[Horse]
The way I see it is that the only thing that's real is Quality - and Pirsig/MoQ
splits this into Static Quality and Dynamic Quality.

[Arlo]
Right, "Quality is the primary empirical reality of the world" (LILA). But then
you seem to go on and say that only DQ is "reality", and SQ is "illusion".

I think this is a mistake, and I think it's because it continues to use the
"real" in some existential sense rather than an empirical one. 

"... Phædrus raised his hand and asked coldly if it was believed that the
atomic bombs that had dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were illusory. The
professor smiled and said yes. That was the end of the exchange." (ZMM)

Do you think these bombs were illusions?

[Horse]
Given that the personal data available via our senses is minuscule compared to
the total available it would seem reasonable to assume that any map of the
world that we build is going to be illusory and not actual.

[Arlo]
I don't know if being a part of a whole makes something an illusion. Of course
our understanding of the landscape is based on a handful of sand, but if
"realness" is "value" and not some existential beingness, then those patterns
of value are very real, they are real by virtue of the value they have in the
experiential moment.

[Horse]
That doesn't mean that it's not real - just not entirely correct. I.e. it's an
illusion.

[Arlo]
Alright, well its apparent we define "illusion" differently. To me being "not
entirely correct" does not make something an "illusion". What is an illusion is
the consideration of subjects and objects as primary existants. Failing to see
Quality, failing to see that "reality" is empirical and not existential, this
is the illusion. 

I am also not sure why the hamburger I had for lunch yesterday is "not entirely
correct". I certainly never thought that hamburger was the entirety of the
landscape, and I don't think it had some existential reality independent of
value, but its value made it very real. 

When Pirsig talks about "gooning out" when he meets Redford, he says, "It was
no subjective illusion. It's a very real primary reality, an empirical
perception." (LILA)

Our empirical perceptions, they are what is real, they define what is "real" as
precisely a experiential phenomenon and not as an existential one. 




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