John Carl wrote:
I don't see how a metaphysics of undefinable Quality can be static. In fact,
I'd say its in the very nature of Value to be dynamic and evolving. ...How can
something that is about evolving toward betterness, be called "static”?
dmb says:
Yes, the MOQ is about evolving toward betterness and the MOQ can rightly be
called "static” because no matter how many times you read it the MOQ will still
be about evolving toward betterness. As is the case with ANY metaphysics or ANY
part of the philosophic tradition, the MOQ is full of ideas and definitions and
fixed meanings. This is the foundation of all reasoning and it is required for
any set of ideas if they are to be intelligible and communicable. But Pirsig
tells also points out that the MOQ should not be confused with the DQ that it
talks about. DQ is reality itself, is the immediate flux of experience as it
occurs before you have a chance to think about it or say anything about it.
Thoughts and words and their definitions are static quality, are stable
patterns that don't change from moment to moment.
"Definitions are the FOUNDATION of reason. You can't reason without them."
(Emphasis is Pirsig's. ZAMM, page 214.)
"They [philosophical mystics] share a common belief that the fundamental nature
of reality is outside language; that language splits things up into parts while
the true nature of reality is undivided. ..Historically mystics have claimed
that for a true understanding of reality, metaphysics is too 'scientific.'
Metaphysics is not reality. Metaphysics is NAMES about reality. Metaphysics is
a restaurant where they vie you a thirty-thousand page menu and no food."
(Emphasis is Pirsig's, LILA, chapter 5)
"Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual
abstractions." (LILA, chapter 5)
"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." (LILA, Chapter 5)
It's kinda funny that you want to improve the MOQ even while you're still
working to comprehend the most basic terms and concepts of the MOQ. I mean, how
can anyone hang around here year after year and still not get the central
distinction? It's unbelievable, really. Shaking my head and heaving sighs.
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