, and 2) hopefully to learn 
something that will make sense to an 'SOMist' like myself.

This 1/28 statement of yours reveals the anguish you folks are going through 
to reconcile an arbitrary four-level paradigm of reality with the reality we 
all experience (as observing subjects).

> Bodvar argues ( I do not want to miss represent you) that there is
> something not quite right at the intellectual level (to put it mildly).
> Here I just want to throw in my bit so please bear with me.
>
> If the intellectual level is 'confined' to the 'skilled manipulation of
> abstract symbols that have no corresponding particular experience
> and which behave according to rules of their own' (this points indeed
> to math, logic, computer programming etc) but my question is:
> 'What are we then intellectualising about? what the fuck (pardon me)
> is going on here? Are we intellectualising about intellectualising or are
> we intellectualising about learning to understand inorganic, organic and
> social PoV's?...and at the intellectual level trying to dominate/control
> these?  Where is the connection?

I couldn't agree more that "there is something not right at the intellectual 
level", and I think you have identified the problem.  The "connection", of 
course, is the cognizant subject (which Pirsig wants to eliminate).  As the 
reasoning and conceptualizing power of man, "intellect" is not just 
"manipulating abstract symbols".  It's integrating forms and properties 
perceived by the senses into meaningful constructs that make our experienced 
world a cogent system.

When you count the pennies in your piggy-bank, you're not just using 
mathematics and symbols, you're touching and handling real coins and 
arranging them in an orderly way.  When you later "figure out" how many more 
pennies you'll need to purchase a greeting card, you're not just adding and 
subtracting numerical symbols, you're retrieving those images of the coins 
and imagining those extra coins you're hoping to find, earn or borrow.  It's 
all "intellectualizing", folks!  Whether you're dealing with tangible 
objects in "real time" or thinking about it "abstractly" at another time, 
all conscious activity falls under the process we call intellection.

Can we not then say that the intellect "dominates" conscious awareness?  If 
so, why try to separate it as a level apart from social, organic, and 
inorganic reality?  Being aware of reality involves all three of these 
"objective" categories, PLUS the conscious subject.  Sure, a disc-shaped 
coin is a different form or objective pattern than, say, the water in a 
glass.  But being-aware is a duality (dichotomy), not a tetrology.  The 
content of our awareness is objective reality--whether it's inorganic, 
organic, or social.  What's the point of eliminating the subject/object 
duality (which doesn't have to be explained) only to replace it with a more 
cumbersome and confusing four-level hierarchy?

It seems to me that what Mr. Pirsig is describing in his box of SQ levels is 
experiential existence.  Outside this box MAY lie the ultimate metaphysical 
reality -- Potentiality, Essence, DQ, Nothingness?   We don't know, because 
we don't experience it.  That, I submit, is the unknown which philosophy 
should seek, not slicing up ordinary experience into levels of PoVs that 
don't make sense without a subject to intellectualize them.

(My thoughts, for what they are worth.)

Best wishes,
Ham