From: SQUONKSTAIL@aol.com
Date: Fri Aug 29 2003 - 14:46:12 BST
Hi August,
> How can you think of something without a
> subject/object correlation? As soon as there is
> something there is quality, and either subjects or
> objects or both, as something implies a subject and
> and object. I think this is my biggest "beef" with
> Pirsig. SOM is intertwinded with quality.
In the MOQ, all thoughts are static patterns of value. Before there is
"something" to think about, there is Quality. Quality cannot be called
"something" because it is beyond all names and labels. It is ineffable.
Quality has two components--not subject and object--but Dynamic and
static. The Dynamic component is pure experience, prior to any
thoughts, labels and names whatsoever. The static component, at the
intellectual level of our experience, consists of static thought
patterns including the pattern of subject/object.
The subject/object division is one of several possible static thought
patterns. The Dynamic/static division that the MOQ uses is a better
static thought pattern because it explains our experience better than
the S/O pattern, as Pirsig explains:
"The Metaphysics of Quality can explain subject-object relationships
beautifully but, as Phaedrus had seen in anthropology, a subject-object
metaphysics can't explain values worth a damn. It has always been a
mess of unconvincing psychological gibberish when it tries to explain
values." (Lila, Chap. 8)
So instead of thinking "something implies a subject and a object,"
think "something implies static patterns of value."
We're taught from earliest childhood that the world is divided into
subjects and objects, opinions and facts, mind and matter, etc. These
divisions come from our Western intellectual heritage going all the way
back to ancient Greece. So it's terribly hard to think of these
divisions as being anything other than "natural" and "right." The
problem is these divisions gives us no clue as to why they are "right."
Indeed, they give no clue as to what is "right" in any aspect of life.
The MOQ provides us with new intellectual patterns to help us answer
the question of "Why is it right?"
Platt
Platt and August,
This is a much better explanation than mine.
All the best,
squonk
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