[MF] What are people?

[Muzikhed at aol.com]

Kevin wrote:

[  quoting Pirsig] "The Quality event is the cause
of the subjects and  objects, which are then mistakenly presumed to be the
cause of the  Quality! "
I would liken a personal relationship with God to a  Quality event.
Ted responds:
 
 Thanks for the reply.  I think my idea of what constitutes   'a Quality 
event' is often much more mundane than yours.  
 
 For example, Me going to buy a car (or motorcycle!) would  be a Quality 
event by Pirsig's definition, I think.   The bike has  no Value without a 
potential buyer, it only has Value (quality) at the  point of shopping (the Quality 
event), when I decide how much that bike is worth  to me vs. other values 
(having money in the bank for other  goods.)  The bike maker and dealer, who had 
similarly did not  really know the value of their product until I decided to buy 
it, (or  not.)  (We can bet that the point of signing on the dotted  line (or 
not) is the Quality event for the dealer!) 
  When Pirsig says the Quality event makes the subject and object, not  the 
other way around,  I'd say it means that the deal makes me a bike  owner, and 
the salesman a successful bike seller. Or, the non sale makes me  a non-bike 
owner with money, and may put the dealer out of business.    We would not exist 
as bike owner or seller without the sales event.    Every purchase / buying 
decision moment is a Quality event in a  dynamic economy.
Deal, or no deal!    Bam!        
 
Similarly, in my reading of the MoQ, a quality event occurs when an  iron 
molecule jiggles into a 'face-centered cubic lattice rather than  a 'body 
centered cubic' lattice - it 'prefers' to go one way more than  the other - based on 
all relevant local conditions at that moment for that atom  - 
 
I think quality events are less frequent higher up the  evolutionary 
hierarchy -
 (though an anti-social, intellectual type of person, I'm  questioning my own 
premise regarding social vs. intellectual.)
 
My models of reality have changed several times  (intel)
I've communicated ideas to other people   (intel/soc)
I've met hundreds of people in my  life                    (soc)
I'm weekly shopping for  food                              (soc/bio)
I'm eating every few  hours                                   (bio)
I'm exchanging co2 for Oxygen every few seconds    (bio-inorg) 
Those billions of soap molecules really like that grease!   (inorg)
                (I bet the grease likes the soap, too! )
------------------
 
Can you fit God into this picture? 
 I'm not able to do it.  God superficially sounds good at  first as a 
replacement Dynamic Quality, especially if your God is a 'everywhere,  in everything, 
always active, but impersonal' sort of God.  
But when I try to use the word God, it subtracts from the beautiful  MoQ 
concept static quality emerging from Dynamic Quality, as part of one  unified 
dynamic evolutionary process. 
 
         Quality > Dynamic  Quality > static quality  
 
Static latching - giving up the freedom by choosing to stay (for some  finite 
time) in a preferred state (until a better choice appears in  the 
interpenetrating dynamic flux)
 
The MoQ unifies everything in that way.  
 
But each sees things in their own way, at their own time, in their own  words,
and I value that concept very highly.  That's what I want.  The  freedom to 
keep changing my model of reality to fit my experience as best I  can.  By 
symmetry, I grant that to everyone.
--------
I still think it's funny how many times the Pirsig used oaths to God in  ZMM, 
both in dialog, and in the narrator's voice.   
 
"and he can't pump anymore, and so I suggest taking out the plugs to dry  
them off and air out the cylinders while we go back for another beer.
Oh my  God no! He doesn't want to get into all that stuff. "

"A second flash...WHAM and everything brilliant-and then in the brilliance  
of the next flash that farmhouse-that windmill-oh, my God, he’s been here! --  "
 
 
With a spirit of humor and good will, as an a-theist,
I can only end with:
 
"Oh my God, I love the MoQ!" 
 
Thanks for the discussion.
 
Ted