[MD] Chance

[Ham Priday]

Ron --


> As Ham shows us, when we use DQ/SQ intellectually to define
> the intellectual concept of Quality it creates modulations
> of the container paradox.  Essentially rendering DQ null
> and void, leaving us to discuss this static realm that is now
> separated from it's source which plays right into Ham's thesis.

I think you've got this wrong.  My philosophy is based on an immanent 
Essence.  All the discussions here are about the static realm, as if 
separated from its source.  The only connection I see is an ephemeral one --  
the quality of experience linked to a higher quality.  You yourself said 
"Pirsig does not posit a source for source implies separation."  Source 
implies separation only because it must account for differentiated 
existence.  In that sense it is the primary cause of creation, but Essence 
itself (or whatever you want to call it) is uncreated, and not subject to 
the conditions of finitude.  Pirsig has not defined his DQ as absolute, 
immutable, or immanent, so we are left to understand it only in relational 
terms.

[Ron]:
> First of all we need to separate the terms and concepts describing
> experience from experience itself.  Quality, DQ and SQ are terms
> and concepts used to describe experience.  Chiefly, the concept
> of Quality is one that all experience is composed of infinitely
> transforming patterns. Subject/Object self/other are grammatical
> linguistic descriptions of this experience.  Same goes for DQ/SQ.
> DQ/SQ works well with the concept of Quality as reality for descriptive
> And conceptual purposes because it keeps the concept of the
> transformation of patterns. It's difficult to relate to the terms of 
> finitude
> because in this ontology the finite is an illusion an appearance a 
> perception.

That sounds about right as a description of Pirsig's epistemology.  But a 
pattern is a particular form or configuration of something.  According to 
your analysis, that something is Quality.  But quality is an experienced 
attribute, which means that it is dependent on the "experiencer", the 
conscious subject of the experience.  Again, that does not qualify as the 
fundamental source.

[Ham, previously]:
> In my philosophy, Essence is absolute and fundamental.  It is not
> dependent on anything.  Objects and events are perceived "reductions"
> of Essence experienced (intellectualized) from Value.

[Ron]:
> Then I would say that Essence is dependent on value. Else how do you
> support such a notion?

No.  Value is a sensed attribute of Essence.  It is the "substance" of 
experience, not the primary source.  Being-aware is a dichotomous property 
of the cognizant self which exists "outside the loop" of Essence.  It is the 
individuated self which is dependent on value, not Essence.

[Ron]:
> There really isn't a dualism with Pirsig, just terms he uses to describe
> the experience of transforming patterns. Quality is not absolute for we
> are in constant transformation. We are Quality. Why it defies classical
> logic is that it renders logic superlative in the face of immediate
> experience.  Logic is an intellectual game we play by certain rules we
> create. To put it plainly he places source in immediate experience.
> In some ways this rivals your concepts in that all that exists is the
> experience of being, yet he differs in this by proposing that we are
> it. Quality itself. No source per se, but the infinite transformation
> of energy in process developed to an awareness. What this means
> spiritually is that there is no separation; we are already complete and
> whole and it is up to our free will to establish meaning and purpose 
> within it.

I can accept the last part of your analysis.  However, the statement "we are 
Quality" is problematic to this end.  For if we were Value itself, what 
would there be to experience?  I would say we are quality-sensible 
(Value-sensible) entities.  The values that we are sensible of are 
differentiated and relational, like everything else in existence.  Our 
existence as a 'being-aware' is a self/other synthesis derived from Essence. 
Human beings "exist" insofar as we are aware of an other whose value we can 
only sense.  In reality it is WE who are the "other", which is why we cannot 
participate in Essence but can only view it from the periphery, so to speak.

[Ron]:
> I wouldn't say you are wrong, but rather an explanation why the
> interpretation I have developed works more completely than the
> common one expressed to you in the past.

Well, I appreciate your analysis, despite its problems, and I commend you 
for your willingness to shed some insight on the MoQ.  I still feel that 
Pirsig's refusal to define Dynamic Quality was unjustified, and that he was 
wrong to dismiss subjective awareness as the locus of experience.  Had he 
studied epistemology with the same vigor that he applied to anthropology, he 
might have come up with a more plausible theory of reality.  What we have 
instead is an esthetic paradigm built around Darwinian evolution, which 
contributes very little to metaphysics.

Essentially yours,
Ham