From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Sat Mar 20 2004 - 11:11:22 GMT
Hi Platt,
> I agree that equating DQ with God (or Tao or anything supernatural) is
> wrong. But I disagree that God can be equated to Quality. IMHO, the MOQ is
> atheistic to the core. The MOQ provides a naturalistic explanation of
> reality. There's a natural tendency to ascribe supernatural powers to DQ
> because it can't be explained in so many words, but neither can energy,
> that mysterious force that science regards as the ultimate source of
> everything but is nothing if not natural.
My point was not really to do with what 'God' means, more that within the MoQ Quality is the highest
term, which is then divided into Dynamic and Static - therefore DQ *cannot* be the highest term.
Whether that highest term can then be called God (or tao or the source or beauty or the 'One') is a
separate question - an interesting question, but a separate one.
Many people do seem to equate DQ with 'the highest' or 'mystical reality' or whatever, and I think
that doesn't do justice to the subtlety of Pirsig's thought. Which I think needs to be more widely
understood.
By the way, I came across these two quotes the other day, which I thought you might like:
"'For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their
Creator' (Wisdom 13.5) The sky and the air are beautiful, the earth and the sea are beautiful. By
divine grace the universe was called by the Greeks 'cosmos', meaning 'ornament'... Surely the author
of all created beauty must himself be the beauty in all beauty?" [Hilary of Poitiers, The Trinity]
"[God is beauty.] This Beauty is the source of all friendship and all mutual understanding. It is
this beauty... which moves all living things and preserves them whilst filling them with love and
desire for their own particular sort of beauty. For each one, therefore, Beauty is both its limit
and the object of its love, since it is its goal... and its model (for it is by its likeness to this
Beauty that everything is defined). Thus true Beauty-and-Goodness are mixed together because,
whatever the force may be that moves living things, it tends always towards Beauty-and-Goodness, and
there is nothing that does not have a share in Beauty-and-Goodness."
Cheers
Sam
PS, just looking back at what you wrote. How do you distinguish 'naturalistic' from 'objective'? ie,
where do the values which determine what is perceived come in?
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