[MD] The Abomination of Conflation

[Krimel]

A number of interesting issues have been raised in the "Really? Is That All
There Is" thread. I plan to address them beginning with the most serious
first'

[Krimel]
Within the MoQ experience equates with Quality.
 
[Arlo]
You're conflating the terminology of ZMM and LILA. Remember that in LILA,
the "Quality" of ZMM is "Dynamic Quality". 

This bit of nonsense began with the following post from Paul Turner in 2005:
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I propose that in ongoing discussions the term 'Quality' alone should be
dropped, as Pirsig suggests, to avoid problems resulting from a lack of
clarity.
 
"Today I tend to think of Quality as covering both Dynamic and static
quality. So far no problems have arisen with this confusion of terms but if
they do arise I would guess that they could be eliminated by refraining from
using the term Quality alone." [Pirsig to Turner, November 2005]
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It is still not clear to me what sparked this obscenity or why anyone took
it seriously. But here Pirsig says that he thinks Quality IS SQ/DQ and it
really isn't a problem but if anyone finds that confusing, then perhaps
MoQers might be served by only using the term Quality with modifiers.
The purpose of this off-hand ban on unmodified Quality would be to eliminate
confusion. Instead it has created the ridiculous conflation Arlo mentions
where "Quality" becomes replaced by "Dynamic Quality." That is not what
Pirsig said. Quality remains the Tao, the unity of opposition. For clarity
sake in MoQ discussions we should be clear about which pole of the duality
we are speaking of. But the fact remains that Arlo, dmb and other insist on
perpetuating this monstrous error.
Furthermore, Pirsig says that he understands "static" and "dynamic" as
aspects of this central tenant of the MoQ. This is also clear from reading
Lila. Where the term 'quality' appears about 450 times. In most of those
usages while one could quibble over meaning and context there are
distinctions between Quality as Tao, Quality as Yin and Quality as Yang. As
"textual evidence" I submit the following table.

Metaphysics of Quality          136
Dynamic Quality                        93
Quality                                      118
static quality                                7
static pattern of quality             1
Static quality                                3
biological quality                         9
biological pattern of quality      1
social pattern of quality             1
social quality                                5
intellectual quality                      2
static patterns of quality           7
static pattern of quality             1
low quality                                   6
low-quality                                  3
high-quality                                 3
1st Rigel  chat                             11
Misc. quality                               42
                                               449

As you can see, the term Quality stands alone capitalized 118 times. Pirsig
is, at least in Lila, is not confused on the distinction between Quality and
Dynamic Quality. There is simply no justification for anyone else confusing
them. They are not equal. The modifiers static and dynamic modify the
"central term." Neither should be construed as replacing it.
Turner's idea was so blatantly low quality, it is astounding to see it
perpetuated and amplified as  in this from Arlo, "'Quality precedes both
subjects and objects'" (which is, of course, says the same thing as 'Dynamic
Quality precedes static quality'). " Perhaps Arlo can unpack this a bit but
I find it frankly incoherent. Dynamic Quality does not precede static
Quality both are abstracted from Quality. 
As for my contention that Pirsig spends much of Lila praising DQ without
acknowledging its dark side, dmb goes off on one of his usual quotefests
without producing a single instance of a negative statement about DQ. 
As "textual evidence" that Pirsig does indeed laud DQ over SQ and fails to
acknowledge the negative consequences of DQ, I invite anyone to consult the
table above. "Dynamic Quality" is mentioned 93 times and Dynamic is always
capitalized. In fact the term Dynamic is used by itself without anything to
modify, 113 times and only once is it not capitalized.
In contrast the phrase static quality appears a mere 10 times and is only
capitalized at the beginning of sentences. The word static appears 208 times
and again is only capitalized at the start of sentences. All incarnations of
SQ are also presented as lower case.
This does suggest the Pirsig privileges DQ over SQ but it does not suggest
that he would prefer to abandon the central term of the MoQ which remains:
Quality.
Many times I have attempted to combat this abominable misuse of terms on
theoretic grounds perhaps this makes the problem a bit more obvious.