Rich, Horse and Y'all: Just a few thoughts to add to what Horse has just said.... There is a passage in Lila where Pirsig says that even an inanimate "object" like a chair has dharma. He says that even a chair is composed of a moral order. Even "substance" or "matter" is made of Quality. Maybe the trick is to see that "Quality" is just a metaphor. Quality is metaphor that refers to a mystery, a way to refer to that "undefinable creator", as you put it. Joe Campbell liked to point out that "God" is also just a mataphor. It refers to the same mystery that "Quality" refers to. When we talk about that wich is beyond words and concepts, metaphors are about the best we can do. To give us a feeling for the mystery behind creation Pirsig uses words like Good, Value, Morality to demonstrate the flavor of DQ. He chose those words to convey the sense of what he experienced while tripping and while insane. I don't think we can really expect to get at the nuts and bolts of such a thing, just as they say the name of god can not be pronounced by the human tounge in any language. On the other hand, directing our attention to the nature of this mystery goes along way toward comprehending the nature of the phenoneanl world, that part of reality that is not so mysterious, that can be defined and quantified. Those static patterns of reality that sort of issue out of the undifferentiated continuum (DQ), like chair with all it's dharma, are seen in an entirely different light when they are seen as having arisen from Quality. Everything has to do with Quality, even minds and bodies. Pirsig is trying to persuade us that values and morality are not just principles invented by economists and theologians, they are a fundamental aspect of the entire universe. The values, the morality of our ego consciousness isn't something our minds gave birth to, rather Quality, through evolution, gave birth to out minds. That's the Copernican revolution in his metaphysics. Quality isn't just in your mind, its everywhere. David B. MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
