Erin:
> Hello King of False Accusations,
> So we are going to switch from twisting around
> words to reading into statements. (yawn)
> No I have never thought of you as an ingoramus,
> pretentious sometimes, stubborn,
> and occassionally grumpy but never ignormamus.
Pretentious, stubborn, grumpy, king of false accusations. Happy to be
one of your favorites. (-:
> Again what I have said is that i think liking is an indication of quality
> and therefor reality but that does not equal reality is whatever you like.
> When you go to the art museum how do YOU judge the quality of paintings? I
> think your internal "like-o-meter" is the most sophisticated tool we have
> to judge quality. I don't agree with your nonchalant dismissal of it.
Oh, nonchalant, too? I never realized I was the object of all these
affections. (-:
Seriously, I like your "like-o-meter." It's like my "beauty tuning fork." I
think we agree, but if past exchanges are an indication, I'll keep my
fingers crossed.
> I am going to ignore your request until
> you respond to my request responding to these three quotes.
> I will list them for you again:
>
>
> 1)> PIRSIG: "Unlike SOM, the MOQ does not insist on a
> > single exclusive truth. If
> > subjects and objects are held to be the ultimate
> > reality then we're permitted
> > only one construction of things -- that which
> > corresponds to the 'objective'
> > world -- and all other constructions are unreal. But
> > if quality or excellence
> > is seen as the ultimate reality then it becomes
> > possible for more than one set
> > of truths to exist. Then one doesn't seek the
> > absolute 'Truth.'
> > One seeks instead the highest quality intellectual
> > explanation of things with
> > the knowledge that if the past is any guide to the
> > future this explanation
> > must be taken provisionally; as useful until
> > something better comes along. One
> > can then examine intellectual realities the same way
> > he examines paintings in
> > an art gallery, not with an effort to find which one
> > is the 'real' painting,
> > but simply to enjoy and keep those of value." (Ch
Truth is an intellectual pattern of values. Some of these patterns
possess more value than others. You ultimately decide, "That's a good
truth." Unfortunately, lots a people don't want to take that responsibility..
> 2)"Then he saw it. He brought out the knife and excised
> the one word that created the entire angering effect
> of that sentence. The word was "just." Why should
> Quality be just what you like? Why should "what you
> like" be "just"? What did "just" mean in this case?
> When separated out like this for independent
> examination it became apparent that "just" in this
> case really didn't mean a damn thing. It was a purely
> pejorative term, whose logical contribution to the
> sentence was nil. Now, with that word removed, the
> sentence became "Quality is what you like," and its
> meaning was entirely changed. It had become an
> innocuous truism."
Isn't this from ZMM? Written before the MOQ? Before Pirsig proposed
that Quality and reality are synonyms? We agree that it would be wrong
to say, "Reality is what you like" which I mistakingly thought you were
claiming when you first put this up.
> 3)Reality, which is value, is understood by every infant. It is a universal
> starting place of experience that everyone is confronted with all the time.
> Within a Metaphysics of Quality, science is a set of static intellectual
> patterns describing this reality, but the patterns are not the reality they
> describe."
This is the old finger pointing metaphor in different words. One
understands reality without words. It's right in front of your face every
moment, but since your face is included, you can't get outside it to
describe it completely. All you can do is point to it with a big sweeping
motion and say, "See." My point was that you may not "like" what you
see, but you can't escape Quality.
Since we depend for life and thus dearly love our intellectual patterns we
(at least some of us) try to put the reality we see into words which is
clearly impossible but nevertheless lots of fun and sometimes useful as
guide to action. I've concluded that the MOQ is a damn good
metaphysics. When I regard it, my Like-0-Meter beeps like mad. But,
as we agree (fingers crossed), the MOQ is not the reality it describes.
Platt
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