[MD] The resolution of the mind/matter platypus.

[mark_maxwell at talktalk.net]

Squonk, I had posed these two alternatives intellectual levels:
1) SOM or
2) what SOM means by "intellect", namely the mental compartment called "mind" where concepts - ideas - thoughts .. are formulated and stored.
Squonk (Oct.26):
I think you know this is wrong. 'Mind' in the moq includes both Social and Intellectual patterns. While spov and ipov employ symbols there is a distinction between Social symbols and Intellectual symbols:
Social symbols are imitated while Intellectual symbols are abstracted from symbols that had been previously imitated.
Thus:
A) Mind = spov and ipov
B) SOM is an ipov.
C) moq is an ipov
D) DQ = outside all sp's. 
　
Bo:
In LILA Pirsig suggests that the social and intellectual levels are "subjective", and he also shows how SOM's monster platypus - the mind/matter one - is resolved in light of the said "inorg + bio = objective/socio + intell = subjective" system.

Hi Bo,
I think this is stated explicitly in the ‘Subjects, Objects, Data and Values’ paper?
The Mind/Matter position is in fact not resolved: it is completely undermined by the reduction of everything to Value. And Value is the answer to your 'gap' question by the way.
Thus, social patterns and intellectual patterns are re-described as two distinct realms of values. Similarly, the inorganic and biological realms.

Bo:
He says that two levels are missing between matter and mind - meaning the bio. and socio - but he spends much time earlier on to show that the inorganic level doesn't corresponds to SOM's "matter" and if so the intellectual does not correspond to SOM's "mind".

Squonk:
I think RMP identifies one missing level: the social.

Bo:
OK, you say that "mind" (in the MOQ) includes society and intellect (meaning they are "subjective") but the M/M platypus consists of how thoughts interacts with the body. I may think of moving a finger, but as long as the thought remains in my mind the finger is still, but then I decide to move it and the thought becomes a physical act. The body belongs to the "objective-matterish" part of the static hierarchy (in Pirsig's system) but I can't see how the social and intellectual "aggregate" resolves this, the gap to be jumped is now between society and biology. I guess you know the SOL-ution, but I may elaborate if needed.

Bodvar
 

Squonk:
The ’gap’ was being jumped before SOM emerged, when Cosmology, Geometry and Mathematics were initially explored, because these concepts are written down, and I think this may have involved moving fingers. Maybe not.
Well, in order for a finger to move there has to be a desire (value) to move it.
If you want to poke someone’s eye out because they kissed your girlfriend, then the desire may be anger - a biological pattern.
No gap here.
If you want to tip your hat (social pattern) because you are about to repeat a polite gesture that you previously imitated, the desire may be to satisfy biological grooming. The social pattern is valued by biological patterns.
If you want to build a wall you may consult Geometric standards (intellectual patterns) in order to make a good wall that defines a territorial boundary between you and your neighbours. The desire to move your fingers in order to build the wall is a biological need to establish territory.
In all movements the motivation is value.

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Now I have a problem here to be frank with you Bo: All this talk of values makes me feel uneasy. It makes me feel like one of the quacking Ducks from Orwell’s 1984 who have had their vocabulary deliberately reduced in order to control their thinking.
Similarly with DQ and sq: Very often, phrases like, ‘X is a dynamic’ can be read, and this makes me uneasy also, because it becomes easy to trot out, ‘this is dynamic, that is dynamic, and the other is dynamic,’ without actually saying anything meaningful.
I think there is a real danger that anything can be described as dynamic, even if it is utter garbage, or an outright fake.
So, to answer your question, as a good little moqer, the gap doesn’t exist, because all sq patterns are the same stuff, and they do what they do in response to DQ.
Now, I like that, but I feel like a quacking Duck saying it.

All the best,
squonk