[MD] MOQ and the Future: An Inquiry into Usefulness

[X Acto]

John:
I'm with Platt on this one"



> Platt:
> > Where does he state this? Let's see a quote.
> >
> > Ron:
> > what for? it's in there and besides you'd either evade it or deny it
> anyway
>
>
Platt:


> If it's there it ought to be easy to find and quote.
>
>

John]

Yeah, I don't have an encyclopediac memory of Pirsig's writings, but every
big thing he said made an impression on me and that's a pretty big thing I
think I'd remember, so I wanna see the quote along with Platt.

Ron:


"Quality is indivisible, undefinable and unknowable in the sense that there is
 a knower and a known, but a metaphysics can be none of these things. A metaphysics
 must be divisible, definable and knowable, or there isn't any metaphysics. Since a
 metaphysics is essentially a kind of dialectical definition and since Quality is
 essentially outside definition, this means that a 'Metaphysics of Quality' is 
essentially a contradiction in terms, a logical absurdity.
It would be almost like a mathematical definition of randomness. The more you 
try to say what randomness is the less random it becomes."
 Or 'zero,' or 'space' 
for that matter. Today these terms have almost nothing to do with 'nothing.' 
'Zero' and 'space' are complex relationships of 'somethingness.' If he said 
anything about the scientific nature of mystic understanding, science might 
benefit but the actual mystic understanding would, if anything, be injured. 
If he really wanted to do Quality a favor he should just leave it alone.
What made all this so formidable to Phaedrus was that he himself had insisted 
in his book that Quality cannot be defined. Yet here he was about to define it. 
Was this some kind of a sell-out? His mind went over this many times.
A part of it said, 'Don't do it. You'll get into nothing but trouble. You're 
just going to start up a thousand dumb arguments about something that was 
perfectly clear until you came along. You're going to make ten-thousand 
opponents and zero friends because the moment you open your mouth to say 
one thing about the nature of reality you automatically have a whole set 
of enemies who've already said reality is something else.' Lila chptr 5

>
> > Ron:
> > Yes, Human Value creates the world we live in.
>
>
Platt]


> So now it's "Human Value" that creates the world, not just Value. Where
> do you find evidence for that notion?
>


John]

He's been reading too much Ham.  It's the only possible explanation.

Once again I agree with Platt here.  Humans are created by Value, the idea
that value comes from humans is the "S" in SOM, the subjective horn of a
mean bull.  A bull that produces cut-throat competitive selves worshipping
bull-headed progress and bull markets on Wall Street.

Ron:
Since Quality is indivisable, undefinable and unknowable any conception
of it is not it and I think you jump to objective misinterpretations on this matter
of what is viewed as "subjective".