What is quality? - Page 3

paladin · #11 04-27-2006, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tooleh

Subjective in the sense of realtive to you.
Objective as in meeting a certain standard.

How do we measure that objective standard?

BleedingHeart · #12 04-27-2006, 10:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paladin

How do we measure that objective standard?

Its all relative my dear watson...

un*touchable · #13 04-28-2006, 01:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BleedingHeart

Its all relative my dear watson...

then that would make it subjective, therefore there's no such thing as objective unless it's about pure science concepts which would be the only branch to have actual paradigms.

paladin · #14 04-28-2006, 07:29 PM

*what cc(carefulcarpenter) is about: exploration beyond mythos
/logos via the internet

From "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig

Quote:

pp. 151-2/373 of ZMM — Realms beyond reason

"Columbus has become such a schoolbook stereotype it's almost impossible to imagine him as a living human being anymore. But if you really try to hold back your present knowledge about the consequences of his trip and project yourself into his situation, then sometimes you can begin to see that our present moon exploration must be like a tea party compared to what he went through. Moon exploration doesn't involve real root expansions of thought. We've no reason to doubt that existing forms of thought are adequate to handle it. It's really just a branch extension of what Columbus did. A really new exploration*, one that would look to us today the way the world looked to Columbus, would have to be in an entirely new direction."

"Like what?"

"Like into realms beyond reason. I think present-day reason is an analogue of the flat earth of the medieval period. If you go too far beyond it you're presumed to fall off, into insanity. And people are very much afraid of that. I think this fear of insanity is comparable to the fear people once had of falling off the edge of the world. Or the fear of heretics. There's a very close analogue there.

"But what's happening is that each year our old flat earth of conventional reason becomes less and less adequate to handle the experiences we have and this is creating widespread feelings of topsy-turviness. As a result we're getting more and more people in irrational areas of thought...occultism, mysticism, drug changes and the like...because they feel the inadequacy of classical reason to handle what they know are real experiences."

"I'm not sure what you mean by classical reason."

"Analytic reason, dialectic reason. Reason which at the University is sometimes considered to be the whole of understanding. You've never had to understand it really. It's always been completely bankrupt with regard to abstract art. Nonrepresentative art is one of the root experiences I'm talking about. Some people still condemn it because it doesn't make 'sense.' But what's really wrong is not the art but the 'sense,' the classical reason, which can't grasp it. People keep looking for branch extensions of reason that will cover art's more recent occurrences, but the answers aren't in the branches, they're at the roots."

A rush of wind comes furiously now, down from the mountaintop. "The ancient Greeks," I say, "who were the inventors of classical reason, knew better than to use it exclusively to foretell the future. They listened to the wind and predicted the future from that. That sounds insane now. But why should the inventors of reason sound insane?"

DeWeese squints. "How could they tell the future from the wind?"

"I don't know, maybe the same way a painter can tell the future of his painting by staring at the canvas. Our whole system of knowledge stems from their results. We've yet to understand the methods that produced these results."

I think for a while, then say, "When I was last here, did I talk much about the Church of Reason?"

"Yes, you talked a lot about that."

"Did I ever talk about an individual named Phædrus?"

"No."

"Who was he?" Gennie asks.

"He was an ancient Greek — a rhetorician — a 'composition major' of his time. He was one of those present when reason was being invented."

"You never talked about that, I don't think." Back

pp. 225-6/373 of ZMM — Quality is insane

"In our highly complex organic state we advanced organisms respond to our environment with an invention of many marvelous analogues. We invent earth and heavens, trees, stones and oceans, gods, music, arts, language, philosophy, engineering, civilization and science. We call these analogues reality. And they are reality. We mesmerize our children in the name of truth into knowing that they are reality. We throw anyone who does not accept these analogues into an insane asylum. But that which causes us to invent the analogues is Quality. Quality is the continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create the world in which we live. All of it. Every last bit of it.

"Now, to take that which has caused us to create the world, and include it within the world we have created, is clearly impossible. That is why Quality cannot be defined. If we do define it we are defining something less than Quality itself."

paladin · #15 04-28-2006, 07:35 PM

*what cc(carefulcarpenter) is about: exploration beyond mythos
/logos via the internet

From "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig

Quote:

pp. 151-2/373 of ZMM — Realms beyond reason

"Columbus has become such a schoolbook stereotype it's almost impossible to imagine him as a living human being anymore. But if you really try to hold back your present knowledge about the consequences of his trip and project yourself into his situation, then sometimes you can begin to see that our present moon exploration must be like a tea party compared to what he went through. Moon exploration doesn't involve real root expansions of thought. We've no reason to doubt that existing forms of thought are adequate to handle it. It's really just a branch extension of what Columbus did. A really new exploration*, one that would look to us today the way the world looked to Columbus, would have to be in an entirely new direction."

"Like what?"

"Like into realms beyond reason. I think present-day reason is an analogue of the flat earth of the medieval period. If you go too far beyond it you're presumed to fall off, into insanity. And people are very much afraid of that. I think this fear of insanity is comparable to the fear people once had of falling off the edge of the world. Or the fear of heretics. There's a very close analogue there.

"But what's happening is that each year our old flat earth of conventional reason becomes less and less adequate to handle the experiences we have and this is creating widespread feelings of topsy-turviness. As a result we're getting more and more people in irrational areas of thought...occultism, mysticism, drug changes and the like...because they feel the inadequacy of classical reason to handle what they know are real experiences."

"I'm not sure what you mean by classical reason."

"Analytic reason, dialectic reason. Reason which at the University is sometimes considered to be the whole of understanding. You've never had to understand it really. It's always been completely bankrupt with regard to abstract art. Nonrepresentative art is one of the root experiences I'm talking about. Some people still condemn it because it doesn't make 'sense.' But what's really wrong is not the art but the 'sense,' the classical reason, which can't grasp it. People keep looking for branch extensions of reason that will cover art's more recent occurrences, but the answers aren't in the branches, they're at the roots."

A rush of wind comes furiously now, down from the mountaintop. "The ancient Greeks," I say, "who were the inventors of classical reason, knew better than to use it exclusively to foretell the future. They listened to the wind and predicted the future from that. That sounds insane now. But why should the inventors of reason sound insane?"

DeWeese squints. "How could they tell the future from the wind?"

"I don't know, maybe the same way a painter can tell the future of his painting by staring at the canvas. Our whole system of knowledge stems from their results. We've yet to understand the methods that produced these results."

I think for a while, then say, "When I was last here, did I talk much about the Church of Reason?"

"Yes, you talked a lot about that."

"Did I ever talk about an individual named Phædrus?"

"No."

"Who was he?" Gennie asks.

"He was an ancient Greek — a rhetorician — a 'composition major' of his time. He was one of those present when reason was being invented."

"You never talked about that, I don't think." Back

pp. 225-6/373 of ZMM — Quality is insane

"In our highly complex organic state we advanced organisms respond to our environment with an invention of many marvelous analogues. We invent earth and heavens, trees, stones and oceans, gods, music, arts, language, philosophy, engineering, civilization and science. We call these analogues reality. And they are reality. We mesmerize our children in the name of truth into knowing that they are reality. We throw anyone who does not accept these analogues into an insane asylum. But that which causes us to invent the analogues is Quality. Quality is the continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create the world in which we live. All of it. Every last bit of it.

"Now, to take that which has caused us to create the world, and include it within the world we have created, is clearly impossible. That is why Quality cannot be defined. If we do define it we are defining something less than Quality itself."