[MD] The Social aspect of SOM

[Andre]

John to Andre:
Is SOM inextricably tied to modern society?

Andre:
Look John, 'modern society' is the way it is. Is this perspective based 
on a subject-object metaphysics? No, because a SOM does not accept the 
reality of values. SOM _simply_ says that only subjects and objects are 
real. I think the first quote dmb provides by Livingstone captures it 
well: pragmatism and postmodernism:
"...do not believe that thoughts and things inhabit different 
ontological orders: they do not acknowledge an external or natural realm 
of objects, of things-in-themselves, which is ultimately impervious to, 
or fundamentally different than, thought or mind or consciousness. 
Accordingly, they escape the structure of meanings built around the 
modern subjectivity, which presupposes the self's separation or 
cognitive distance from this reified realm of objects."

John:
Whether or not anything is ultimately subjective or not, seems a pretty 
inane point to make in the context of the MoQ's insights onto the 
relativistic nature of "subjective". So if you are correct and this is 
dmb's and Dan's main point to me, I fail utterly to grasp it's relevance.

Andre:
Sorry to hear this John. From your response it appears to me that you 
are mixing the MoQ insights (eg the 4 levels as patterns of value) and 
interpret those from a SOM perspective. And this is where the confusion 
comes in. And I guess led to Dan's observation that you do not 
understand the MoQ.

John:
No problem here. The fact that the self is derived (from social, 
intellectual, biological patterns) is not a problem for me. The 
assertion that the self does therefore not exist, is.

Andre:
And here you are doing it again John. This is NOT what the MoQ argues. 
The self is NOT derived from the patterns (here we enter the realm of 
self/ego formation, internalization and objectification something our 
parents, conventional authority, religion and the education system is 
very good in).

We ARE those patterns. Nothing derived from...we are the patterns. You 
argue a 'separation' and 'cognitive distance' from the patterns (see 
dmb's quote above). You thereby reify them and set yourself apart from 
everything. This is SOM as well and something the MoQ obviously 
disagrees with.

John:
So to recapitulate: your, David's and Dan's view (and Pirsig's in your 
opinion) that the Giant - and social systems in general, work according 
to no conscious plan or guidance and just sort of evolve?

Andre:
Strange conclusion to make John and I smell Ham in here (with his 
intelligent design) and/or some sort of religiously conceived plan. I 
mean 'work according to a plan'? What plan? You mean an intelligently 
conceived plan? And when did this plan start then? You mean to say that 
before the beginning of the earth, before the sun and the stars were 
formed, before the primal generation of everything, this intelligent, 
conscious plan existed?...Sitting there, having no mass or energy of its 
own, not in anyone's mind because there wasn't anyone, not in space 
because there was no space either- this intelligent, conscious plan existed?
If that plan existed I honestly don't know what a thing has to do to be 
/non/existent. It seems to me that this intelligent conscious plan has 
passed every test of nonexistence there is. There is no single attribute 
of nonexistence that that plan doesn't have. Or a single scientific 
attribute of existence it does have. And yet you still believe that it 
exists? (freely adopted from ZMM,p32-3)

John:
Are the evolutionary impulses mysterious or are they explicable? Can 
they by encapsulated by some label and can you (or Dan or David or 
Pirsig) then answer my question as to their necessity?

Andre:
The MoQ suggests that evolution occurred due to 'spur of the moment 
decisions' based on Dynamic Quality i.e. undefined betterness.
'Dynamic Quality is not structured and yet it is not chaotic. It is 
value that cannot be contained by static patterns. What the 
substance-centered evolutionists were showing with their absence of 
final 'mechanisms' or 'programs' was not an air-tight case for the 
biological goallessness of life. {nor goal of life programs of divine 
ordination or Ham's essential intelligent design, for that matter). What 
they were unintentionally showing was [that]...the patterns of life are 
constantly evolving in response to something 'better' than that which 
these [physical] laws (or intellectual design plans) have to offer. 
(Anthony's PhD, p 91)

That 'label' you are looking for John: Dynamic Quality.