[MD] grmbl

[plattholden at gmail.com]

On 31 May 2010 at 5:21, Andre Broersen wrote:

Platt to Andre:

What Mr. Pirsig was talking about with regards to "container logic" was his
wholehearted adoption of it to explain his new metaphysics, neatly
summarized in one sentence:

"What the Metaphysics of Quality would do is to take this separate category,
Quality, and show how it contains within itself both subjects and objects."
(Lila, 5)

That one sentence also advances Bo's idea that the intellectual level is not
only a "subset" of Quality but restricted to the S/O division.

Andre:
Hi Platt, it seems our readings of this sentence (within the context of the 
MOQ) is different then? Within the MOQ objects are inorganic and organic 
patterns of value, and subjects are social and intellectual patterns of value. 
All neatly arranged within an evolutionary framework.

Are we sharing the same meaning of 'subjects' and 'objects'? Perhaps you can 
explain what you mean by these two conceptualizations(if they are indeed 
different to the MOQ understanding of them). This may clear up a lot of 
misunderstandings and 'talking passed' eachother.


Hi Andre,

Happy to oblige. The meaning of subjects and objects is defined by our  
culture. As Pirsig observed, "The culture in which we live hands us a set of 
intellectual glasses to interpret experience with, and the concept of the 
primacy of subject and objects is built right into those glasses." (Lila, 8)

Obviously, the "MOQ context" is NOT built into the intellectual glasses of our 
culture. Instead, the meaning of subject/object that Pirsig refers to is the 
same as the meaning of self/other, mind/matter, internal/external, 
implicit/explicit, and the hundred and one other variations of "me in here and 
you out there" that infect our culture's language and thought. 

Note that in none of these "common sense" divisions is there any acknowledgment 
of values. It is Pirsig's singular contribution to the world's understanding 
that values comprise the foundation of all we know. Unfortunately, few know of 
Pirsig's contribution. Thus, your meaning of subjects and objects in "the MOQ 
context" is known and believed only by you, me and a handful contributors and 
lurkers here, to the rest of the world's detriment such as we are witnessing 
today. (If the value of ability of individuals and governments to pay back 
debts had been sufficiently recognized, the world would not be in its current 
economic mess.)

Hope this answers your question.

Platt