LS Re: Conceptions of Dynamic Quality


Bodvar Skutvik (skutvik@online.no)
Tue, 3 Mar 1998 05:02:23 +0100


Sun, 1 Mar 1998 01:00:54 -0600
Keith A. Gillette wrote:

> To my understanding of MoQ, Pirsig makes exactly one ontological assertion:
> Reality is Quality, that is, value. (See diagram, Chapter 20, *ZMM*, or the
> concluding paragraph of Chapter 7 of *Lila*: "Quality is morality. Make no
> mistake about it. They're identical. And if Quality is the primary reality
> of the world then that means morality is also the primary reality of the
> world. The world is primarily a moral order."
>
> My question: What is our justification for accepting this?

Keith!
Your question is what LILA was written to answer! The REAL problem is
that so few understands how fundamental a break the MOQ is with what
has preceded it. Allow me a silly metaphor. Before the Apollo program
there were a great many suggestions what the the moon was made of.
(Cheese one of of the more outlandish), but it was never doubted that
it would be a substance!. Now, if the space exploration had revealed
it to be a HOLE in a sphere with a universal light behind it (like
the Medieval concept) it would have been a fundamental break!

The same applies to the philosophical suggestions of the consistency
of "reality". The old Greek philosophers ended an ancient tradition of
reality-is-GOOD and their quest for a TRUE reality was a break at the
time it occurred, but time has sedimented into our seemingly
unassailable Subject/Object Metaphysics. There has been an
endless row of suggestions of the finer "structure" of this reality,
but never since the Sophists has the basic S/O been questioned.

I hear protests. Did not my favourite philosopher suggest such and
such a reality which is a break with everything previous thought? I do
not know all philosophical systems within Western tradition, but I
doubt if there is one that takes leave of the S/O blueprint. There has
been those who have suggested a pure materialist or a pure idealist
view, i,e: that matter is really mind or vice versa, but never to
scrap the mind/matter notion wholesalely. Tell me if you have a
candidate.

Breaks of this magnitude faces the troubles of not being
provable from the system they left. Einstein's relativity was a break
with several tenets of classical physics, and only Bertram Russel -
besides Einstein himself - claimed that he understood it. Quantum
Physics is still worse, it is a break with reason so to say, and not
even the founders professed to understand their own assertions. What
is the justification for accepting these theories?

There is no known proof for relativity and quantum mech. that a
classic physicist would accept. It is only that they WORK!
Faultlessly and infallible. Admittedly, Newton physics calculation
brings space shots to wherever, but inside the atom, at speeds
approaching that of light and in strong gravitational fields it
fails; only Relativity and Quantum calculations count at the extreme
conditions.

The MOQ is a metaphysical equivalent. It works, it explains experience
marvellously well and solves the mind/matter riddles, but a proof that
the SOM can accept is impossible. I have called it the mother of all
relativity (Doug Renselle would possibly call it the "Schrödinger Cat"
of metaphysics?). Some of us has drawn the parallel to Gödel's
Theorem: no all-embracing system can prove itself. Really Keith; what
is the proof for the Mind/Matter metaphysics, or the justification for
accepting it? No mocking or scorn, I see your point and would like to
hear your opinion.

Finally. I have cautioned against using ZMM in the MOQ discussions.
It's a splendid book and shows Phaedrus' thorny way toward Quality,
but at the stage that you refer to (the horn dilemma) he had reached
a "trinity" of Subject-Object-Quality, and that is not what he
presents in LILA. The MOQ is a dualism too, but the dividing line
is between Dynamic and Static quality. The basic claim that
there is only quality and that the "art" is how to divide it, is - as
said - improveable.

Bo.

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