[MD] What does Pirsig mean by metaphysics?

[david buchanan]

Mark said to Bo:
Quite frankly, I do not see how a belief in Quality is any different from a belief in God, it is just a different description of the same.  

dmb says:
If memory serves, Pirsig thinks that only a mystic can equate Quality with God. I think that means that theistic conceptions don't match what he's saying about Quality whereas the mystics share this notion of reality as undivided and indefinable. For example, it would be really goofy to claim that Quality so loved the world that he sent his only son, that Quality is jealous and angry, that the Pope is Quality's vicar or a million other things that people say about the Christian God. In fact, there are two kinds of mystics, theistic and non-theistic, and the MOQ really only fits the latter. 

Mark also said:
There is no need for the constant comparison, it does not mean anything except to someone with a grudge against religion.


dmb says:

Actually, comparisons can be quite meaningful and helpful in this area. Ever heard of the perennial philosophy? That is the product of comparative analysis of the world's great religions by Aldous Huxley. The idea is basically that each religion, despite all the variety of differences, has an esoteric core that more or less agrees with every other religion. This central quasi-secret teaching is derived from a common type of experience that people in all times and places have reported. Religions grow up around people who have had this mystical experience and are good at communicating it. Sadly, all the doctrines and theologies that develop subsequently tend to obscure and distort these origins and so the meaning gets lost and things need to be refreshed again. So the problem here is we want to make sure we're not equating Quality with the obscurations and distortions, with the static patterns that cling to the core meaning but rather with that core itself. 

Chapter 30 in Lila covers this stuff. There Pirsig says, "In all religions bishops tend to gild Dynamic Quality with all sorts of static interpretations because their cultures require it. But these interpretations become like golden vines that cling to a tree, shut out its sunlight and eventually strangle it." 

"... once this integrations occurs and DQ is identified with religious mysticism it produces an avalanche of information as to what Dynamic Quality is. A lot of this religious mysticism is just low-grade 'yelping about god', of course, but if you search for the sources of it and don't take the yelps too literally a lot of interesting things turn up." 

   		 	   		  
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