[MD] The Word is Not the Thing

[skutvik at online.no]

Arlo, All

Arlo:
> Arlo would say that he agrees with Pirsig, that the MOQ is just 
> another finger pointing at the moon. Arlo would say that "S/O" 
> interactions begin at the social level, inherent the very act of 
> symbolically encoding experience. 

Sure, the - um - practical side of the subject/object distinction was in 
place in the social era, people were individuals, had names and 
property ... everything (see ZAMM about "We must first overcome the 
notion of a short time between cave man and the Greek thinkers) and 
they knew that the word was not the thing, that dreams were not 
reality and so on, but the metaphysical iron curtain (that SOM 
represents) between these opposites had not descended. Words 
(rituals) could sway the gods/forces, cave paintings could bring 
animals to their hunting fields, dreams were messages from beyond 
..all in all it was a (what we call) magical reality. Only with SOM - that 
Pirsig in the quote treats as the intellectual level) did the said curtain 
started to be drawn and with Descartes completely in place .... 
metaphysically that is ... practically it was as flimsy as ancient people 
regarded it, something that causes the known paradoxes.     

> Arlo does not see S/O patterns (which, as he just said, begins at the
> social level) as the "problem" of intellect, but the consideration of
> their PRIMACY. The MOQ, as all symbolically encoded understandings,
> simply says that a better intellectual pattern than one that sees the
> S/O split as primary, is one that sees Quality as primary. 

A bit subtle this, anyway before the MOQ there was no 4th. level, it 
was SOM (really it was not SOM either, it was as reality WAS) but its 
"value" was great, it gave us modernity, yet the S/O as "M" caused 
the known paradoxes (platypuses). This is dissolved with the MOQ 
(its SOL interpretation) and intellect can go on with business as usual 
not bothered with any philosophical and/or metaphysical 
handwringing.      

> Thus, Arlo does not "fault" intellect for extending S/O encodings 
> that begin at the social level, but rather a SOM that elevates this 
> S/O distinction to being primary. 

Agreement about SOM, but what the he .... was "intellect" before 
SOM? Lest it turns into an idea-container (AKA "mind") that once 
contained "social ideas", then S/O-ideas in a self above and soon 
maybe Q-ideas in a top shelf? 

> Arlo sees the MOQ as, also, extending S/O encodings (by virtue of it
> being a symbolically encoded pattern) but denying their primacy.
> Instead the MOQ points to a primacy that precedes the S/O distinction. 

The MOQ does - as Pirsig says - employ intellect's structures if that is 
what you say. This is the MOQ-intellect level-like aspect, but it (the 
MOQ) is also the system that postulates another fundament.  

> But it, like any and all other symbolically encoded descriptions, can only
> "point", as the "ineffible" (to quote Platt) is always and everywhere only
> approachable through metaphor/analogy. 

Symbol/What's symbolized is an S/O offshoot and in a metaphysics 
that rejects SOM it's hilarious to learn about "symbolically encoded 
descriptions" (social patterns one type, intellect another) Intellect is 
the VALUE OF (among many S/Os)  the "symbol/what's symbolized" 
distinction. Full stop!   

> As such, Arlo sees the intellectual level as that which considers the
> socially began S/O encodings as "things" in and of themselves.
> SOM-intellect concludes they are "real", the primary distinction of the
> world. MOQ-intellect says they are secondary, illusions cast out of a
> more primary event, Quality. 

> But Arlo doubts you are genuinely interested in what Arlo has to say, as
> he has been down that road before. Since Arlo does not agree with Bo, it
> invariable leads only to comments about how stupid Arlo is not to
> recognize the genius of Bo.

I'm very interested as you see, but I find your take of the MOQ 
cumbersome, SOM-steeped and lead-balloonish.

Bodvar