[John] You are missing my meaning entirely. No normal person after a dip in acid would say, "that was a quality experience!"
[Arlo] You are simply trying to substitute "quality" for "high-quality", and I think within a MOQ model this is a mistake. If Quality = Experience, then certainly not all experience is "good". [John] Because in normal usage, when we say something is a "quality experience" we mean its a good experience. [Arlo] Well sure, from outside a MOQ perspective this is what is "normal usage". By the way, the "opposite" of Quality is not "bad" (as your usage would imply) it is something akin to "non-existence" (from within a MOQ). [John] Likewise, when we usually say anything has value, we mean positive value. Otherwise it's a completely meaningless statement. [Arlo] Even here if a thing as "value", it can have anywhere across a "0.00001 - 100" spectrum (if you will). And this is just a MOQ axiom, for a "thing" to be a "thing" (persist over time) it is because of "value". Within a "MOQ" it is impossible for a "thing" to have "no-value" because then, by definition, it would not exist. [John] My car still has some value - that means I can still get some money for it (unlike my upside-down home). See? [Arlo] Here you are using to "value" to refer specifically to economic "value" within a particular capital economy, and you are using it as it relates to your ability to "cash in" that value in a economic trade. In this case, yes, your upside-down house may have low-value as a commodity within this capital economy. Precision in terminology, all I am getting at here. [John] I think the normal usage of words is our first consideration when formulating a philosophy. [Arlo] Well when the central term of a revolutionary metaphysics is developed with distinctions to a "common use", I think those are things we must address. [John] High quality implies an extreme - but if Quality is just a scale of value, then high could be an extreme along the negative, right? Thus to be clear, according to your formulation, I'd have to say "high positive quality". [Arlo] I can't see how its possible, within a MOQ, for a thing to have "negative Quality", so this makes no sense. Again, within a MOQ an absence of Quality (a "zero" point, if you will) would imply non-existence. [John] Do we want to develop an esoteric vocabulary with no connection to anyone else's meaning, or do we want to communicate our meaning to as wide an audience as possible? [Arlo] I don't see how I've advanced anything "esoteric", but Pirsig's concept of Quality is not the same as "anyone else's meaning" so when we discuss the term we should articulate these distinctions. Quality is experience. An absence of Quality would imply non-existence. A thing's "value" is dependent on the level and focus (and I'd argue context and situation) of the experiential moment, but everything that is experienced has, by definition, value. It is value that brings something into experience from non-experience (or non-existence). [John] Therefore, even to rabbitry, it's a good dog who is capable of fulfilling this function. [Arlo] A rabbit has no concept of predation and population control (or else they wouldn't breed like... rabbits). A rabbit will run from a dog for the same reasons an amoeba pulls away from a drop of acid... because its appraisal of the situation is that its environment (with the dog, or with the acid) is "low-quality". The rabbit does not see the dog as "good" (if it runs). A pet-rabbit, mind you, familiar with a family dog, where it has evaluated its environment to find the presence of the dog high-quality (maybe it even cuddles with the dog) could certainly be said to see the dog as "good". But a rabbit being eaten? No sir. [John] A true academical question! Arlo, you rarely disappoint. [Arlo] But you don't answer. How is writing a metaphysics, or not even writing, say pondering, any less a real, lived experience than dancing or eating or painting? [Arlo previously] How is the artifact of that experience (a book) any more of an avoidance of experience than the artifact of painting (a picture)? [John] How do I tell thee? Let me count the ways... [Arlo] I'm waiting.... [John] Let me put it to you this way - given that Reality is Quality, does that mean the Buddha is Reality too? [Arlo] Yes. "The Buddha" is a metaphor, as is "Quality", as is "The Tao". [John] Or another way, Is the Buddha experience? [Arlo] Yes. Isn't this a central point of Pirsig's ideas? "The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha...which is to demean oneself." (ZMM) "To reject that part of the Buddha that attends to the analysis of motorcycles is to miss the Buddha entirely." (ZMM) [John] Or is recognition of the Buddha a certain kind of experience? [Arlo] ZMM was written to overcome this view. "The first step down from Phædrus' statement that "Quality is the Buddha" is a statement that such an assertion, if true, provides a rational basis for a unification of three areas of human experience which are now disunified. These three areas are Religion, Art and Science. If it can be shown that Quality is the central term of all three, and that this Quality is not of many kinds but of one kind only, then it follows that the three disunified areas have a basis for introconversion." (ZMM) 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/md/archives.html
