Doug's Dimensions, truth, and SOM vis-à-vis MoQ post:

Subject:	Dimensions, truth, and SOM vis-à-vis MoQ.
Date:	Sun, 11 Jul 1999 04:09:55 -0700
From:	Doug Renselle <NOFLAMEqtx{at}earthlink{dot}netNOSPAM>
Organization:	The Quantonics Society & Quantonics, Inc.
To:	quantonics email list post <quantonics@topica.com> (To post to our email list, you must subscribe. See instructions on our top page.)

(Site manager comment: minor edits to fix links and clarify.)

Quantonics Email List Message Kuntz,

Acronyms used in this post:

DQ - Dynamic Quality
MoQ - Metaphysics of Quality
QE - Quality Event
SOM - Subject-Object Metaphysics
SPoV - Static/Stable Pattern(s) of Value
SQ - Static Quality
ZMM - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

In future, I will use a list of acronyms at start of each quanto email.

On better understanding SOM:

1. I think all of us should read Pirsig's Birth of SOM (on our site) at least once a week for several
   weeks. This short piece contains essence of our initial discussion which is good to refer, e.g.,
   ghosts, measure, chronology of SOM, Sophism as straw man, etc. Each time I re-read it,
   something new occurs to me! I think this single ZMM quote answers many of our questions in our
   initial quanto posts.
   http://www.quantonics.com/Level_5_QTO_The_Birth_of_SOM.html
2. Please read SOM Limitations on our site.
   http://www.quantonics.com/Level_5_QTO_SOM_Limitations.html
3. After newbies get a foot-hold in quantum fundamentals read our review of Stein's, The Concept of
   Object as the Foundation of Physics.
   http://www.quantonics.com/Steins_TCoOatFoP_Review.html

As Dan avers, and most of our prescient antecedents tell us, language in our Western world is about SOM
stuff. Why? English defines nearly all its terms presuming purely Aristotelian objects inform reality. As a
result, English possesses innate (i.e., anthropocentrically designed-in) SOM bias. Apparently other
languages like German, Greek, Latin, etc. have similar difficulty describing a more quantum reality. Bohr,
et al., call this our "language problem." (Note, however, in my own reading of Fritjof Capra's The Tao of
Physics, his quotes about Chinese descriptions of reality, in my opinion, disclose similar innate (not
intrinsic!) biases to objective reality.)

What is going on here? How is SOM and its Western language bias distinct from Pirsig's MoQ and its
Zen, Hindu, American Indian, pragma-tic, and quantum science flavors?

SOM:

• Says reality's divisions are subjective and objective.
• Says keep objective stuff and discard/ignore subjective stuff.
• Says all objects are real, based upon Parmenidian substance.
• Says all subjective phenomena are not real, i.e., not objective.
• Says objective, absolute truth is discernible by man, i.e., finite intellect.
• Declares (classical) measurement a unilateral process:
  • Objects are separate and isolable.
  • Objects are local (no nonlocal or superluminal affects).
  • Objects are stabile (do not change under observation).
  • Objects are Newtonian (see bottom of our Famous SOMites page).
• Says truth presides over good ("quality is a subspecies of truth")
• Uses dialectic to assess rhetorical issues; thus elicits paradice.

MoQ:

• Says reality's divisions are DQ and SQ.
  • DQ is nonactual reality.
  • SQ is actual reality.
• Says DQ is unknown and undefinable by finite intellect.
• Says DQ is absolute change affecting all SQ.
• Says SQ is definable; some SQ is known; most SQ is unknown.
• SQ is SPoVs in four evolutionary layers, highest evolved first:
  • intellectual (evolved from prior levels' measurements)
  • social (evolved from biological/inorganic measurement)
  • biological (evolved from inorganic measurement)
  • inorganic (evolved from subatomic measurement)
• Says DQ co-permeates all SQ and vice-versa. (SQ is in It, It is in SQ):
  • All SQ SPoVs are non-separable, non-isolable from DQ.
  • All SQ SPoVs are potentially nonlocal.
  • All (moral) SQ SPoVs change at asynchronous QEs.
• Says good presides over truth ("truth is a subspecies of good"):
  • Truth is SQ
  • There are many truths.
  • Like all SQ, truths evolve, change.
  • Absoluteness of local truth is an uncertainty relation twixt (consistency, completeness); a
  • Quantonic extension of MoQ.
• Uses dialectic to discuss local truth.
• Uses rhetoric to discuss multiversal good and many truths. (This is how MoQ eliminates paradice!
• Sophists were doing this for over 12.5 millennia before Homer, Parmenides, et al. arrived on Earth's scene.)

SOM language describes and defines SOM. It is not designed to describe and define MoQ.

Kuntz, in your first email, you speak of points, lines, planes, and 3-space. With a touch of 4-space with
time added. All of that is pure SOM. SOM is fine if you want to stay in a small box, a local context
defined by SOM's extremely limited assumptions. But if you want to move to a more general reality, you
must adopt a larger, more comprehensive set of assumptions. For me, both MoQ and quantum science
(philosophy parent, science child) offer that extended realm. The implications of moving from SOM to
MoQ are almost unfathomable. But just a glimmer of them opens new vistas of enlightenment out of
SOM's reach.

I just made a tiny scratch in a much larger picture, but I think the above will lay decent foundation for your
own further progress here.

Mtty,

Doug.

©Quantonics, Inc., 1999-2006 — Rev. 25Dec99  PDR — Created 11Jul99  PDR