From: ian glendinning (psybertron@gmail.com)
Date: Tue May 10 2005 - 21:47:26 BST
Mike, welcome also,
It's great to see a newcomer with a positive enthusiastic vibe for
Pirsig's Quality, despite the fact, like myself and many others if
we're honest, you express lack of confidence in explaining exactly
what it is - other than "read the book" - which I'm sure Mark has.
(Part of the problem explaining it is that we all have evolved mental
models of the world, even if we espouse MoQ, that place so much
mis-placed weight on "objectivity" - as (IMHO) you correctly identify.
Too many of "us" on here are cynical old bu**ers, with some axe to
grind (aka thesis) about the MoQ.
(On indexes - ZMM exists in electronic on-line forms - and one MoQ
member has an on-line index to Lila also.)
Ian
On 5/10/05, Michael Hamilton <thethemichael@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello Mark! I've been following the MD for a couple of weeks, and the
> worries you've expressed here are so at odds with my understanding of
> the MOQ that I can't resist jumping into the discussion here.
> Hopefully I can give some reassurance!
>
> > My real bother about the understanding I've developed - and I add
> > again that I'm in no way sure that it's correct - is that it makes the
> > MOQ a profoundly depressing, disempowering, hopeless viewpoint. I
> > presume that the MOQ doesn't apply to forms of quality which are
> > already directly understood, such as the "quality" of a
> > multiple-choice exam answer sheet as calculated by comparing given
> > answers with a set of predetermined correct ones.
>
> The MOQ applies to everything! The quality of a particular answer in
> the kind of exam you describe is static, and falls into the
> intellectual level, as do all patterns that relate to truth or
> falsity. The MOQ does apply to "forms of quality which are already
> directly understood" (i.e. objects or subjects of any kind, anywhere):
> it calls them static patterns of quality.
>
> > So the implication would be that it's necessary to nail down the
> > "quality" of things into concrete physical terms and, if you can't do
> > so, then the quality is dissociated from anything that you can affect
> > and all you can do is hope. So for instance, you can study for your
> > multiple-choice exam, but there's no point practicing writing essays
> > or music - that's metaphysical quality, so no matter how you practice,
> > it's beyond your powers to exert even a slight influence on the
> > quality of the output!
>
> When you speak of "nailing down" quality into "concrete physical
> terms", you are suggesting that quality must be objective in order for
> us to be able to manipulate it. If this were possible, then quality
> could be understood and manipulated by intellect, just as we use
> intellect in mathematics to manipulate numbers. Philosophers have been
> trying for centuries to do this "nailing down" of values into facts.
> If this interests you, you might want to investigate the ethical
> theories of Kant or the Utilitarians, or some theories of aesthetics
> (I don't know of any examples).
>
> The examples you give of essays and music, the value of which are
> often deemed to be subjective and therefore unknowable, are the kind
> of cases where the MOQ comes into its own. In fact Pirsig uses them
> both as examples in either ZMM or Lila. For the essays, I'll direct
> you to the chapters in ZMM describing Phaedrus as an English teacher
> and his early discoveries about Quality. It's worth getting familiar
> with, because it's a fundamental part in the genesis of the MOQ, and
> Pirsig explains far better than I could.
>
> This paragraph was going to be an explanation of Quality as it relates
> to music, but I found that I'm not so confident when it comes to
> analysing specific examples such as this. It's something I'd like to
> discuss, but I don't have any easy answers. Again, I recommend
> Pirsig's explanation, this time in Lila, and I really wish his books
> had an index so that I could provide page references. let me just say
> that I think your problems stem from your description of Quality as
> "metaphysical", which I take to mean "non-empirical"/"out of our
> reach". To understand the MOQ, you need to see that pure Quality is
> rooted in experience. Far from being out of our reach, it confronts us
> all our waking life, but is masked by our static intellectual, social
> and biological filters, which help to provide the "nailing down" that
> you crave. Quality won't be nailed down by anything, and that's how
> the MOQ helps our understanding: by leaving Quality undefined.
>
> > I really, really, hope I'm wrong... (errr)
>
> The MOQ doesn't call you "wrong", but it would, I think, ascribe low
> quality to your understanding, because it is as you say, "a profoundly
> depressing, disempowering, hopeless viewpoint". I also doubt that it
> would be particularly useful, so it fails Pirsig's pragmatism too.
>
> Again, I hope this is reassuring in some way, and I'll be happy to
> discuss any points that interest you, or any objections!
>
> Regards,
> Mike
>
>
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