[MD] The percolating SOL

[david buchanan]

Bodvar said:
As long as the MOQ is seen as an intellectual pattern (instead of intellect a MOQ level) SOM is alive. Intellect remains a mental, mindish realm where ideas reside, SOM one idea, the MOQ another idea, allegedly a good idea, but nevertheless a subjective CONCEPT different from the objective world "out there"  ... and SOM prevails. [AND THEN SAID TO DMB] I wish you would extract the meaning of this [PIRSIG QUOTE] and tell how it contradicts 
my passage above. Much obliged.


dmb says:
Since you equate SOM with intellect (a conclusion you use as a premise), any thought, idea, concept or analysis is automatically taken to be SOM. The quotes I provided show that this is not at all what Pirsig has in mind. According to his own description, Pirsig solves the SOM dilemma with the intellect. He says subjects and objects are "deduced", refutes it by saying there is "no logical justification", cuts it down to size with his analytic knife and when he gets rid of the mistaken presumptions behind SOM he describes it as a "culmination of thought". I think it's more than obvious that these deductions, logical justifications, this analysis and culmination of thought are part of the intellectual level, can only be accomplished by the intellect. You should be able to understand that based on explanations like this one from the end of chapter 19:

"The very existence of subject and object themselves is deduced from the Quality event. The Quality event is the cause of the subjects and objects, which are then mistakenly presumed to be the cause of the Quality!
Now he had that whole damned evil dilemma by the throat. The dilemma all the time had this unseen vile presumption in it, for which there was no logical justification, that Quality was the effect of subjects and objects. It was not! He brought out his knife.
"The sun of quality," he wrote, "does not revolve around the subjects and objects of our existence. It does not just passively illuminate them. It is not subordinate to them in any way. It has created them. They are subordinate to it!
And at that point, when he wrote that, he knew he had reached some kind of culmination of thought he had been unconsciously striving for over a long period of time."

dmb continues:
I'd also point out that your claim (that the MOQ can't be another idea because that would make it a "subjective CONCEPT different from the objective world "out there") makes no sense because the MOQ says that "the objective world 'out there'" is itself a concept, a deduction, a presumption etc.. 
I've already explained this to you many times but your response is always the same. If one thinks about anything or analyzes anything or has any concept whatsoever, then one is trapped in SOM, you say. This trap then makes reasonable philosophical conversations impossible. In fact, I'm only answering your question for the benefit of readers other than you. 



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