I am a man who has always lived in darkness. I know nothing, I perceive nothing. I don’t have any preconceptions. Complete, utter darkness – total isolation.
Then I see a light, from a corner of the boulder that had been obstructing the view of the outside world, in this dark cavern that I have been living my whole life. From the crack of the light I see something green (the concept of “green” hasn’t yet formed in my mind, I am puzzled by that light; I try to absorb it within).
Over a prolonged period of time I grow accustomed to that “green” colour. So familiar that I give it a name, “Green”. The first concept has been formed in my mind. Now after sometime, I see some more light streaming through, as something keeps on chipping away at the boulder and I see something “brown”. I don’t know that it is brown, I keep on absorbing its colour and texture – finally another concept is formed “brown”. Based on this limited vision, and armed with the limited concepts – I mull over it some more. There is a sudden explosion of thoughts in my mind. I see that the “brown” and “green” are attached to each other, hence the concept of “joined” emerges and so on and so forth.
Hence, if I live over a million years, and if some force keeps on chipping away at the boulder and keeps on expanding my view – I would come up with some millions of concepts about the world as I know it.
Finally, there is enough space that I could get out of the cave. I get out and start experiencing things with my hands, and give birth to some more concepts. And so continues this process.
The point wherein I first see “green” or “brown” is Robert Pirsig’s ‘Romantic Quality’. Quality or a thing of beauty which is unadulterated by the preconceived notions/concepts of the mind. I grapple with it, I can’t explain this “colour”. For some reason, it disturbs me deeply. I was happy with “nothing” to begin with. This sudden “green” disturbs my peace of mind. I agonize over it, claw down at nothingness, try to choke myself – but no respite. At last, I decide to accept this intrusion on my peaceful life as a concept called “green”. Similarly I form other concepts. This process of conceptualization is bound to get accelerated, because I already have some pre-loaded concepts in my head. When I see “red”, I place it closer to “brown”. It takes less time to load the concept of “red” in my mind, by virtue of associating it with the concept of “brown”. This quality is called “Classic Quality”. Because these qualities are based on my observations – it is “classic objective reality (matter)” (one that can be felt by the senses). Once I get out of the cave and touch this “green” and “brown” and “red”, I keep on increasing my palette of concepts.
Some sunny day, I merge all the concepts and say, call it a “tree” which “breathes in” “CO2” & “gives” “fruits” – I have formed a mental model that isn’t so clear – based solely on direct observation. I observe a tree for a million years, yet I could never arrive at the fact that the tree “breathes in” “CO2” – I have to test different hypothesis and form a picture in my mind which is slightly different from the one on ground. This is “classic subjective reality (mind)”.
Here I am the “subject”, the tree is the “object”. When “green” hit my eye for the first time, that was “romantic quality”, and when I rationalized it to be a “tree”, that was “classic quality”. The time lag between the time I first saw the “green” and time when I called it a “tree” is about a million years. So if the next object I see is a blue whale, I would start comparing it with my preloaded sum of experiences which I have called a “tree”. I would like or dislike the quality of “blue whale” based on the concepts linked with “tree”. Because “tree” has been the only object I have ever seen, and when I compare it with a “blue whale”, the comparison gives rise to concepts “big” & “small”.
Quality is an event through which I am made aware about the existence of “tree”. It’s a lot like ‘love at first sight’. You see a woman and the feeling hit you (Romantic Quality), you try to process her image and run it against a million pre-loaded concepts (she is tall, has a sharp angular face, there is a lilt in her voice) – this is ‘classic quality’ & you like this combination of ‘romantic’ & ‘rational’ so much that you fall in love.
A thing of beauty (or ‘quality’) is joy forever. Next time I would discuss about how Quality is perceived in Arts.
Alienman 