[MD] Metaphysics

[Steven Peterson]

HI Bo,


> Steve:
>> Everything that Pirsig writes on the subject takes a particular
>> metaphysics to be one possible intellectual construction among an
>> infinite possibility for descriptions of Quality.
>

Bo:
> Pirsig is ambiguous that much we know, but one interpretation of the
> MOQ must be THE MOQ - the "many truth" statement i untenable and
> paradoxical -  and we have two options, 1) "The MOQ is one
> intellectual pattern" 2) "Intellect is MOQ's 4th. level" (SOL) Those two
> cannot be reconciled..
>
> Pirsig's above sounds like supporting #1, it is his infamous
> "Quality/MOQ" meta-metaphysics and I just wonder what made him do
> the MOQ this disservice? All the more that it goes against the very
> grain of young Phaedrus insight in ZAMM. I paraphrase:
>
>    He coined a law intended to have the humor of a Parkinson's
>    law that "The number of MOQs that can describe Quality is
>    infinite"  It pleased him never to run out of MOQs. Even when
>    his experimental work seemed dead-end in every conceivable
>    way, he knew that if he just sat down and muddled about it
>    long enough, sure enough, another MOQ would come along.
>    And it always did. It was only months after he had coined the
>    law that he began to have some doubts about the humor or
>    benefits of it. If true, that law is not a minor flaw in the Quality
>    reasoning. The law is completely nihilistic. It is a catastrophic
>    logical disproof of the general validity of the MOQ"
>
> This was what made young Phaedrus flunk school and set him on his
> lateral drift from which the Quality Idea crystallized and the insight that
> the above "law of infinite number of explanations" - was the proof of
> SOM's invalidity and - further -the first tentative MOQ that would set
> this right by making SOM a "static" fallout  ... CALLED INTELLECT!!!!.
>
> For Pirsig to repeat the SOM in a thin Q disguise is catasropic!
> Steve may be dour but this must penetrate his armor..


Steve:
The answer to your question as usual was already given by Pirsig in
Lila. It is indeed a problem (even "a catastrophic disproof") within
subject-object metaphysics for subject-object metaphysics to include a
claim that there are multiple valid intellectual constructs to account
for a given phenomena or multiple "big pictures" (metaphysical
systems) that are no more true or false than other "big pictures." The
subject-object picture presupposes that there is but one true picture.
To be "objectiove: is to insist on the reality of one true picture.
However, the problem you cite is not a problem for Pirsig's
metaphysics of quality which allows for possibility of other "big
pictures" that can be appreciated like paintings in a gallery without
concern for which is the one true picture.

Pirsig:
"Unlike subject-object metaphysics the Metaphysics of Quality does not
insist on a single exclusive truth.  If subjects and objects are held
to be the ultimate reality then we're permitted only one construction
of things-that which corresponds to the "objective" world-and all
other constructions are unreal.  But if Quality or excellence is seen
as the ultimate reality then it becomes possible for more than one set
of truths to exist.  Then one doesn't seek the absolute "Truth."  One
seeks instead the highest quality intellectual explanation of things
with the knowledge that if the past is any guide to the future this
explanation must be taken provisionally; as useful until something
better comes along.  One can then examine intellectual realities the
same way he examines paintings in an art gallery, not with an effort
to find out which one is the "real" painting, but simply to enjoy and
keep those that are of value.  There are many sets of intellectual
reality in existence and we can perceive some to have more quality
than others, but that we do so is, in part, the result of our history
and current patterns of values."