Re: MD Holy cows

From: Jonathan B. Marder (marder@agri.huji.ac.il)
Date: Thu Sep 17 1998 - 08:35:39 BST


Good morning Bo, and Squad,

Bodvar Skutvik wrote:
>It is of course possible to ..change the MoQ...but then it is no
>longer the MOQ and should be presented under a different name (as
>Pirsig says), but I felt that Renselle did not want that and yet
>introduced an unnecessary complication that endangered the (beauty of)
>the original idea. ...

I agree that if Pirsig's MoQ is twisted out of recognition, it will no
longer be MoQ. On the other hand, I think it would we wrong to hang on
to his every word as dogma. Bo picked the "4-levels" as something
crucial to retain. I would pick the "Quality" idea as a holy cow. I know
that Pirsig himself wrote that he considers Lila the more important of
his two books, but personally I attach greater importance to ZAMM, where
the Q-based metaphysics is first conceived. I think that without ZAMM
preceding, Lila would be of little value. As it is, Lila is a charming
clarification of how the Q idea can be applied as a rational analytical
system, of which the 4-level MoQ is a good example. I think that good
alternative structures might be possible, but agree with Bo that we
should avoid unnecessary complication.

Jonathan

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