From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Sat Aug 27 2005 - 23:03:44 BST
Hi Reinier --
Where have you been keeping yourself?
> I would argue very much in favour of the MoQ as a metaphysics.
> I much more like the metaphysical aspects then the ethical.
> (Almost every ethical discussion about the MoQ on this list goes
> nowhere.) This is not to say I see the MoQ as a substitute for
> religion, far from that. Equalizing DQ with God serves no other
> purpose then getting the dreaded G-word in the discussions.
>
> The assertion made by someone about the statement 'Quality creates
> object and subject' is, I think, a flaw. Pirsig doesn't say that quality
> creates object and subject in a physical sense. The whole point is
> that object and subject do not exist. All that exists is quality, Dynamic
> (or un-valued) or Static (or valued). Well to be more precise, only
> dynamic quality would exist, static quality is dynamic quality seen
> through judgmental glasses. Subject and object are only that,
> valued quality, or static quality patterns.
For what it's worth, I like that analysis -- and your emphasis on the
metaphysics. I really don't see how the sophists here can shoot holes in
what you've stated. More significantly, it demonstrates in two short
paragraphs what is needed to make the MoQ a logically workable metaphysics.
Now that you've shown us the problems, how do you propose to resolve them?
One suggestion, which I've pointed out before, is that if the world we see
"through judgmental glasses" is defined as "existence", then the Dynamic
Quality that we don't see must transcend that existence. For that reason,
rather than asserting that "all that exists is Quality", I would say that
Quality is the primary or essential reality. (Let the scholars battle over
whether DQ logically "exists" or not.) In any case, that "we experience" is
the pivotal point of existence. Without the locus of individual awareness
there is no existence.
Is there Quality without the experience of it, then? There, you see, is
Pirsig's dilemma. If he answers 'yes", he's a transcendentalist; if his
answer is 'no', he's a nihilist: there is no point in existence. As the MoQ
now stands, man just happens to be here with no cosmic purpose behind his
existence. It's not enough to say that the world moves toward "betterness"
simply because there is Quality. Why even bother with an undifferentiated
essence if it has no teleological meaning?
That question, too, must be be resolved in order to complete the thesis.
(You can see there's a lot of work remaining.)
But you're off to a good start, Reinier. Let's see what Sam has to say.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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