From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Sun Oct 31 2004 - 15:54:52 GMT
Hi Platt, Sam...
On 31 Oct 2004 at 5:58, Mark Steven Heyman wrote:
> msh wrote:
>
> > He then goes on to say that Quality, in fact, is the ultimate ONE
> > and that subjects and objects are created by it. This is the
> > Quality that becomes the fundamental reality of the MOQ he
> > attempts to define in LILA.
platt said:
> The ultimate ONE sounds God-like to me.
> msh said:
> Yes. Similar, I'd say, but without all those troublesome human
> projections: Not loving or caring, but not hateful either, or
> cunning or vengeful; without expectations or desire; without
> opinions: no favored people or nations or baseball teams. Nothing
> to kill or die for.
to which platt replied:
Pirsig is clear that DQ (the creative side of Quality) does care and
has a burning desire for -- freedom.
"Dynamic Quality is the pre-intellectual cutting edge of realty, the
source of all things, completely simple and always new. It was the
moral force that had motivated the brujo in Zuni. It contains no
pattern of fixed rewards and punishments. Its only perceived good is
freedom and its only perceived evil is static quality itself-any
pattern of one-sided fixed values that tries to contain and kill the
ongoing free force of life." (Lila, 9)
msh says:
I really like this paragraph. It says a lot about Quality, although
it doesn't imply that Quality cares, only that it perceives. But I
think we need to guard against mistaking analogy for fact. There is
a sense in which the Sun "gives" life, but is it the same sense in
which I give my nephew a bicycle? Human beings tend to sprinkle
their discussions with poetry, (see?), especially personification.
So when Pirsig here says Quality "perceives" the good of freedom. the
evil of fixed values, I think he's speaking poetically, using
analogy to make his point.
sam also replied to msh:
Does quality value? In other words, does Quality have preferences? I
just have a suspicion that something crucial gets lost if we say no.
msh says:
As soon as you say that Quality has preferences, (if you mean it
literally, not poetically), you've already personified Quality.
Once you've made that personification, I guess there's no reason to
avoid saying that Quality is the God of Abraham and Isaac, and yada
yada yada. But this leap, for me, doesn't answer the mystery of
existence; it merely adds another layer of clutter to my ontological
closet.
sam asked:
What does it mean to say that a valuation which we make (a phrase
that needs unpacking and clarifying itself) - what does it mean to
say that a valuation which we make is a discernment of Quality, or a
response to Quality, or however we want to describe it?
msh says:
To me, the most useful analogy is to limit all of Reality to our
solar system and think of Quality as the Sun. So, it's not inert;
it's not a linguistic abstraction; and it doesn't "lure" anything
anywhere. It's warmth and light nourishes and illuminates, and makes
evolution possible without CAUSING evolution. Allowing a bit of
personification for the purposes of the analogy, I'd say the Sun
doesn't care about the earth or its inhabitants, not about Mark or
Sam or Platt, or even the Boston Red Sox. Although this lack of
caring and purpose seems to bother many people, it doesn't bother me
because * I * care, * I * love, * I * create my own purposes. This
is the ultimate Freedom, so what's not to like?
Anyway, to get back to the subject of this thread, I say that Quality
resides in everything. But we sometimes require some tuning to see
it.
Best,
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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