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Ha! As a matter of fact I’m re-reading it at the moment. But as a former reliability engineer, i bristle as Persig’s claim that quality can’t be defined.
by bumby 4y ago
Ha! As a matter of fact I’m re-reading it at the moment.
But as a former reliability engineer, i bristle as Persig’s claim that quality can’t be defined.
- kragen 4y agoquality generally has a broader meaning than conformance to product requirement specifications ;)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bumby 4y ago:-) eh, it always came across to me as a repackaging of the already-existing concept of non-dualism. But i fail to see it’s pragmatic application here. Prestige implies hierarchy, and hierarchy implies ranked measurement. But we can’t define what we’re measuring in terms of quality research or teaching. Apparently, like porn, we’re suppose to just know it when we see it. Like a lot of Pirsigs dialog, it feels a little too precious, without necessarily adding much.
- kragen 4y agoyou don't have to reject cartesian dualism to doubt that you can reduce the quality of artworks or research to 'metrics' or 'ranked measurement'. you just have to not be a complete idiot. hierarchy definitely does not imply ranked measurement
- bumby 4y agoHow would you create a hierarchy without ranking? How would you create ranking without measurement? If it’s just biased ranking, there’s nothing to substantiate it and I can just refute it with my own contrived ranking. That seems to just be a reduction to subjective relativism, which is often the last refuge of people who don’t know what they’re talking about but still want to feel smart. (Or, alternatively, hiding behind rhetorical gimmicks like the “no true Scotsman” fallacy). If they know what they were talking about, I would suspect they could define it. To paraphrase Feynman, if you can’t explain it to a first year student, you don’t really understand.
- bigbacaloa 4y agoReliability engineers and quality control are among the principal reasons why university administrations are so bloated ...
- bumby 4y agoCan you elaborate? I think I’ve met two reliability engineers ever and they were both professors so I’m not sure I follow your point.