Jeff, Jonathan, Rog
I've re-read Jonathan's March 6th post and would suggest that while zero or negative
quantities have
uses in evaluating static patterns of mathematical values to make the jump to
randomness ='s a Q of
zero is a stretch for me.
Pirsig says " a thing that has no value does not exist..", to me "zero" is the name
we call that
"thing" , a place holder nothing more, but a very high quality one. But to equate the
apparent
randomness or chaos of smoke to zero value or zero quality I find confusing, because
even though we
may not understand its order, or find no pattern, we wouldn't deny its existence. Or
its quality on
a winter morn.
Jeff "wonders what would have happened if Phaedrus had asked his students to define
poor quality."
misses the insight that Pirsig had in the classroom. Defining " poor quality" was (and
probably
still is) the standard way of teaching that starts in first grade. The rules of
capitalization,
punctuation, grammar, etc. "X" number of mistakes poor quality paper and grade. While
these rules
are not unimportant they do not in anyway assure quality, just some level of
conformance to them. So
his approach was to try to convince his students they knew, could recognize, and
produce quality.
He then applied "the rules" to high quality examples to either see why or how quality
existed or
could be improved.
The "Whole Language" approach to elementary school writing is similar. Get the kids to
enjoy writing
as a way of expressing themselves. Worry about the spelling, punctuation and grammar
once the
interest is there to write. This approach is not devoid of poor qualities either.
3WD
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