[MD] Does Quality really exist?

[David M]

Hi DMB

Is there a distinction we need here between found and 'drawn' distinctions?

Clearly knowing what is good and not is a distinction. Deciding that there
is a distinction between up and down is somewhat 'drawn' (possible but
needs to be made to be 'seen').

DM

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "david buchanan" <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 3:43 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] Does Quality really exist?


>
> Redsky said:
> ...In claiming to remove "Quality" from the  world, he isn't removing 
> Quality per se, but rather removing differences between objects.  By 
> removing the distinction between fine art and a blank wall, he isn't 
> removing a definitive aesthetic judgment, but rather our ability to 
> perceive a difference between two scenarios.
>
> dmb says:
> As we saw in the quote Bo posted, the thought experiment, removing Quality 
> to see how the world would be effected, results in the loss of the fine 
> arts. We'd still be able to distinquish a wall from a painting, but not a 
> good wall from a bad wall or a good painting from a bad one. In such a 
> world we'd probably still have walls but the loss of quality would make 
> the arts into a pointless exercise in changing a thing's shape for no 
> reason at all. Walls function as a barrier to the outside but art's 
> function is predicated on a sense of quality such that they couldn't 
> function without it. Without quality in the world, there'd be no reason 
> NOT to eat the same dry, tasteless food pellets at every meal - like a 
> dog.
>
> Poor dogs.
>
> Matt replied to Redsky:
> ...I think it is important to emphasize it: in Pirsig's philosophy, 
> Quality is synonymous with the making of distinctions, in any kind of 
> distinguishing.  In other words, the functioning of the "analytic knife" 
> from the beginning of ZMM is a direct function of there actually existing 
> Quality.  (He brings up this point again in Lila when he talks about 
> babies and differentiation.) ...Pirsig's just trying to point out how 
> commonsensical the existence of what he's talking about is.  It's a 
> beginning point.  His more controversial points require different 
> arguments.  That argument is a softening up move before the more 
> interesting stuff about Plato. ...Pirsig's softening up move is to make us 
> realize that Quality is basically the same thing as differentiation, but 
> there is more to it.  I have a lot of difficulty also with Pirsig's 
> assertion that we already know what Quality is, but I'm not sure if he 
> isn't saying that we already know how to identify Quality, we already know 
> how t
> o distinguish higher from lower value because doing so is _the_ basic 
> feature of living life.
>
> dmb says:
> Quality is synonymous with make distinctions and is basically the same 
> thing as differentiation? Pirsig says that Quality is ahead of 
> definitions. That's why, he says, the metaphyics of Quality is a 
> contradiction in terms. This is the same reason that we already know what 
> Quality is. These are all just other ways of getting at the HAD experience 
> as opposed to the KNOWN experience, the precognitive and cognitive, as 
> I've been saying. The way his writing students "knew" a good essay when 
> they read one, even if they couldn't say why, illustrates how this works 
> in everyday experience just as well as the thought experiment. Or the idea 
> that a guy went mad trying to find a way to define it. That's a pretty 
> dramatic illustration too. My point, obviously, is that your assertion 
> (that Quality is equal to distinctions and differentiations) is the 
> opposite of what Pirsig says about it.
>
> Thanks.
>
>
>
>
>
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