[MD] The Word is Not the Thing

[skutvik at online.no]

Andre, Arlo, Craig, Platt (in alphabetical order) 

15 Sep.:

Platt:
> The MOQ is an SOM document based on SOM reasoning . 

[Pirsig, LC 132n.] 

    The MoQ employs SOM reasoning 

Craig:
> I think both Platt & Pirsig are importantly wrong here & Arlo right.

I may have forfeited my right to protest (I have ciriticized Pirsig too) but 
here Pirsig is on the Q-spot and so is Platt

> IMHO we should restrict the phrase "SOM reasoning" to cases where the
> S/O division is taken as fundamental. 

Jeez, does not that go for the Western culture and the ones it has 
influenced? 

> In the MoQ this is obviously not the case.  As Pirsig says elsewhere,
> SOM is subsumed by the MoQ. Craig    

Doublejeez, that's the very crux. The MOQ rejects the S/O distinction 
as reality's fundament and introduces the Dynamic/Static, but then the 
million £$X&# question arises where the S/O fit's into the new scheme, 
because one cant imagine a world without that distinction. Pirsig 
introduced the known method of the two lower levels=object ...etc. I 
find this cumbersome and without any explanatory power. It's plain as 
day that the S/O distinction is MOQ's 4tl level. It explains everything 
leaving no loose ends and gives it an enormous explanatory power. 
And as said before,  most of LILA supports this (SOL interpretation) as 
does most of Pirsig's utterings elsewhere - look to the LC quote Platt 
provided. And he HAS in fact affirmed in the Paul Turner letter about 
no use speaking about the intellectual level before the Greeks (=SOM) 

Bodvar