[MD] e: Reading & Comprehension

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Marsha]
I consider Bo correct in labeling the Intellectual Level SOM because
Intellectual Static Patterns of Value are reified concepts and the rules for
their manipulation. 

[Arlo]
Which is, of course, NOT SOM. At least not SOM in any way that Pirsig talked
about it. In fact, this is simply a tautology. All levels are "reified" stable
patterns of preference. This does not make them "SOM".

[Marsha]
Intellectual patterns create false boundaries, giving the illusion of
independence, or 'thingness'. 

[Arlo]
Intellectual patterns create boundaries, yes. Those boundaries that envelop the
"subject-object" primacy are those that are SOM. Those that do not, are not.
SOM is, to restate the above, those particular patterns which do not understand
the "illusion". 

[Marsha]
The fourth level is a formalized subject/object level where the subjective is
supposedly stripped from the experience. 

[Arlo]
No. The fourth level is stable patterns of preference involving the
manipulation of symbolically encoded experience. The "subject is supposedly
stripped" only in SOM. The MOQ is an intellectual pattern that does not make
this mistake (giving primacy to a subject-object dualism).

[Marsha]
We're all peddling in a s/o format, so why the shock? 

[Arlo]
Well, as I said several times, it makes the central conflict of ZMM
meaningless, since intellect was always, and is always, SOM. As I said, this
steps up the morass of needing to say that "intellect" is something to be
overcome or "transcended". 

[Marsha]
The point of ZMM and LILA is, in my opinion, to point to what is beyond SOM.

[Arlo]
The point of ZMM and LILA is to expand rationality, not condemn it forever in
an SOM prison. The Sophists were not peddling SOM, they were advancing an
intellectual foundation that was decisively non-SOM! That was the conflict in
ZMM. Aristotle was pushing something else, and this is what Pirsig uncovered in
ZMM.