[MD] Words and Metaphysical Mysticism.

[118]

On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 3:51 AM, David Harding <davidjharding at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi Mark,
>
>  >
> > Mark: We get into an interesting situation here if this is what is said.
> > Yes, "we all know what is good", we can say there is truth to such a
> > statement.  If however we relegate truth to high quality patterns and say
> > that such a depiction is good we end up with a paradox.  There is no way
> to
> > separate truth from good, or Truth from Quality.  They become exactly the
> > same thing.
>
> Logically, yes, you're right.  But Quality is before logic.  If you keep
> trying to subordinate Good to try and understand it intellectually, you
> will never do so because it is before your ideas about it.. Quality is
> direct experience itself, before Mark or anything else for that matter..
>  The only way you can agree with this is by *seeing* the harmony created by
> placing quality first.. If you don't do that, then you will never agree or
> understand.
>

Mark:  What do you mean Quality is before logic?  As far as I can tell,
Quality is not some thing.   Quality is where it happens.  As I remember,
Quality is made of two parts, DQ and SQ.  If Quality = DQ, then where does
SQ come from?  If instead Quality = DQ and SQ = SQ, then what is DQ + SQ.
 Do we have a name for this?  If Pirsig said that DQ is Quality (ZAMM) in
2005, what happened between 1992 and 2005?  Was it not the same thing in
that period?  Pirsig is trying to explain a difficult idea.  He is trying
to make it easy on us.  I already know what Quality was in the '70s.  I
read all about it.  Please do not provide quotes as proof of anything until
you understand DQ and Quality.

David, I am not sure what you mean by direct experience.  Experience is
something we create in response to that outside.  There is no "Experience"
floating around all by itself.  Maybe you are using the term experience in
a manner I am not used to.  Is there experience before we experience it?
 When we say "I experienced a freezing lake", this means that our bodies
got cold when we jumped in the lake.  Your "experience" is something else
all together, as far as I can tell.  Please explain what you mean by
"direct experience".

>
> > The solution is to say that , "yes, they are exactly the same thing".  In
> > this way the dichotomy presented by Pirsig is a false one.  He creates an
> > enemy of truth, and does not replace it with anything different.  I have
> no
> > problem with this result, since it is we who create distinctions where no
> > distinctions exist.  Such distinctions are made simply for rhetorical
> > purposes and fall apart on logical examination.
>
> I disagree.   Pirsig does replace truth with something different.  He
> replaces truth with Quality.  Once one does this, things become fabulously
> more coherent than they previously were..
>

No, David, Truth and Quality are two different conceptual beginings.  We
cannot replace one with the other.  When somebody is coming from the
paradigm of Quality he can place Truth within Quality.  If somebody is
coming from the Truth perspective, he can place Quality within truth.  To
somebody embedded in Truth, Quality is just an attribute.  The question is,
which is the better perspective for you?  I choose Quality.

>
>
> I disagree.  It is better to create two 'universes' of Quality than one.
>  It is better to say that Dynamic Quality is before all things and cannot
> be defined, while all our definitions and attempted definitions of DQ are
> sq.  The reason why it is better to create these two universes is because
> of how beautifully such a description describes our experience.  The
> emphasis here is on the beauty.  Where does that beauty come from? It is
> not mine any more than it is yours.  It is before all things.. It comes
> from DQ, like all things..
>

David, I am not sure what you mean by "defined".  When you say that DQ is
before all things, that IS a definition.  We have to define things in order
to talk about them.  If it is undefined then it could be before, after,
between, above, below, and all of the above all at the same time.  You are
defining DQ specifically as being before all things.  If it were undefined
you would not say that.

Definitions are simply used to have a conversation.  There is nothing
inherently evil about definitions.  In fact they are very useful.  What
Pirsig says is to not confuse the definition with the thing itself.  Do you
confuse a book about the French Revolution with the actual French
Revolution.

With SQ (some thing) coming after DQ (no thing), you are saying that
something comes from nothing.  I am fine with this and ask you, how do you
propose this happens?

More on your thoughtful responses, tomorrow.

Cheers,
Mark

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