[MD] Chance v. Dynamic Quality

[Ham Priday]

Platt, Arlo and All --

[Platt quotes Pirsig]:
"Dynamic Quality, the source of all things, the pre-intellectual
 cutting edge of reality, always appears as 'spur of the moment.'
 Where else could it appear?"  (Lila, 11) .

[Arlo asks, rhetorically]:
> How on earth can any human being not experience
> "the cutting edge of reality"?

[Platt asks, earnestly]:
> How on earth can any human being experience the cutting
> edge of reality when it only appears as "spur of the moment."
> In other words, how can anyone experience that which
> doesn't appear to him?

Seems like a reasonable question, given the strange wording of Pirsig's 
assertion.
But the author speaks in metaphors, and while we can delight the ears by 
repeating
them, to borrow from a biblical phrase, "we know not whereof we speak."

I've been chastised for complaining that too much of philosophy is expressed 
in poetic language, and this is a typical example.  There are writers whose 
words and phrases are written to make us feel good, and there are others who 
use language to explain concepts.  Unfortunately, the brilliance of Pirsig's 
prose more often than not outshines his power of explication.

Consider the question "Where else could it appear?" following the 
proposition "Dynamic Quality ...always appears as 'spur of the moment'".  Is 
a "spur of the moment" a place in space or an interval of time?   If it's 
the latter, why didn't he ask: WHEN else could it appear?  (Perhaps because 
it lacked poetic eloquence?)
And exactly what is experience -- specifically, Pirsig's "value-experience?

As someone for whom Value is more comprehensible than Quality in the context 
of experience, and who sees no need for "dynamic" and "static" distinctions, 
the meaning of Pirsig's statement is quite clear.  Experience is both 
valuistic and incremental.  It's what appears to us at the instant of 
cognition when Value is actualized as an "appearance".  We become aware of 
experience as "knowledge" only by integrating it with previous increments of 
experience (from memory) and making intellectual sense of it.  Thus, man's 
knowledge (understanding) of reality is the cumulative sum of incrementally 
experienced "appearances" (phenomena) over time.

Since each successive appearance represents some aspect of objectivized 
Value, the "cutting edge of reality" is a metaphor for "finite experience". 
In other words, our experience of Value is always relative and 
differentiated.  We do NOT experience Value absolutely or directly.  Our 
interpretation of reality is based on a continuing series of "value 
constructs" which we call "experience".  Physical reality is a space/time 
jigsaw puzzle that we ourselves create from value-sensibility.  And, since 
ALL experience is actualized from Value, nothing is gained epistemologically 
by applying the labels "static" or "dynamic".  Existential reality (the 
world of appearances) is relational, differentiated, and incremental 
(evolutionary) in space and time.  The mode of human awareness is what 
Pirsig means by "spur of the moment" experience.

Anyway, that's how I see it.  I'll light up a fresh cigar while waiting for 
you two to "reset" my explanation in the language of MoQspeak.

Thanks for your time.

--Ham