[Krimel] If we are not separate entities perhaps you will recall what kind of beer I had for lunch.
Ron: I am not aware of the many processes of my body yet they are me. But you probably had root beer. [Krimel] Regardless of where it originates the idea that dynamic quality is good or better or best strips it of being meaningful or useful. It once again is Pirsig pointing at the moon but missing the mark. Ron: Greek Excellence is the state or quality of excelling, it is an act of doing. It is dynamic. [Krimel] These are the attributes that Pirsig ascribes to Quality in ZMM. DQ is a product of Lila. I have said over and over that it is a mistake to conflate the two. It amounts to nothing less that removing Quality from the Metaphysics of Quality. Ron: What it does is assert that Quality is not an entity neither are DQ and SQ. Quality is experience and DQ and SQ are descriptions of that experience. [Krimel] Ron, please stop quoting the Wiki to us. Either pass on a link or put it in quotes or better yet tell us what you think it means. Ron: You didn't seem to know what essentialism in the classic sense was and you didn't seem to know what the Greek concept of "good" was, since your not into research I just thought a quote was more efficient to get the idea across. [Krimel] I don't think that's what Dave is saying at all. What you describe was a version of "essence" that in modern times would be subsumed under set theory; essence as the defining characteristics of a set. These characteristic would not as you claim be the defining attributes of any particular thing but would determine whether a particular thing is a member of a sets. What I was criticizing was Dave use of essentialism as synonomous with monism. Ron: If you would have read that wiki quote instead of correcting it for grammar you would have noticed that "set" is used in the context of defining an entity, an entity is a set of qualities that an object possesses, being divided and distinguished by them "for any specific kind of entity, there is a set of characteristics or properties all of which any entity of that kind must possess" and " It should be noted that essences do not simply reflect ways of grouping objects; essences must result in properties of the object." Monism is an essentialist notion of ontological reductionism. Krimel: And I have never pointed to any single way and said it was THE way. Ron: You are certainly advocating essentialism as "common sense" reality. Krimel: Dave appears to be saying that within the MoQ there is no ontology. As I understand it ontology is about "what is". Ron: Again, if the Quote was read, "It seeks to determine what entities can be said to "exist", and how these entities can be grouped according to similarities and differences." ENTITIES, it functions on the concepts of entities and how they are grouped and said to "exist". Ontology operates on the axiom that this is "what is". Krimel: If, within the MoQ there is nothing, as he says, that really doesn't leave us much to know. Since epistemology is supposed to be about knowing that pretty much eliminates that. Without ontology or epistemology Dave's metaphysics seem little more than a Cheshire Cat grinning in a void. Ron: Pirsigs MoQ is anti-essentialist. Being anti-essentialist it does not subscribe to the traditional notion of ontology. MoQ ontology is therefore more like the traditional definition of an epistemology. It takes Quality off the chess board, making you jump to Cheshire Cats in voids when essentialism, ontological reductionism and analytics evaporates like the Cheshire grin it is. It's all grinning in a void, isn't that what you once said? Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
