[MD] Waving goodbye to particles

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[John]
So which choice is better for designating the MoQ? Arlo says artifact.

[Arlo]
Of course, to make this accurate you'd have to include that "artifact/process"
in Arlo's view are interwoven, the "artifact" is never permanent, and the
"process" does not occur without artifacts. Sounds like we are talking DQ and
SQ, doesn't it? We are.

The Metaphysics of Quality is a stable pattern of values emanating from
Pirsig's initial inquires and evolving and informing discourse in an active
process of dialogue.

The pursuit of Quality, perhaps, is the DQ/process end of this, and it is from
this process that we see stable "waves" of value patterns spreading out in its
wake. Again, though, these aren't just "left behind" to sit acontextual and
"outide" for all time. They are an inseparable part of the evolutionary process.

[John]
Arlo's problem as I see it, is that  even a wave becomes virtually  an artifact
when conceived or abstracted  as a thing. 

[Arlo]
Then you don't read Arlo's posts.

[John]
My  "particular" problem with Arlo's artifactual process, is that any "thing"
thusly enclosed by definition, becomes too static.

[Arlo]
And any process devoid of producing static patterns of value becomes too
chaotic to last.

"Definitions" are ALWAYS evolutionary, ALWAYS changing, and sometimes the
change is slow and sometimes it is long, but "permanence" is just an illusion
along the way. 

The problem I see with YOUR view :-) is that definitions are "whatever you want
them to be", can be this, can be that, who cares, hey, we don't want to be "too
static". And this is fine if you are simply grooving on Quality. But a
"Metaphysics of Quality" is an attempt to create at least a fairly stable
pattern of value describing "Quality". If that ain't your thing, that's cool.

I'm beginning to think you too are confusing the Metaphysics of Quality with
"Quality itself". 

[John]
And since the MoQ explicitly deals with this problem, creatively and in novel
format, then it MUST be a process.

[Arlo]
Well, I'd say "philosophy" is the process here, John, the books and ideas
produced by Pirsig are stable patterns of value emanating from this process,
part of it, reinforming it, evolving all the time. Heck, you could say
"metaphysicing" is the process, and I'd agree. "Thinking", now there's a
process. 

Again, process and artifact are entwined to be dialogically inseparable. But
this is the whole DQ/SQ thing in a nutshell. What you are really saying is that
the "MOQ" is DQ. 

And I am saying, to that, that again you are confusing "Quality" (the
undefinable) with SQ emanations from its wake (in this case, a high-quality
intellectual pattern of value.)

At this point I should restate too that I prefer Ant's (I think it was his
term) use of "stable patterns of value" over "static". "Static" does imply
permanence and "fixedness", where "stable" implies something that can, and
does, evolve and change.

[John]
A harmonious wave of understanding, that it's adherents use to surf unto higher
understanding.  When you hit the beach, you swim out again.

[Arlo]
A harmonious wave of understanding (SQ), that it's adherents use to surf unto
higher understanding.  When you hit the beach, you swim out again (pursing DQ).