[MD] The Menu/Reality issue

[Ham Priday]

Ron, Marsha, Bo, and all --


Ordinarily I would abstain from discussions that seek to explain Pirsig's 
meanings.
But this one addresses a concept so fundamental to his philosophy that 
clarifying it should eliminate much of the cross-purpose talking that goes 
on here.

[Ron]:
> When Pirsig wrote [in LILA] . . .
> "This problem of trying to describe value in terms of substance
> has been the problem of a smaller container trying to contain a
> larger one. Value is not a subspecies of substance.
> Substance is a subspecies of value. When you reverse the
> containment process and define substance in terms of value
> the mystery disappears: substance is a 'stable pattern of
> inorganic values.' The problem then disappears. The world of
> objects and the world of values is unified."
>
> . . . he mistakenly gave the impression of a meta-objectivism
> which contradicts the statement of Value or Quality (ultimate reality)
> as being indefinable.
>
> By stating that substance IS a "stable pattern of inorganic values"
> he unwittingly alludes to a meta-objectivists view. When the remainder
> of his Metaphysic states that substance is an intellectual pattern
> ABOUT "stable patterns of inorganic values".
>
> THIS causes a huge problem in the road to understanding and occurs
> several times throughout the book enough so that Bo is justified in
> his interpretation.

You folks have cleared up the misconception of a Pirsig's phrase, although I 
doubt that anyone new to the MD would comprehend your clarification.  So, at 
the risk of being criticized for departing from official MoQ terminology, 
let me try to translate the problem in plain English.

Ron rightly contends that Pirsig's Menu/Reality analogy, which includes the 
statement that substance is a "stable pattern of inorganic values", leads to 
a false conclusion; namely, that the objective world "contains" the value 
pattern, which makes values an experienced subset of physical reality.  In 
an attempt to rectify this misconception, Bovar has proposed that Intellect 
be regarded as a "universal" level from which patterns, relations, and logic 
are derived.  But Pirsig clearly states that value is not a "subspecies of 
substance" and, in fact, it actually "defines substance".

The cause of the confusion, it seems to me, is that although Pirsig posited 
Intellect as the highest of four "static" levels in his Metaphysics of 
Quality (SODV), he never described its epistemology relative to Value (DQ) 
which, because it is "dynamic", transcends static level allocations. 
Despite the confusion, it's apparent that at least three of us understand 
that the "patterning" of Value is conceptual, which is to say that objective 
phenomena are the intellectual constructs of value perception.

[Marsha]:
> I cannot think of SPoVs as anything but conceptual.
> SPoVs are known (conceptual [value]), phenomenon is
> direct experience (value) until a recognized pattern.

[Ron]:
> Thats the way I see it too Marsha. SPoV are conceptual
> understandings about dynamic quality.

I hope this helps.

Regards to all,
Ham