[MD] The Tao of Quality - Verse 1

[david buchanan]

[Robert Pirsig in ZAMM]

"I think, furthermore, that all his metaphysical mountain climbing did absolutely nothing to further either our understanding of what Quality is or of what the Tao is. Not a thing. [...] 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."


Krimel commented:
... I think he proceeds in order to benefit reason, or as James would put it conceptualization. That is, chopping the world into measurable parts. But he reiterates in Lila no metaphysics can to anything for the Tao. Not a thing.

dmb says:
That's right. That's why anti-intellectualism as a stance toward the MOQ is so off kilter. Around here, this anti-intellectualism is a result of conflating the disease (SOM) with the cure (MOQ). In both cases, we are dealing with intellectual static patterns. The MOQ and SOM are rival sets of ideas, opposed ways of conceptualizing. As Robert Pirsig says, "A metaphysics must be divisible, definable and knowable, or there isn't any metaphysics" but "Quality is essentially outside definition". 

BUT one of the most important differences between the MOQ and SOM is that Pirsig arranges his system around that undefinable reality. In his system, everything static is subordinated to DQ and is derived from DQ. 

And that's why I keep insisting that I'm only talking about the words and concepts (static patterns) in Pirsig's work and not reality itself, which must remain undefined and undivided. 

This is a philosophical discussion group, not a monastery. All we have are words, definitions and concepts. As Pirsig says over and over, the flux of experience is prior to definitions and so as soon as you start talking it's gone. You can't capture the empirical reality in a verbal formula but we certainly can and should define the meaning of words and concepts.

And that's why Marsha's idea of static patterns as ever-changing is so damn goofy. It puts the flux right where we want stability to be. It defines "static" as totally not static. That's as wrong as you can get. It doesn't get any worse than that.