[MF] MOQ: valuable or not?

Matt Kundert pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com
Wed Mar 8 08:22:06 PST 2006


Hey Marty,

Marty said:
Saying that "Quality is undefined" doesn't leave us with nowhere to go; 
Quality, like the Tao, may not be specifically defined, but for Pirsig's 
purposes, it doesn't have to be.  "God is Love", on the other hand, IS a 
definition; it is saying that "God" and "Love" are somehow equal, without 
ever saying what either one is. "God is Love" is defining God and Love, 
without explaining what these terms are referring to.  There are all kinds 
of love and I've heard quite a few definitions of God, so unless you explain 
which ones you mean, I have no idea of what you're talking about.

Matt:
Sure, its a conversational difficulty.  But I would think it to be a bit of 
overkill to say that it is "philosophically meaningless."  "God is Love" is 
no less a slogan in need of explaining than is "Quality is undefined."  Any 
slogan gains its meaning from the ink spilt around it.  As you said, Pirsig 
spills a bunch of ink around his.  And until somebody spills ink around 
their own slogan, be it "God is Love," "Life is Suffering," "History is 
Class Struggle," or "Truth is Good," the conversation stalls.  I don't think 
we should say they are philosophically meaningless, just that they are 
currently obscure.  And when there have been many conversations surrounding 
a slogan, a quick use of one can produce obscurity when the interlocuter 
isn't sure which context, to generate the meaning, to put it in.  Like in 
the case of "God is Love."  You're absolutely right that there are many 
definitions and meanings of both terms.  But the only difference between 
"God is Love" and "Quality is undefined" is that the latter slogan has been 
used by only one person, so the context is easy to find, no less because 
this forum demands that everybody have that context in the back of one's 
head.

Matt

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