[MD] Descriptions of Quality

[118]

Helllo Anyone interested in Quality,
>

There have been some interesting posts recently; some of them have been
directed at me.  I will do my best to respond to these as I can.
 Unfortunately there were some posts which I will have a difficulty in
determining the philosophy being expressed.

As we know we are discussing a description of Quality which Pirsig brought
to our attention almost 40 years ago.  Some have been with it for that
period of time, others are new additions to this metaphysical structure.
 All are of course welcome.  As a description of Quality using metaphysical
tools, there are certain principles that guide such metaphysics.  I do not
think I need to remind others what these are.  The purpose of this
metaphysics is to guide an understanding of Quality, in a manner which is
always improving.

I would like to post comments to some of these posts below.

>
>
> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 12:39 PM, Andre Broersen <andrebroersen at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> Andre:
>
> David asked Mark to 're-evaluate'. Mark suggests that "The idea comes
> before DQ".
>
>
>
> I suggest...like David: please re-evaluate. You have it all upside down
> and arse-about Mark. Now start learning about Pirsig's MoQ! There are books
> there and Anthony has very kindly made you an offer... remember???
>

Mark:  Yes, there are books on the subject, which include a few thesis.
 There are also writings from a long time ago which are also about Quality,
these can be found in Pirsig's writings.  That you call this Pirsig's MoQ
suggests that perhaps you are not familiar with these.  The differentiation
between a world of ideas and a world outside of ideas is nothing new.  That
existence can be allocated to a single principle is also not new.  The
concept of Value has been presented with many different names.

I am not sure what you think I have upside down, since you do not say.  I
am not sure if I am supposed to guess what these are.  Perhaps you can
present what you mean.  Maybe a paragraph on Pirsig's MoQ from you would be
helpful.

I remain consistent with Pirsig's MoQ.  Perhaps it is my use of terms of
concepts and examples which lie outside of Pirsig's books that confuses
you.  However, I am really not  sure why you are confused.  I try to be as
clear as possible.  Until you present what you mean, I cannot answer any
better than that.

>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 2:08 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> "He began to see that he had shifted away from his original stand. He was
> no longer talking about a metaphysical trinity, but an absolute monism.
> Quality was the source and substance of everything. A whole new flood of
> philosophic associations came to mind. Hegel had talked like this, with his
> Absolute Mind. Absolute Mind was independent too, both of objectivity and
> subjectivity. However, Hegel said the Absolute Mind was the source of
> everything, but then excluded romantic experience from the "everything" it
> was the source of. Hegel's Absolute was completely classical, completely
> rational and completely orderly.
>
> Quality was not like that."..
>
> ...What he had been talking about all the time as Quality was here in the
> Tao, the great central generating force of all religions, Oriental and
> Occidental, past and present, all knowledge, everything."
>

Dmb, it would be useful to understand what you read in these quotes.  That
you can google the word monism is not helpful.  As you know, any
metaphysical trinity are the parts of an absolute monism.  In the physical
world, these could be considered as Mass, Energy, and Forces.  Often
physicist try to Create a Theory of Everything to create this monism.
 String theory would be a good example of this.  Certainly Quality can be
considered both source and substance.  However, the term monism in not
really appropriate unless one is trying to explain Quality to the reader
using rhetoric.  Then such a thing is appropriate, but the use of monism is
not adequate and will fall apart on philosophical analysis.  The academic
philosophers probably already know of the paradoxes associated with this
form of simplification.

Quality cannot be considered monistic or pluralistic.  My favorite example,
love, cannot be considered monistic or pluralistic.  Such terms just do not
make any sense.  However, it can be said that love is the source and
substance of all.

The quote you present is formated in the classical mode (just like
Hegel's).  This is a difficulty in any metaphysics since it is used to
present structure through intellectual premises.  One can certainly point
to a "grooving" with metaphysics, but this is done classically.  One
confession of Pirsig's was that he could no longer take the romantic
approach that his alter ego (before the medial intervention) could.  He
must deal with this ego of romantic understanding as a third person.  The
romantic approach is not structured enough to write a metaphysics with.

Certainly Quality has been discussed for thousands of years.  MoQ is
nothing new, as the second paragraph you provide points out.  MoQ is a
modern interpretation of Quality.  As Pirsig found out it is more of a
perennial philosophy.

Unfortunately the Tao was not the central generating force for all great
religions.  Nor should it be considered as such.  The Tao is not a
generating system, it is a Way.  Just like the way of playing baseball
provides the game.  It is misleading to speak of both Quality and Tao as
"sources".  This is a fallacy of using a cause effect paradigm which the
West seem to be stuck in.  Quality is more adequately described as an event.

>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 2:14 PM, Michael R. Brown <mrb at fuguewriter.com>
> wrote:
>
> It's important to distinguish between a thing, our idea of that thing, and
> the presence of that thing in our thinking.
>
>
>
> One may start out with ideas solidly saturated with SQ and very little
> admittance of DQ. This doesn't mean that one *knows* about SQ or DQ.
>
>
>
> Phaedrus is an amazing example of personal growth. He was a Zorro of SQ,
> wielding his blade - and by that very means, he gets to DQ - and thus his
> SQ adventures were also saturated in DQ.
>
>
>
> It's all about the consciousness in which one is in - or out.
>
>
>
> One of the profoundest Zen sayings: "Zen is just a trick of words."
>
>
>
>
>
> MRB
>

Yes, MRB, I can agree with what you write.  You have created a useful
trinity above.  One can match The Father, The Son, and The Holy ghost to
this trinity.  Religion is highly mystical, at least when practices by
those who dedicate their lives to it.  There is nothing stupid about such
practice, and we should be aware of its mystical uses.  In the past I have
suggested a useful trinity for Quality, but I will not belabor that.  If
Pirsig did not spell it out as such, nobody will see it as such.

Using SQ, Pirsig creates DQ (in its static form).  He uses this duality to
explain Quality in metaphysical terms.  He does not have the training in
which to present DQ in more convincing terms, but a careful reading of Lila
can reveal what he means. Rhetoric is DQ, and the words and concepts are
SQ.  DQ can be considered the manner in which SQ is used, and which
provides the growth of SQ.  Most of our day is spent in DQ, and covers
everything outside of our intellectual awareness.  Since we can only focus
on one thing at a time, everything else is not in the SQ realm, until we
focus on it.  We have memories which, until brought to the surface, are DQ.
 DQ can also be viewed as a "potential", much in the same way that
potential energy is considered.  For those non-scientists, energy exists in
two mathematical forms, Potential and Kinetic.  Potential energy means it
can result in kinetic energy.  With this analogy, SQ is kinetic energy.

Another profound saying I have heard in Zen, is that "the words are
ultimately trivial".  It is important to see words as a means to an end,
and not the end in themselves.  We can argue all day long about what words
Pirsig uses, but that will never reveal Quality.  Quality cannot be found
in words.

>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 2:44 PM, Ant McWatt <antmcwatt at hotmail.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> Ant McWatt comments:
>
>
>
> "But, be careful. We have been told what happened to Pirsig."
>
>
>
> Pirsig had a breakdown (largely down to the extreme version of Western
> culture in which he was bought up in...)  Wrote ZMM.  Became world famous
> and a multi-millionaire.  Bought a boat and sailed the world.  Wrote a
> sequel on an advance of a million dollars...
>
>
>
> Yes Mark, it kind of makes me less inclined being careful - strangely
> enough.  But that's just me.  Maybe It's my "eccentric" English upbringing!
>
>
>
> Best wishes, as ever,
>
>
>
> Ant
>

As you well know, Ant, Pirsig is one of my heros.  I have written this to
you in an offline communication.  You seem to be making excuses for him
above.  I do not think he needs that kind of support.  That he wrote good
books came after the fact of what he went through.  It is not fun to have a
serious split from reality as he did.

My point was that if you ever want to enter into the world of Quality,
rather than just analyzing it through SQ, it is not easy.  Believe me, I
have friends who are still not comfortable with reality.  Pirsig did not
have much help with his spiritual awakening.  He is quite candid about what
he remembers.  You may recall that he was taken for treatment by a
policeman.  Clearly there were some concerns of safety.  He does not go
into details about this.  There is more which can be found in local police
reports at the time.  Since I looked at these more than 30 years ago (for
personal reasons), I am not sure if they are on the internet.  Back then we
had to go to a library and look through microfiche and the like.

As I have said before, there are two results from a split from "normal
reality".  One consequence is to remain "on the other side".  The other
result is to use what one learned and bring it back to others.  Bringing it
back was one dilemma that Buddha himself faced.  What Pirsig did with ZAMM
was turn a detrimental breakdown into a spiritual awakening.  In order to
fully understand what he saw, one must go there to see it.  Pirsig returns
as a traveler to try to tell us what Quality is.  He then does his best to
create a metaphysics with which to describe it.  The metaphysics is not as
important as what it describes.

Again, I have nothing but respect for Pirsig.  What he went through was
difficult, and I am glad that he wrote about it.  While he is not as
prolific as, say, Swedenborg, Emerson, Jacob Bohme, or others were, he does
present things in modern terms.  It is a shame that he chose not to write
more.  But, it is very difficult to put into words.

>
>
> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 3:22 PM, Ant McWatt <antmcwatt at hotmail.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Ant McWatt comments;
>
>
>
> Yeah, WE ARE ALL always learning...
>
>
>
> So if "the pre-intellectual cutting edge of reality, the source of all
> things, completely simple and always new" isn't a good definition of
> Dynamic Quality, what is?
>
>
>
> Humour me (if for nothing else).
>
>
>
> Ant
>

I think this is a great definition of DQ.

As you may recall I stated that DQ cannot RIGHTLY be said to come before
SQ.  Again, I must refer you to the ghost of reason which I believe is very
important to understand for understanding Quality.  DQ is a concept which
was made up.  It comes from the intellect.  Therefore, strictly on logical
grounds, we cannot say that the concept we made up created itself.  DQ did
not exist before we made it up, just like the concept of gravity (or
matter) existed before it was created intellectually.

One cannot have his cake and eat it too.  If one goes by the ghost of
reason argument, one cannot then say that DQ comes before that.  I find
that the "ghost of reason" is one of the most compelling arguments within
the metaphysics of Quality.  It really sets the stage for all the other
definitions and examples that Pirsig presents.  Pirsig himself points to
the degeneracy of such words and concepts.  They only create more of
themselves and will never reveal Quality as an awareness.  It takes a
little more work than just reading about it.

>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 1:35 AM, Dan Glover <daneglover at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Me thinks thou doth make light of dark matters, good knight. Ideas of
>
> ideas about ideas pertaining to ideas come before ideas, do they not?
>
> I challenge thee to deny this. Be thee full of care lest I smite thy
>
> grin from the grin that thou grinnist so grinnily.
>

Yes, the ideas of ideas are a paradox that MoQ seeks to dispel.  It is like
thinking about thinking.  As you know, there is a way out of this through
MoQ.  Me?  I am smiling all the way.

>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 11:04 AM, Andre Broersen <andrebroersen at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Marsha to Greetings:
>
>
>
> I can get annoyed with Mark, sometimes, but I also appreciate his
> intellectual jumps and heel-clicks.
>
>
>
> Andre:
>
> Which is fair enough Marsha, but we are on a philosophical forum
> discussing Pirsig's MoQ i.e. ZMM and LILA and any further writings and
> sayings from Pirsig and closely related subjects.
>
>
>
> We are not in a dance-hall.
>

Well Andre, perhaps you should stop dancing then and put down some
philosophy in this forum.  How about it, Chum?  Stop all this cheerleading
and give us some thoughts on Quality.

We are discussing the description of Quality through metaphysics.  What
Pirsig writes can lead to many personal revelations.  That is why he wrote
an Inquiry.  Ask yourself, what does what Pirsig wrote mean to you and your
outlook.

If we are trending towards betterness then you do not have to be
pessimistic like Dan.  It is all in how one uses Quality that matters.


On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 10:58 AM, Dan Glover <daneglover at gmail.com> wrote:

> Mark,
> We are having a discussion here about the MOQ, not whatever it is you
> are talking about. Unless you have something pertinent to add, please
> refrain from disrupting it.
> Thank you,
> Dan


My apologies Dan.  You addressed your post to me and others so I had a
comment.  I am still not sure what you mean by "discussing the MoQ".  You
never responded to the appropriate means by which to discuss the MoQ.  It
just seems that you do not like what I write and then say it is not "the
MoQ".  Yet you never explain why.

The MoQ is a description of Quality in metaphysical terms.  I believe I was
discussing the MoQ.  My comments were directed to some
fundamental misunderstandings that you have about the MoQ.  I realize that
you do not care much for philosophy but often you seem to forget that this
is all about Quality.

The idea of matter came before what we now agree on to call matter.  This
does not mean that what was used to created the idea of matter did not
exist, for an idea must come from somewhere.  That is all I was trying to
point out.  It sound to me like you are saying that ideas create physical
reality.  If I bump into a tree at night, this bump happens before I create
an idea of what happened.  Ideas are static, but they come from the dynamic.

Cheers,
Mark

>
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