[MD] Reductionism

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Krimel,


On Jul 5, 2009, at 3:18 PM, Krimel wrote:

> Steve:
> I wasn't trying to bring in any new controversy. I was just defending
> DMB's claim that DQ/sq amounts to reality/concept where reality
> simply refers to the conceptually unknown.
>
> [Krimel]
> Just to jump in and clarify something here. To the extent that  
> "reality" is
> infinitely divisible, constantly changing, and unpredictable I  
> agree that
> that is what DQ means. To the extent that concepts are static  
> descriptions
> of this dynamic flux, order emerging from chaos, I agree that that  
> is what
> SQ means. But that is not how Dave sees it. He thinks of DQ as a  
> sense of
> Value, as the perception of "betterness." His is a purely  
> subjective stance.

Steve:
I don't think DMB would say DQ is the *perception* of betternesss or  
*sense of* value. It is just betterness. As I understand Pirsig, what  
he is saying is that the "infinitely divisible, constantly changing,  
and unpredictable" stimulus that we know as reality is also the  
continuing immediate flux of "betterness" and "worseness" known as  
Quality. At least he wants us to to suppose for the sake of argument  
that that is what reality is and see where that postulate takes us.  
Now some people like Ham and maybe you object and say that that is  
simply not what anyone means by value or quality. Value is merely  
subjective. So MOQers are making all of reality subjective. Quality  
simply isn't the sort of thing that we should ever talk about as the  
"infinitely divisible, constantly changing, and unpredictable"  
conceptually unknown reality. But Pirsig is talking about it that way  
anyway, and many of us have found the Quality metaphor to be  
extremely fruitful. We seem to agree that Pirsig uses the words value  
and quality in ways that we never thought of using them before and is  
thereby expanding or changing the definitions of the terms to even  
include the undefinable. Where we may disagree is about whether that  
is worth doing.

Best,
Steve