Diana McPartlin (diana@asiantravel.com)
Tue, 6 Jan 1998 13:30:18 +0100
Hi Dave, Magnus and LS
Dave Thomas wrote:
>
> Diana
> > Here's my revised principle of Quality:
> >
> > Quality is both reality and the force that creates reality. Quality is
> > the ethical principle of the "Good". Thus, reality is a moral order.
> Your composite principle of Quality hits all these points. The problem I have
> with saying "Quality is reality" is the potential for confusion when you move
> on to talk about individual reality. I think we all agree with the concept
> that quality, on an individual level, consists of "many truths" or "many
> paths" each, nonetheless, tiny slice of overall Quality.
>
> How about this. I think it says essentially the same thing.
>
> Quality is both the origin of reality and all that is real. Quality is a moral
> order; ever evolving towards higher, more ethical, levels of "Good"
It seems to be the same to me, but please see my comments below about
the origin of reality
Magnus Berg wrote:
> >>From Magnus
> >>The Quality principle
> >>Quality is the origin of reality.
> >
> >Yes, Quality is the origin of reality but it is also reality itself. To
> >say that Quality is the origin of reality without adding that it also IS
> >reality suggests that reality is something other than Quality.
>
> Maybe we should state what we mean with 'reality'. I used the
> post-quality meaning of the word. Perhaps we must separate
> the pre-quality reality and the post-quality reality?
By reality I mean everything - every experience, thought, value pattern,
subject, object, action, reaction, definition, dream and hallucination,
all of them, the whole show. Perhaps we should say "everything" instead
of "reality" then we don't have a definition problem.
> >Quality is both reality and the force that creates reality. Quality is
> >the ethical principle of the "Good". Thus, reality is a moral order.
>
> The first sentence sounds like infinite regression.
> Is it really the
> same reality in both cases or can we separate them more clearly?
> Or is it meant to describe both static and dynamic quality?
Regarding "the force that creates reality" . On reflection I'm not too
happy about including this. To be precise it is actually Dynamic Quality
that creates reality. About halfway through chap 9 Pirsig writes:
"Dynamic Quality is the pre-intellectual cutting edge of
reality, the source of all things"
And towards the end he says:
"Dynamic Quality, the Quality of freedom, creates this
world in which we live"
There seems to be some confusion about Quality and Dynamic Quality in
the LS and I think the reason is that the Quality of ZMM is different
from the Quality of Lila. In fact the Quality of ZMM is more like the
Dynamic Quality of Lila as the quote that Dave pulled out shows:
> "Quality is the continuous stimulus which our environment puts upon us to
> create the world in which we live" ZMM page 245
Of course Dynamic Quality is a subset of Quality so anything you say
about Dynamic Quality is true about Quality as well, but for the purpose
of the principle of Quality I think we should restrict ourselves to
statements that are true of Quality as a whole and of all Quality. As I
see it there are only two things that need to be said about Quality.
These are that Quality is everything (or reality) and that Quality is
Good (or morality). The third statement, that reality is a moral order,
follows logically from the first two.
Diana
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