Robert Breedlove’s question to Sevilla King on the Metaphysics of Quality

Taken from Robert Breedlove's YouTube channel.

Robert Breedlove and Sevilla King had a discussion on the Metaphysics of Quality (MoQ). You can find the discussion in Robert Breedlove’s YouTube channel by using the below link.

How to Live a Quality Life – The Metaphysics of Quality w/ Sevilla King

On around minute 1:35:30 Robert poses the following question;

“What if we could somehow “download” Pirsig’s Metaphysics of Quality to people…[as in download the MoQ “app” into their brain]…… What do you think the tangible impact on their lives and their patterns of action would be? How would this change people? How would this show up in peoples embodied experience?”

This is a very interesting question and it is worth diving into. This is the sole reason for me to set up the Substack account The Reality of Value. I endeavour to create an ‘easy access’ version of the MoQ together with applications to demonstrate the power of the MoQ. I like Breedlove’s concept of “downloading to brain” and I will aspire to shape my content for this purpose. I expect to have the chapter by chapter commentary of LILA an Inquiry into Morals as well as compressed introduction to the MoQ on The Reality of Value by mid summer 2026.

Current Valley of Thought (CVT)

Before we reflect on Breedlove’s question it is important to realise where we stand today. Pirsig uses the allegory of “valleys of thought” to describe the foundational assumptions and habitual thought patterns that shape a civilisation. The valley stabilises and holds together the dominant modes of thought within a society. I described my interpretation of our current valley of thought in my first post and will repeat it here.

Our current valley of thought (CVT) is a valley where substance (matter) is considered fundamentally real. The serious mode of discourse is dominated by logic and scientific method. Our discourse navigates through knowledge hierarchies that serve this same logic. Within this valley Pirsig considers three major areas of human experience to have become disunified: Religion, Art and Science, with Science becoming dominant over the other two.

I avoid using the term “subject object metaphysics” because I find it loosely defined and not broad enough.

Short Recap MoQ

Just to refresh our memories, here is a short recap of the Metaphysics of Quality (MoQ). The MoQ proposes that the world is composed of nothing but values. The “Reality of Value” is divided into Dynamic Quality and Static Quality. We know that Dynamic Quality can not be defined. It is the pre-intellectual cutting edge of reality. Static Quality emerges in the wake of Dynamic Quality. Static Quality is everything that is, or can be described. Static Quality is divided into a hierarchy of four system levels; inorganic level, organic level, social level, intellectual level. The MoQ proposes that the value evolution runs from the Inorganic level (low) to the Intellectual level (high) and that, equally, moral precedence increases with the level of evolution from low to high. Dynamic Quality, the pre-intellectual cutting edge of reality has moral precedence over static quality, but life can not exist without both Dynamic and Static Quality working in tandem.

Breedlove’s Question

With that as a base let us now consider Breedlove’s question; what do you think the tangible impact on their/our lives and their/our patterns of action would be?

First off, what is really convenient about the MoQ is that you can use the theory even if others have never heard of it. The MoQ is a strong meta theory which allows one to make complex considerations and reach well constructed judgements on all manner of subjects. In chapter 13 of LILA, an Inquiry into Morals Pirsig states;

“The Metaphysics of Quality explains more of the world and it explains it better.”

Anyone can achieve an advantage by adapting it. Early adopters have an advantage.

But if the broad public were to become aware of the concepts of the MoQ I project it will lead to richer human experiences. In our current valley of thought (CVT) we lack the vocabulary to contemplate the role of Dynamic Quality. Because our CVT is so logic and science dominated we tend to focus heavily on that which we can define and describe which is of course Static Quality. We “prefer” to deal with our understanding of reality, rather than engage the actual messiness of reality. There are Western writers that have “grasped” what Pirsig refers to as Dynamic Quality. When Joseph Schumpeter coined the term ‘creative destruction’ he was writing about Dynamic Quality.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb pointed our attention to the impact of rare and improbable outlier events in his book The Black Swan. Taleb’s work points toward a domain that our current rational structures struggle to conceptualise: the transformative impact of unforeseeable novelty. While not equivalent to Dynamic Quality, this territory overlaps with the MoQ’s recognition that reality cannot be fully reduced to static conceptual structures. The reality that Dynamic Quality can not be defined might explain why we have not been able to capture it in our vocabulary. One of Pirsig’s great contributions is that he has been able to do just that.

An interesting application is the fall of the Soviet Union and the simplified conclusion that Communism/Socialism “doesn’t work”. The MoQ offers a deeper insight. The Soviet Union degenerated due to the suppression of Dynamic Quality in Soviet society. Social value patterns can only survive and thrive when Dynamic and Static Quality work in tandem and in a balanced way according to the MoQ. From an MoQ perspective, one could interpret the Soviet Union’s degeneration as a consequence of increasingly rigid static social patterns suppressing Dynamic adaptation.

What is curious (or ominous) is that historian Niall Ferguson has recently picked up the phrase “late Soviet America” and written an essay titled “We’re All Soviets Now”. I remember when the 2015 Presidential race was shaping up and it seemed like we had the Bush dynasty from the Republican party going up against the Clinton dynasty from the Democratic party. I remember thinking this doesn’t feel right, too static and un-American. Then on June 16, Trump entered the race and his emergence can be interpreted as a Dynamic disruption of entrenched static political patterns, regardless of one’s political evaluation of the outcome. ”Pirsig writes;

“Evolution ……….must be a process of rachetlike steps in which there is Dynamic movement forward up some new incline and then, if the result looks successful, a static latching on of the gain that has been made; then another Dynamic advance, then another static latch.” (LILA, an Inquiry into Morals chapter 11)

Dynamic Quality seems to have broken us out of some sort of political mold, but I do not recognise the stabilising, balancing role of static quality just yet. It could well be that it will not emerge at all. Pirsig writes;

“Sometimes a Dynamic increment goes forward but can find no latching mechanism and so fails and slips back to a previous latched position. Whole species and cultures get lost this way. Sometimes a static pattern becomes so powerful it prohibits any Dynamic moves forward. In both cases the evolutionary process is halted for a while.” (LILA, an Inquiry into Morals chapter 11)

If Dynamic Quality as an undefined concept becomes grounded in our vocabulary and becomes an element of our concept of reality it can surely help us make higher quality interpretations of reality.

Another area where the MoQ can help us make better judgements is in the role of society in general. We find ourselves in polarising debates of democracy versus autocracy, the American spirit versus the Chinese structure, capitalism versus socialism, conservatism versus liberalism, pro-life versus pro-choice and many other debates around human rights, immigration, religion, etc. We have arguments from one side clash against arguments from the other side. Both sides harden their position and maintain that they are “right”. Deadlock all to often is the result.

The Metaphysics of Quality breaks open this dead lock by introducing the reality of value. The MoQ reframes moral conflict away from rigid binary categories toward an evaluation of competing value patterns. Value is a shared entity that transcends subjective interpretations. Both sides of the above described contradictions represent value patterns. When we think in terms of value, understanding and compromise can replace confrontation.

Within the MoQ the social level has its own intelligence and morality and has moral precedence over the organic level. The social level organises human behaviour through shared norms and enforcement mechanisms that stabilise group life and accomplish more by doing so than an individual can accomplish on their own. This is not part of the thinking in our current valley of thought. The MoQ is a meta theory that can offer a framework within which to approach topics that relate to building healthy and vibrant societies.

And lastly if the MoQ is broadly adopted it should also have influence on the way we formulate definitions. Let us consider one such definition from the Cambridge Dictionary and compare it to what the definition would be under the MoQ. This is technical, but interesting all the same.

Definitions in our current valley of thought avoid every reference to value because of the struggle for objectivity which is considered the of the highest value in our current valley of thought. Applying objectivity to all areas of human experience becomes awkward. Let us now consider the definition of the word anthropology.

Anthropology - American Dictionary; (from Cambridge Dictionary)

The study of the human race, its culture and society, and its physical development.

Culture; the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time.

Anthropology - The MoQ

The study of stable intellectual, social and organic value patterns of an identified human society with the aim of formulating descriptive intellectual value patterns.

The American Dictionary definition again avoids referring to values although the definition of culture refers to ‘beliefs’ which, it might seem, is getting close to values. Is it not awkward to avoid values in a definition of anthropology or culture? Aren’t values part of, if not the foundation of, a culture and a society? Also the definition combines very different concepts such as beliefs, customs, society and physical development in one sentence without categorising. Finally, what the result of the study should be is not laid out. The MoQ definition improves on this by introducing value in the definition, categorising the levels of study and specifying what the result should be. Of course the MoQ has the great advantage that it has already formalised the existence of four evolutionary levels.

The MoQ truly is a strong meta-theory. Once you have absorbed the theory you tend to approach reality in a different way. Your interpretation of every day situations can improve greatly. I whole heartedly recommend to anyone to study and embrace the Metaphysics of Quality.

Ton Coumans