Hi Squad
So, Diana has brought us back to school again. :) Well, maybe it's not a bad
idea after all. Sometimes we all need to go back and ask ourselves about the
original spark, the Dynamic event, that got us all hooked to our common interest.
For me, the original spark was actually not something I read in the book, just
a phrase from a review I read before I got it. It was: "...his Metaphysics of
Quality..." Bang! I don't remember where I read it, where I was or who wrote it,
just the Bang!
Until then, I had always taken physics literally, never thought about its
assumptions or preconditions. The scientific method was still the ultimate
source of knowledge for me. I searched for knowledge and truth, and physics
provided a description of the reality in which we lived. Even though I'd read
ZMM a few times, I never really grasped the goodness of the romantic world view.
Maybe I should also add that the word "Metaphysics" wasn't a word that had any
new age or other semi religious connotations for me. Dealing with computers, we
often use the prefix meta to say that we are talking about the meaning of something
else. E.g. the term metadata is a description of the assumptions used when
discussing data in a database. I read the prefix "meta" in front of the word
"physics" so for me, it meant "A description of the assumptions used when
discussing physics".
With this in mind, you can imagine that all I really looked for reading the book
was the, what I thought would be, mathematically described axioms of this mystical
"Metaphysics of Quality".
Some of the chapters before chapter 12 was agonizing for me. Sometimes he talked
about the MoQ without explaining the axioms, I thought I had missed something. Why
did he explain platypi and resolved contradictions using a MoQ he hadn't yet explained?
But then, at last, chapter 12:
"In this plain of understanding static, patterns of value are divided into four systems:
inorganic patterns, biological patterns, social patterns and intellectual patterns. They
are exhaustive. That's all there are. If you construct an encyclopedia of four topics -
Inorganic, Biological, Social and Intellectual - nothing is left out. No 'thing,' that is.
Only Dynamic Quality, which cannot be described in any encyclopedia, is absent."
After reading that, I went out for a walk. I was quite unable to sit still and had to go
out into the reality and try out the assertion, I begun constructing my encyclopedia.
Of course, I made the standard mistake at first and put all "things" into only one
topic. The trees, dogs, flowers ended up in the biological bucket, the cars, roads and
houses in the inorganic, the city and suburbs in the social and the people in the
intellectual. I was quite satisfied and got back to reading.
Pirsig continues:
"This classification of patterns is not very original, but the Metaphysics of Quality
allows an assertion about them that is unusual. It says they are not continuous. They
are discreet. They have very little to do with one another. Although each higher level
is built on a lower one it is not an extension of that lower level. Quite the contrary.
The higher level can often be seen to be in opposition to the lower level, dominating
it, controlling it where possible for its own purposes."
He then goes on explaining this descreet level hierarchy using the computer hardware-
software analogy, something I was very familiar with. I felt that he really spoke to
me and that made it easy for me to understand the analogy.
I feel I'm about to repeat myself here, saying the same things I said in my essay in
the forum all over again. But the truth is, :), that I definitely think chapter 12 and
the metaphysical aspect of the MoQ is by far the most important in Lila. Without it, it
wouldn't have anything to do with reality. It would just be another fuzzy ad hoc lifestyle
to make people feel better about the so called meaninglessness of their lives. I'm not
always comfortable seeing new age people blessing the MoQ cause I'm quite uncertain we're
talking about the same MoQ.
In a way, I think new age people are cheating when they bless the MoQ like that. It's like
they never realized we have to learn to crawl before we can walk, or fly. They just go for
the flying without even thinking about the basics, and when they crash, they blame the MoQ
for it and either change it into something completely unrecognizable, (remember MoM?), or
leave it behind with a sore ass.
I'll try not to end this post, and year, with a negative attitude. What I think we really
need to work with, is to do like Pirsig did when he went from ZMM to Lila. He left the
classical - romantic split behind and went for the higher Quality static - Dynamic split.
...Yeah I know, that goes for me too. :)
Merry Christmas everyone,
Magnus
------- End of forwarded message -------
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