Samuel Palmer (spalmer@fundy.ca)
Sun, 18 Jan 1998 07:49:41 +0100
Dianna and LS,
> 1. Quality.
> Quality is reality. Quality is the ethical principle of the good. Thus
> reality is a moral order. Quality, like reality, is known to us as
> awareness. As such, it is impossible to define.
>
I think I can offer some further simplification.
For what I have observed, Quality is Pirsig's Tower of Balel. He put
it there because he knew it is the one thing none of us can agree on.
This may not help us much with definitions but it does tell us some
essential things - Quality is many things to many people. Quality also
operates on many different levels, for example on a subjective level,
Quality is what completes the decision between buying a cinnamon donut
or a boston creme, or on an objective, political level, Quality is a
more abstract assembly which drives the decisions made about abortion or
the arms race.
We may not be able to agree on an answer to the question "What is
quality", because what we are really asking is "What is good". What we
can do, however, is see how Quality operates, on all levels - Inorganic,
Biological, Social, and Intellectual.
When we speak of Quality in terms of it's operation, instead of
its absolute Intellectual definition (which will be debated for some
time yet), it becomes much simpler. The Quality we are defining is the
same Quality that brings about events on the smallest and largest scales
of Creation. The same Quality that brought about chemical bonding, the
Quality that cast light out of darkness, and saw that it was good, the
Quality that led to the concept of taxes (dang that Quality!).
For a simple, stripped-down definition of Quality, I can offer this:
1. Quality: An internal, unobservable response that brings about an
external, observable event.
Examples - Quality takes place on all levels of creation:
a) Inorganic - Quality is what precedes chemical reactions, for example,
when we pour vinegar into baking powder, it fizzes up because, on an
inorganic level, fizzing is fun - or good, if you will.
b) Biological - Quality drives the events that have proliferated life on
the Biological scale of Creation. For example, plants will turn to the
sun because, to plants, it's better that way, it's what they "like".
c) Social - Quality is the "Moral Force" that brings about responses on
a social level, which strengthens and protects the social unit, for
example Buffalo herds operated almost as a single unit, and many species
of birds prefer to fly together, because, the more the merrier.
d) Intellectual - Intellectual Quality is a "public forum" which is
still being chiselled out, but it is an essential evolutionary step
which serves to bind societies together. A perfect example is the
proliferation of the Internet, where people from all walks of life get
to share their thoughts on "what is good, and what is not good"
What I like about this definition is that it doesn't really define
anything, but it does "click" somehow, at all levels. What this suggests
is that Quality is an event that precedes behavior, whether we're taking
about the behavior of protons, or the behavior of UN.
We all are familliar with the process that brings about decisions
we make for our own personal reasons - but it is never easy to
understand what ultimately "finalizes" our decisions. There is always an
internal, unobservable link in the chain of events that brings about our
responses, and I think we can call that Quality.
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