[MD] The first cut.

[david buchanan]

dmb said:

...Pirsig's purpose is not to spread otherworldly mysticism. The MOQ is aimed at improving our modes of analysis, our ways of thinking, our philosophies. Undefined Quality (DQ) has everything to do with this project, but the metaphysics itself is conceptual and intellectual and it is given to us in words. The shape and meaning and purpose of the MOQ is not, not, not supposed to be some elusive mystery. It's a set of ideas that one can understand rightly. Or not. 




"No, he did nothing for Quality or the Tao.  What benefited was reason. He showed a way by which reason may be expanded to include elements that have previously been unassimilable and thus have been considered irrational." (ZAMM, p. 257)

"Quality is the Buddha. Quality is scientific reality. Quality is the goal of Art. It remains to work these concepts out into a practical, down-to-earth context, and for this there is nothing more practical or down-to-earth than what I have been talking about all along - the repair of old motorcycle." (ZAMM, p. 276) 

"I want to show that that classic pattern of rationality can be tremendously improved, expanded and made far more effective through the formal recognition of Quality in its operation." (ZAMM, p. 278) 

"The difference between a good mechanic and a bad one, like the difference between a good mathematician and a bad one, is precisely this ability to SELECT the good facts from the bad ones on the basis of quality. .. I think that it will be found that a formal acknowledgment of the role of Quality in the scientific process doesn't destroy the empirical vision at all.  It expands it, strengthens it and brings it far closer to actual scientific practice." (ZAMM, p. 281-2) 

"... Dynamic Quality [is] the value-force that chooses an elegant mathematical solution to a laborious one, or a brilliant experiment over a confusing, inconclusive one ...  Dynamic value is an integral part of science.  It is the cutting edge of scientific progress itself." (LILA, p. 366)