Hi Ian, On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 12:27 PM, Ian Glendinning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Bo, Steve, I hadn't spotted that, but where Steve says ... > > "Pirsig uses the word metaphysics from the pragmatist's perspective. > He postulates that reality is Quality based on radical empiricism, but > beyond that he does not claim to that he is describing how things > actually are. That is an SOM game that he refuses to play." >
Ian: > I think that's right ... I've got drawn into this metaphysics vs > reality (map vs terrain) debate again ... and simply said the MoQist > view is that the MoQ is reality, only the SOMist makes the distinction > ... but Steve's point says it better. > > To rephrase my MOQist view ... The MoQ IS Reality "for all pragmatic intents > and purposes", to further define / distinguish MoQ and Reality > objectively ... is the SOMist(mug)'s game. Steve: I still think it is wrong to say that the Metaphysics of Quality is reality. Quality is equated with reality not the metaphysics of Quality. "Metaphysics is not reality. Metaphysics is names about reality. Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty-thousand page menu and no food." The MOQ is an attempt to define reality which is to say, define Quality, which is why Pirsig is ambivalent about the whole project. "Quality doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without definition, ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions. Quality is indivisible, undefinable and unknowable in the sense that there is a knower and a known, but a metaphysics can be none of these things. A metaphysics must be divisible, definable and knowable, or there isn't any metaphysics. Since a metaphysics is essentially a kind of dialectical definition and since Quality is essentially outside definition, this means that a "Metaphysics of Quality" is essentially a contradiction in terms, a logical absurdity." The MOQ is an attempt to define something that the MOQ itself holds outside of definition. Regards, Steve 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/
