Hi Platt and "Squad".
Thanks for treating my theses seriously, you really make an effort
to understand ....and you do understand. This last round of our
endless disputes about Q-Intellet's "nature" started with the
Quality/DQ-SQ issue with Andrea and Angus (for my part) but soon
got int the beaten tracks with 3WD's questionaire.
> My understanding is that Quality, not DQ, is to be the all-pervading
> reality and that yes, DQ/sq is a mere intellectual pattern.
> All metaphysics, which by definition consists of dialectical
> (intellectual) patterns of classification and definition, start with
> the presumption of an all-pervading reality or "existence."
Re. Quality and DQ see below. About "all metaphysics" I would
add ......since Aristotle coined the term with the newfangled tool
(SOM) that had made its debut in the centuries before. Pirsig's
metaphysics adds another - um - quality to the term that will have
ramifications here, but - admittedly - Pirsig starts very
academically from Aristotelian premises. My explanation is as
always that he wrote LILA not knowing if anyone would understand
the first thing of it and did not want to sound too esoteric. This is
an emotional appeal but ...OK.
> "Existence exists" is the initial undefinable, unprovable premise of
> SOM metaphysics--a premise that is morally barren.
> In contrast, Pirsig's initial premise for the MOQ is "Quality exists,"
> ADDING to plain old morally-neutral existence a moral necessity
> because "a world from which value is subtracted becomes
> unrecognizable."
> Whether a metaphysics begins with an assumption of existence or an
> assumption of Quality, then, and only then, can come the required
> first division, "or get out of metaphysics entirely." The first
> division for "existence" is subject-object. The first division for
> "Quality" is dynamic- static.
Every time this Quality/DQ-SQ issue comes up I have a knee-jerk
reaction because it evokes another Quality that the Quality/DQ-SQ
is just one possible analytic cut of - and another and another ad
ifinitum, the (/)"slash" always moving to between the first Quality
and the subdivisions. This may as Angus pointed to be a
"book/show" (words/reality) effect. A dynamic "ocean" divided into
static waves leaves the 'DO' ocean and the DO/so identical. But
then ....words/reality!! ...it smacks of good old SOM!
> My point is that the only difference I can see in the pattern of
> initial steps required for any metaphysics is Pirsig's "out of the
> blue" assumption that existence contains a moral component, or better,
> morality is existence itself.
Now, this is an important observation (concession?) The Quality
leap can't be seen as another Aristotelian-metaphysical screw ...or
Hegelian dialectic synthesis, it is something unheard of: A leap.
How true!
> Is this assumption what you mean by the MOQ being a 5th level? That
> this assumption is an absolutely necessary level at the top for the
> other moral levels to follow? That without this "leap" you might as
> well fold up the MOQ tent and go back to SOM?
Yes, I think this catches it beautifully. I don't insist on a
established 5th level, but the "art code" indicates that there is a
growth potentiality beyond, and that is where the leap landed
Phaedrus in its time. This is an enormous issue with so many
angles to it that it looks a maze, "solipsism" the most ominous cul-
de-sac. I have written a draft on it for Angus and ...was it DMB who
had a entry on it? ..which will be posted soon.
Thanks for your time.
Bo
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