[MD] humpty dumpty

[david buchanan]

Mark asked:
Why does Pirsig choose the scientific levels of inorganic, biological, social, and intellectual in order to create a metaphysics based on Quality?  I know what they are, I am a scientist.  Why does Pirsig find this particular method of sorting helpful?

dmb says:
I suppose there are countless reasons but the central purpose is to provide a set of moral codes based on an evolutionary hierarchy.

Mark asked:
...why does Pirsig choose Static and Dynamic Quality for which to construct a metaphysics based on Quality.

dmb says:
Same answer. DQ is what drives the MOQ's evolutionary morality. It's the source and substance of all static patterns and forms to basis for the highest moral code, the one that says DQ is higher than even the most evolved static level. 

Mark said:
You are wrong, Quality is not a thing, not even "the source of all things".  I thought we had got beyond that.  MOQ is a description of Quality, it is not the metaphysics of turtles.

dmb says:
Pirsig says Quality is the source and substance of everything. The MOQ spells this out and so getting "beyond" that is exactly what you don't want to do - presuming that the purpose here is to understand Pirsig's ideas.

Mark said:
I am trying to ask some fundamental questions here.  I was hoping you had dealt with them in your thesis.  If not at least you can speculate based on your understanding of Quality.  Maybe Pirsig explained this more directly than in Lila.

dmb says:
Yes, but these fundamental questions are predicated on misconceptions such that the questions don't make sense and can't really be answered. The best one can do in such a situation is try to untangle the misconceptions behind the questions. 


Mark said:
He could have made other choices through which to present Quality.  Has there been any discussion on that?  Once one has a grasp of Quality, other analogies can work.  If this has not yet been discussed perhaps we can do so here.  Other forms of metaphysics use other types of levels, as you know.

dmb says:
With respect to Quality or DQ, Pirsig himself makes many different comparisons. The Tao, the One of Plotinus, the ineffable empirical reality that philosophical mystics share in common, the Native American "Manito", the "nothingness" and the "Emptiness" of Eastern philosophies, etc., etc.. It's very supportive of the perennial philosophy, which says this is recognized in the esoteric core of the world's great religions, and Pirsig tells us that he's not inventing a new idea here (It's the oldest idea known to Man, he says), but rather he's dredging out silted up old channels, cutting a new trail over the same old spiritual mountain, etc. His version is relevant to our highly technological and scientific culture, is meant to serve our time and address our problems. 


The hierarchy of static levels, however, is a separate topic however. Again, because DQ is the source of everything knowable and definable and static patterns are those knowable, definable things. ("The Tao which can be NAMED is not the real Tao".) And yes, our culture's contemporary scientific worldview is just about the only worldview that does NOT have a hierarchy of being. In our own history and in most non-Western worldviews there is some kind of great chain of being that extends from dirt to divinity. And, as I mentioned last time, Pirsig draws his lines based on very old ideas. (Physical vs mental & mythos vs logos.)

There are countless reasons for slicing things up that way but the over-arching goal is to paint a coherent picture of an evolutionary process in which freedom (DQ) and order (sq) are the essential ingredients.


 
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