[hosh]

The core thing is exploring just exactly what is subjective and what is objective, and whether quality is subjective or objective. Pirsig came up with an answer, and then goes on to talk about excellence (arete). Thinking back, this discourse seems like it was deliberately embedded in a kind of every day, guy-next-door narrative in order to touch on lived experience of "quality".

Although Pirsig didn't explore it, quality is very much at the heart of any engineering, particularly when you try to quantify it. How effective is ISO-9000? GE was big on that. Boeing measured quality of their builds, until they compromised the process. What about Deming's approach (Total Quality Management)?

What is quality in software engineering? (We often sidestep that question and call it Software Craftsmanship instead). And there's a whole can of worms when we try to apply this to AIs.

[aristofun]

i donknow... wasting so much time just to get a basic idea that quality is important looks like a terrible book to me.

Of course in the context of "books useful for engineers".

If you just enjoy someone's couch philosophy - i can totally understand that and agree that the book may be great.

[hosh]

The idea isn’t about that quality is important though. It is that, even though people feel it is important, no one has been able to rationalize it or measure it. And that sometimes we act and talk as if we can.

I’m not sure why you keep denigrating it as a couch philosophy. Just curious, are you doing that because you have worked through philosophies from academia or the classics?

[__loam]

Maybe you should try reading it before dismissing it like this.