Mary to Andre:
DQ is undefined. That means you can't make any claims about it at all. You
can't say what it is or isn't, and you can't compare or analogize it with
anything that is known. Any and all words reduce it immediately to something
it is not. Correct?
Andre:
Yes Mary, as Pirsig says in Lila:
'Life can't exist on Dynamic Quality alone. It has no staying power. To cling
to Dynamic Quality alone apart from any static patterns is to cling to chaos'.[
this, as far as I can make out is Marsha's position].'He [Phaedrus] saw that
much can be learned about Dynamic Quality by studying what it is not rather
than futilely trying to define what it is...and then...Phaedrus' central
attention turned away from any further explanation of Dynamic Quality and
turned toward the static patterns themselves'.(pp 124-5)
Mary:
Definitions, analogies, concepts, and descriptions of DQ are off the
table according to Pirsig. He never compromises on this, does he?
Andre:
Yes he does not compromise on this, see above.
Mary:
He goes to great pains to explain that all reality is SQ and all SQ is
derived from DQ.
Andre:
Well, I'm going to split hairs here. The world (in Buddhist terms
'conventional reality') is composed of static patterns of value.
'Reality' is DQ. It is 'a direct experience independent of and prior to
intellectual abstractions'(LILA, p 66) , from which static patterns of
quality are abstracted or in your term 'derived'. In this way you will
avoid messiness and misunderstandings. See my comments below.
Mary:
So, if you are talking to a person who's never considered anything but a
subject-object reality, it would be helpful to explain that reality is not
objects, but is composed of Quality, and if they asked where that came from,
you would be right to say all reality is derived from DQ, wouldn't you agree?
Andre:
See above. I doubt very much if your 'SOM' person would have any idea of what
you are talking about. Frankly, I'd give them a copy of ZMM and LILA to read
and contemplate. As Pirsig suggests:'The idea that the world is composed of
nothing but moral value sounds impossible at first'. (LILA, p 101)
Mary:
That's why, though I probably wouldn't put it that way,I don't have much
problem with Marsha saying SQ=DQ and DQ=SQ. Because, they really do and she's
really right.
Andre:
This is the messiness and potential source of misunderstandings. DQ is not sq.
Let's put it this way: sq is a stable pattern of(dynamic)quality preferences.
But this makes it messy and confusing because they are not 'dynamic' anymore.
Their 'dynamic' gain has been stabilized...they have become static. As stable
as a glass of water(stable inorganic patterns of value) and it is this same
Quality, this preference which holds a nation together. Knowing, of course that
'Particles 'prefer' to do what they do. An individual particle (like the Zuni
priest) is not absolutely committed to one predictable behaviour'.(LILA, p
107). By asserting DQ=sq this last sentence becomes messy and meaningless.
I prefer to see it as co-dependent arising. Dq/sq complement one another.
Remember the second verse of the Tao Te Ching? Have/not have arise together,
difficult and easy, long and short, high and low, front and back...etc
They are however NOT the same.
I therefore tend to stick to Pirsig's terminology and clarity.
Mary:
In a SOM-MoQ, the levels grade out subjects and objects in a moral hierarchy
and DQ=God.
Andre:
Come again???? Yuck!
Mary:
Your sense of self is intact, your perceptions are justified, and hey - even
Hitler gets a moral argument.
Andre:
I've lost you completely here. Doesn't God get a moral argument as well in this
MOQ?
Mary:
Yuck!
Andre:
You can say that again!
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