[MD] Instant Karma

[Ham Priday]

Hi Andre --


> Hi Ham,
>
> Quality does not relate the subject to the object, it creates them
> in the first place.
> 'The sun of Quality...does not revolve around the subjects and
> objects of our existence. It does not just passively illuminate them.
> It is not subordinate to them in any way. It has *created* them.
> They are subordinate to *it*.' (ZMM p234)
>
> To realise this one must step out of the SOM paradigm.

Thus saith Pirsig.  I don't happen to agree.  Unrealized Quality (Value) 
doesn't create anything.  Realization requires a sensible agent without 
which there is no Quality or existence.  Value sensibility is the essence of 
man, but his experience of it is relational -- as in "some things are better 
than others".  It is man who differentiates Value experientially into the 
myriad things that constitute his universe.  Thus, cognitive experience is 
the process whereby man "actualizes" being from Value to create an objective 
world.  Like any process, experience and intellection are relational and 
fall within the SOM paradigm.

> 'At the moment of pure Quality, subject and object are identical'.
> (ZMM p 284)...only later are static PoV's deduced. To be aware
> of this event and this subsequent process one must step into a
> MoQ 'paradigm'.

"The moment of pure Quality" is a lovely phrase that obviously pleases the 
MoQers.  Yet, no one has experienced such a phenomenon.  All experience is 
differentiated and relational.  Even self-awareness, once realized by the 
child, differentiates his individual identity from others.  If Pirsig had 
posited Sensibility instead of "pure Quality" as primary to existence, he 
would have been half right.  The other half of his fundamental "moment" is 
the value of beingness which is what we we are sensible OF.  Together they 
differentiate subject and object to create a 'being-aware'.

As far as I can discern, the "MoQ paradigm" is a hierarchical system for 
categorizing certain constituents of existence.  Since the only 
"metaphysical" component is the Quality (DQ) that lurks outside the system, 
I do not consider Pirsig's hieriarchy of levels a metaphysical hypothesis.

(For what my interpretation is worth).

Thanks Andre,
Ham