[MD] The SOM/MOQ discrepancy.

[Platt Holden]

Hi Marsha,

[Marsha]
> > > Maybe, but Buddha isn't an entity.

[Platt]
> >What would you say Buddha is? A big self? A hallucination?

[Marsha] 
> If I had to guess, I'd say the Buddha is a collection of knowledge.

To me a collection of knowledge would be a library. But I tend to be 
literal. For instance, abstract art has no appeal for me.  

[Platt] 
> > > >That the individual holds a high place in the Pirsig's philosophy
> is
> > > >evidenced by his writing in ZAMM: "My personal feeling is this is
> how
> > > >further improvement in the world will be done: by individuals
> making
> > > >Quality decisions, and that's all."
> > > >
> > > >What do you think?

[Marsha]
> > > Without defining precisely what the individual is or isn't, I think
> > > 'Three cheers for Quality decisions!!!'

[Platt]
> >Isn't someone like you, me or other human individual needed to make
> Quality
> >decisions in response to Dynamic Quality?

[Marsha] 
> An individual, a self, is an ever-changing, collection of 
> interrelated and interconnected, inorganic, biological, social and 
> intellectual, static patterns of value responding to Dynamic 
> Quality.  I wouldn't use the word 'needed'.

Agree. An individual, a self, is no illusion. Your description matches 
Pirsig's perfectly."It's possible to see Lila as something much greater 
than a customary sociological or anthropological description would have her 
be. Lila then becomes a complex ecology of patterns moving toward Dynamic 
Quality. Lila individually, herself, is in an evolutionary battle against 
the static patterns of her own life." (Lila, 29)

 I think "decisions" presupposes (needs) an individual "decider."  

Always a pleasure, Marsha

Platt