Hi Horse, Mark and Group:
On 4 Jan., Horse wrote:
HORSE:
The point I�m making here is that from the MoQ perspective what exists is
moral - this appears to be a basic axiom of the MoQ, but what is Good is not
identical to what exists.
PLATT
Wait a minute. The whole point of Pirsig�s final paragraph in Lila is to state
unequivocally that what is Good IS identical with what exists:
�Good is a noun. That was it. That was what Phaedrus had been looking for.
That was the homer, over the fence, that ended the ball game. Good as a
noun rather than as an adjective is all the Metaphysics of Quality is about.�
How you can get any plainer than that? �Good is all the Metaphysics of
Quality is about.� And you say Good is NOT what the MoQ is about? I don�t
get it.
Your idea of what exists seems to follow the lines of a scientific perspective
as opposed to Pirisg�s Quality perspective:
HORSE:
The first thing that is necessary is to dump the idea of causality as
foundational which is inherent in a Materialistic, deterministic, cause and
effect doctrine in favour of a contributory or participative view of reality which I
believe the MoQ supports. In this scheme it is contribution to and
participation in the world which creates reality not the rigid physical laws of
matter.
PLATT
You continue along this line of thought which reminded me of the following
passage from Lila:
�Laverne had been asking the question within an Aristotelian framework. She
wanted to know what genetic, substantive pigeonhole of canine classification
this object walking before them could be placed in. But John Wooden Leg
never understood the question. That's what made it so funny. He wasn�t
joking when he said, �That�s a good dog.� The whole idea of a dog as a
member of a hierarchical structure of intellectual categories known generally
as �objects� was outside his traditional cultural viewpoint.� (Lila, Chap. 32.)
I�m not saying your line of thought is about substance or objects, but it
reflects the kind of nonjudgmental, moral-free thinking that science insists
on. In fact, I suspect that perhaps your motive for separating the good from
the moral is to allow for a melding of current scientific thinking with the MoQ
without stirring up a hornet�s nest of problems in challenging scientific
�objectivity.� After all, your �participative view of reality� says nothing about
value, quality, morality or goodness that, if interjected, would raise scientific
hackles. Am I warm? (Or, more likely, have I missed the whole point? Even
after reading your post to Walter that just arrived, I still don�t get it. I must be
really dense about this.)
But let�s move on. More important than our argument about whether the
Good equates with the Moral in the MoQ is whether the idea of bottom up
morality is the best perspective to adopt. In his article about customer
service, Mark Lerner made an interesting observation:
MARK
We think that if we start with quality parts then they must add to a quality
whole. Pirsig realized that it is only the whole that determines which parts
are necessary. This is why quality cannot be defined. . . . Thanks to Pirsig
we can see why all of the books, consultants and quality programs often fail
to produce the expected results. It�s because we have attempted to create
quality backwards.�
PLATT
What Mark is proposing is a top-down morality. I�d be most interested in
your thoughts about this. A �participative universe� may mean that what�s
participating and making things happen is the force of Dynamic Quality from
the top-down, leaving static patterns in its wake. Does this idea fit in with
your scientific view of existence in any way? What do you think about top-
down morality?
Platt
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