[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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