[MD] The Quest for Quality

[Ham Priday]

[Marsha] --


> The patterned distribution of static quality or Quality?  Static quality 
> is definition.  Quality is beyond definition,  at least that is my 
> understanding.  The terms 'primary' and 'first cause' both
> are definition making them static.  It seems to me that you are
> trying to reify Quality.
>
> Interrelated causes and multiple conditions.  How can these be
> tracked?
>
> While I think there is something in your theory that explains, to some 
> extent, the conceptualization process, most of it makes no
> sense to me.  Thanks for the response, but the reification of Quality is a 
> no-no.

You forced me to look up "reify" which, I confess, is not in my vocabulary. 
Webster's says it is "to regard something abstract as a material thing." 
Now, I don't know how you Pirsigians get from "pure" Quality to material 
entities, but from what I've seen here, an entity (thing) is a pattern. 
Even the self, you've said, is a "collection of patterns".  Correct me if 
I'm wrong, but it would seem that reality is supposed to be "unpatterned" 
quality (DQ), and finite entities are "patterned" quality (SQ).

Interrelated causes are intellectually perceived S-O creations.  The cause 
of an egg is the hen that lays it; the cause of a broken egg is the hammer 
that smashes it, etc.  Such events relate to the differentiated universe of 
human experience which attributes all phenomena to causal forces.
Perhaps that's reification, but I see it as the objectivist precept that all 
events have an antecedent cause, except for the first event (Big Bang?) 
which, according to the objectivists, occurred spontaneously.   Neither the 
essentialist nor the MoQist believes that the essence of reality is 
substantive matter; in fact, we are both phenomenalists who believe that 
material reality is an experiential construct of Value or Quality.

So what's your beef about my statement, Marsha?

--Ham