This is an excellent commentary. I've had a few talks with Karen Wong recently, and we discussed some of these topics. We talked about how all measurement is a comparison against a standard or master and that objective truth cannot be measured. What matters is relational truth, what you (Pirsig) call quality. Agape love acts like the north pole affecting a compass needle in that it can orientate the relation toward the good. Or something like that. :)
Still contend that we can't abstract this. (think RP would agree) Hate to see JP (Paul, too) try to use the mind to somehow get behind these terms. We simply don't come to knowledge this way as children-- or in history -- we are ordered and placed into meaning via language/naming. Very key point: this attempt at abstraction is **not** how the West came into being -- we did not abstract "the good" or deconstruct consciousness for Gregory to separate Church/State or Luther to declare we are "private persons". Time after time after time we flew this by the seat of our pants -- led by the Spirit. Rosenstock-Huessy was keen to point out: "science is the study of dead things." Once you pull the "mind/consciousness" apart you've nullified the living spirit -- the real (personal) process. It's a short menu, but what we need to countenance.
You translated the glass of water into Pirsig terms well. "Horse" is a social pattern of value. In reduction, it's a loose grouping of biological experience, or 'horseness' . "Combinatorial explosion" refers to a failing attempt to create a static intellectual model of that horse.
