[MD] The Quest for Quality

[Ham Priday]

Dear Margaret --

> The 'effect or result of some greater power' sentence
> does remind me of some ideas that I read in the
> Buckminster Fuller book,'Intuition'....cause-and-effect
> explanations leading to an infinity of prior causes.
> I'm not too certain of the 'greater power'...and I'm
> wondering if you mean this in a traditional 'God' sense
>...What power does the Essence have?
>
> How do you define Essence?

Educated people today are paranoid about belief in God because they've been 
persuaded by intellectuals that theism is an outworn relic of the dark ages. 
It's so much more sophisticated to attribute the origin of things to 
Beingness, Consciousness, Probability, or even Nothingness.  Yet, humans are 
by nature spiritualistic creatures who feel the "need to know", which 
accounts for the paranoia as well as the Quest for Quality.

Philosophy (which I'm astounded to see being demeaned in this forum) has 
taught us that the primary cause or source of reality is indefinable and 
beyond human conception, and postmodern philosophers like Pirsig tend to 
dismiss it, even while proposing metaphysical theories.  As an essentialist, 
I have named this source Essence, and have borrowed a definition first 
coined by the Neo-platonist philosopher Cusanas in the 15th century.  His 
'first principle' was the coincidence of contrariety which he called the 
"Not-other".  This cricumvents the neeed to describe the ineffable, yet 
affords a convenient connotation by which to reference the creator.

> I actually thought of Pirsig's definition of Quality as being
> both a Value AND an Essence actually (as in the word
> being both a noun and a verb).
>
> Perhaps I do not quite understand it correctly. I read Lila
> over 3 years ago  now and don't re-visit it that often. So
> everything I think about the MOQ comes from this foggy
> recollection of ideas I gathered when reading it (and
> everything I read here) - and maybe I understood it
> incorrectly to start to start with.
>
> But still, I always thought that where he went with Quality,
> was that it was like what (I think) you are describing as Essence.
>
> Like a prime directive of sorts...that exists even at infinitesimally
> small and exponentially large levels. Atoms/cells colliding,
> merging, separating based on the forces of nature (gravitation,
> electromagnetism, strong & weak interactions - or the grand
> unified theory)...BUT there is another 'quality'/Quality in these
> interactions (as in my limited understanding of what Quantum
> Physics is supposed to be about) that might influence the
> behavior of an element where it (appears to) choose a
> 'direction' toward a state that is somehow 'better' than
> another choice...but this 'better' is just in relation to the
> other state in that system at that moment at time.

That's a logical concept, and you express it very well.  I would submit 
that your "prime directive of sorts" is not quality but a primary source 
that encompasses directive.  And the "other 'quality'" you refer to is what 
I regard as Value.  Pirsig himself equated Quality with Value, but didn't 
posit it as the progenitive source.  My own view is that Value is derived 
from Essence and serves to bind the free agent (man) to his uncreated 
source.

There has been much recent speculation in the scientific community about 
Intelligent Design as an aspect of the universe.  But intelligence, like 
value, is a human precept that only man can appreciate.  My theory is that 
the "design" or form of  reality is "projected through us" into experience. 
(By "us" I mean our individuated, proprietary value-sensibility.)  I've 
concluded that the physical world we all experience is phenomenal -- that 
is, the intellectualized apprehension or appearance of finitude as an 
ordered system of beingness.  In that sense, we each "create" our own 
universe whose quantitative properties and relations are identical, but 
whose qualitative values represent the individual's unique affinity for 
Essence.

> There are these moments of choices occurring all of the time - and in 
> those
> moments the direction is made up of SOME decision...in that moment the
> life force that compels us to do anything at all (also understood as 
> Essence
> maybe???) is the force that compels the entity to choose a state that is
> 'better' than some other state.

I agree entirely.  Man is the "choice-maker" of his universe, and all 
voluntary decisions are based on value.  The core morality of Essentialism 
is that every individual is a free agent of value.  But, in order to be 
free, man is created as an "existential other", a cognizant entity connected 
to Essence only by value.

> In my mind, it was this notion of 'betterness' that Pirsig
> called Quality, which works at multiple levels AND can
> also be the same thing as an Essence

Like everything else in existence, Quality (Value) is always relative.  It 
can be "better" or "worse", depending on the sensibility of the individual 
subject.  We each have a wide range of values that drive us and a rational 
mind to choose our actions.  My moral axiom is "rational, self-directed 
value".

> - unless you are saying that Essence is like a traditional
> view of 'GOD' sitting up there in space somewhere -
> who gave the world a "cosmic Jewish Zombie who can
> make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and
> telepathically tell him you accept him as your master ...

I think you can safely dispense with that cartoon caption, but it does 
illustrate the antitheistic paranoia I mentioned above.

> I DO have a problem with the MOQ trying to fit everything
> into these certain numbered levels - certainly everything can
> be described at 'Biological', 'Social' and 'Intellectual' levels,
> but I think we ARE all 3 levels at the same time and we are
> EXPERIENCING all 3 levels simultaneously so trying to
> label and categorize everything this way just doesn't make
> sense to me.

Amen.  (But do be careful with such criticisms, Margaret.  They'll get you 
into a lot of trouble here.  Remember that the mystic philosopher Giordano 
Bruno, arguably the most brilliant mind of the 16th century, was burned at 
the stake for advocating moral relativism.)

Essentially yours,
Ham