[MD] Is Quality a Value?

[Platt Holden]

Ham, 

To immediately set the record straight, all that you attribute to Arlo 
below is from me, not him.

I'll have more to say when I get a chance to think about your questions.

Best,
Platt

> Platt, Arlo, and all in pursuit of Quality --
> 
> It has been some time since Quality has been discussed here in a definitive
> way, and I would suspect that some MoQers have questioned Pirsig's almost
> synonomous use of Quality and Value.  I joined this forum having developed
> a "valuistic philosophy" of Essence, and I tried to elicit a response from
> Mr. Pirsig as to what he considered the difference between these terms. 
> Thus far no one has made the distinction clear to me.
> 
> In a recent note to Platt, Arlo cites his preference for Quality as "the
> source of all things", but concedes that other designations for the primary
> source are possible:
> 
> > I think evolution that created humans and their capacity to think came
> > from Quality, the source of all things. Call it Essence, God, Big Self,
> > The Source -- whatever you like. I prefer Quality because it presumes
> > that values--dynamic and static--were immanent from the start, as I'm
> > convinced they were by the explanatory power of the MOQ.
 
> Well, if "values were immanent from the start" -- and I would ask > 
"immanent
> for whom?" -- then would not Value be a more fitting name for the source
> than Quality?  Arlo also thinks "evolution created humans and their
> capacity to think", which (according to my thinking capacity anyway)
> dismisses the primary function of the source: that of Creator.  Clearly,
> there is a great deal of confusion about the nature of Quality and the
> epistemology by which man realizes it.