From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Thu Jan 30 2003 - 14:45:53 GMT
Matt,
Matt S. said:
Such reference to 'magnets' etc
is surely born in SOM thought, in the fallacy of
substance. Even use of the word 'thing' is a bit too
SOM for me. All there is is patterns.
Matt:
I understand your intention, and it is a seeming desirous one, but I happen
to think it goes down a dead-end street. The problem is, I make a
distinction between Subject-Object Metaphysics and subject-object thinking
(binary thinking). Pace Platt (as of our last discussion of it), I don't
think regular old binary thinking falls into SOM. I don't even know how to
think without binaries (Platt and I do agree on this). It's only when we
hypostatize the binaries, as in "There are only subjects and objects. If
it's a subject, it's not an object. If it's an object, it's not a
subject." In SOM, subjects and objects are permanent, metaphysical
categories. In the MoQ, they are just helpful ways of distinguishing that
can be dispensed with as soon as the prove unhelpful.
If we do dispense with all binary thinking, and we can't distinguish
between (using an old example) a tiger-pattern and a me-pattern, then I
think we are stuck with just one big pattern called "the Universe." This
isn't very helpful, though, when getting around the universe. Without
being able to make a distinction between the tiger-pattern and the
surrounding pattern it fits into, I'm guessing the me-pattern won't last
very long. The trick is, after you've made the distinction between the
tiger-pattern and me-pattern, to not hypostatize it by saying, "Tigers and
humans are eternally seperate. Since they are trying to kill me, let's
kill all of them." When thinking that patterns go all the way down, we
won't want to hold onto the distinction between tiger-pattern and
me-pattern. We'll start thinking about the ecosystem, that large pattern
where we fit in with the tiger in some sort of harmony.
Matt
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