Vladimir Oane's Key Ideas from Lila
by Robert Pirsig

Pirsig postulates that everything that exists can be assumed to be a value or quality. "Quality" or "value" cannot be defined because it empirically precedes any intellectual construction of it, namely due to the fact that quality (as Pirsig explicitly defines it) exists always as a perceptual experience. The concept is very similar if not the same as the Tao from the Taoist or Zen traditions. Or God. 

Quality can be broken down into 2 forms: static quality patterns (patterned) and dynamic quality (unpatterned).

Dynamic quality cannot be defined. It can only be understood intellectually through the use of analogy.

When an aspect of Quality becomes repeated, it becomes static. Pirsig defines 'Static quality' patterns as everything which can be defined. 

Everything found in a dictionary, for instance, is a static quality pattern.

Pirsig then divides static quality into inorganic, biological, social, and intellectual patterns, in ascending order of morality (based on evolutionary order):

• Inorganic patterns: non-living things
• Biological patterns: living things
• Social patterns: behaviors, habits, rituals, institutions.
• Intellectual patterns: ideas

Evolution thus is described as the moral progression of these patterns of value. For example, a biological pattern overcoming an inorganic pattern (e.g. bird flight which overcomes gravity) is a moral thing because a biological pattern is a higher form of evolution.

In the book, the main character had his ideas written down on slips of paper. As he recalls "the main purpose of the slips was not to help him remember. It was to help him forget it."

The analogy he used is that of a 🍵 tea cup. To pour new tea you have to get rid of old tea. Your head is just like a cup. It has limited capacity.