[MD] Plato's Good

[Tuukka Virtaperko]

Mark,

Mark:

> With due respect, nothing can be encapsulated into a definition.

Tuukka:
I like this opening of discussion, but the discussion it opens is not an 
easy one. It would have something to do with differentiating romantic 
quality and Dynamic Quality. This difference is by no means included in 
the canonic MOQ, with many people saying RQ is simply a prototype of DQ.

To begin, I ask - are the things you hear different from the things you 
see? In other words, can you differentiate between visual and auditory 
perceptions?

It's extremely likely that you feel you are able to do so. Yet, you 
cannot *define* the difference between something you hear and something 
you see, because the difference between those things is not classical, 
ie. not a dialectical entity. In this sense, we are unable to 
encapsulate any experience into a definition.

Yet we are able to use words to differentiate between hearing and 
seeing, and we very rarely make mistakes when doing so. In this sense, 
we are able to "encapsulate" auditory and visual perceptions to 
dialectic capsules, that help us tell one from the other. The 
metaphorical notion of "encapsulation", that Pirsig uses in ZAMM, is 
likely to mean this latter sort of encapsulation - as otherwise Pirsig 
would end up opposing all definitions. Thus he would definitely oppose, 
for example, logic and mathematics, which are not only unreasonable to 
oppose, but which Pirsig occasionally seems to revere.

In ZAMM, the notion that Quality must not be encapsulated into a 
definition, seems to indicate an understanding of the existence of 
Dynamic Quality, which Pirsig, however, had not yet introduced properly.

You seem to be suggesting, that because words are usually references to 
referents, and because the reference is separate from the referent, 
nothing can be encapsulated into a definition (= reference). You seem to 
justify this suggestion with the argument, that in order for a reference 
to be able to refer to the referent, the reference has to be identical 
with the referent. In other words, the reference and the referent would 
have to be the same thing. But if this requirement were met, why would 
we speak of "encapsulation" or "references" and "referents"? After all, 
we could not differentiate between the reference and the referent, or 
the "capsule" and the "contents of the capsule"!

Suppose you have a capsule that contains some medicine. The outer shell 
of the capsule encapsulates the contents of the capsule. The contents 
are what we want. The outer shell just helps us to ingest them instead 
of spilling the powder all over the place. As you can see, the outer 
shell is not identical with its contents. That doesn't mean the outer 
shell were empty, or would not contain the contents.

Pirsig wrote that encapsulating Quality is impossible. If, by that, he 
had meant that Quality is different from the word "Quality" (the 
capsule), he would still not have managed to differentiate Quality from 
dogs, motion, emotions and so on. He would also have ended up opposing 
all definitions and all static quality. But even the canonic MOQ is way 
too analytic that this interpretation would be congruent with it. If 
that was what Pirsig meant in chpt 29 of ZAMM, it stands out as a non 
sequitur when associated with the rest of Pirsig's work.

It's much more likely that Pirsig meant that Quality cannot be put into 
a capsule - not that a capsule containing Quality would be separate from 
its contents. This way, when saying that Quality cannot be encapsulated, 
Pirsig did not mean that romantic quality cannot be encapsulated, but 
that Dynamic Quality cannot be encapsulated. However, he had not yet 
formed the proper concept of Dynamic Quality.

Thank you,
Tuukka