Howdy partners: Just a few words about creativity and being "out there". I
promise to be civilized about my disagreements and wish to apologize to
Roger once more. Sorry. I've been under a great deal of barometric pressure
lately, feels like the whole shy is pressing down on me. I'm sure you know
how it is...
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Platt Holden [SMTP:pholden5@earthlink.net]
> Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2000 12:33 PM
> To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> Subject: Re: MD Random Patterns
>
> PLATT
> As for patterns, the issue for me is whether they exist "out there"
> independent of us (objective) or do we create them (subjective)? I tend
> toward
> the latter view, but am open to be persuaded otherwise.
>
[David Buchanan] This is clearly a major point of contention. And
since the MOQ is offered as a way to dis-solve exactly this point, I find
such profound disagreements to be extremely distressing. I have to object to
the notion that static quality is created subjectively in the most emphatic
and vigorous terms. I don't think Pirsig is a solipsist, which is precisely
the view that the world is created subjectively. Such views are based on
the very same metaphysical assumptions that the MOQ is designed to
dis-solve. To be fair, I can understand how Pirsig might be interpeted as a
new kind of idealism, but I think it would have to be radically different
than anything advocated by Hegel, the Romantics, or anyone in this forum.
I should be careful to point out that my rejection of subjective
creativity does not imply any acceptance of the alternative. Pirsig is
clearly not happy with objectivity, and so I don't think we can rightly
imagine that static value are just objects, just things made of a different
substance. Surely, we all agree that such a view would be missing the whole
point of the MOQ, which is seriously opposed to the limitations of
scientific objectivity.
In fact, I'd argue that the impossibility of resolving the
differences between idealism and the more objective views is exactly the
problem with SOM. Is the quality in the written work itself or in the
opinion of the reader? Is beauty in the object itself or is it in the
beholder? These are the un-solvable questions. These are the questions that
the MOQ dis-solves. It doesn't give an answer to these questions because
there isn't any. They are bad questions. They are questions based on
mistaken assumptions, right? That's why we say the MOQ dis-solves them
rather than solves them. The MOQ renders those questions meaningless and
simply makes them go away. In other words, static patterns of value are
NEITHER subjectively created NOR objectively out there. BUT, PARADOXICALLY,
all static patterns of quality are also subject and objects simultaneously.
Perhaps at this point you are thinking to yourself, "Hmmm. I wonder if DMB
is mentally retarded and, geeze, I hope the psychiatric nurses are treating
him with some measure of dignity". Here's what I mean...
In the passages from chapter eight we heard Pirsig say that terms
like "matter" and "substance" refer to the same thing he calls a "stable
inorganic pattern of values". He says data are data and changing the name
doesn't result in any changes at the physics lab. So its pretty clear that
inorganic static patterns are really real, that is to say they have actual
existence, and they can be measured objectively with scientific instruments
just as before. BUT, without contradiction these inorganic static patterns
are also subjective! Not that particles and waves go to some kind of
subatomic university and have some kind of itsy bitsy intellect. No way.
That's a whole different deal. Quality events at this level do not require
intellectual values. But these inorganic patterns of quality to have a
certain interior will, for lack of a better phrase. They have their own kind
of inorganic awareness. This is what Pirsig is talking about when he
replaces causality with value. A doesn't simply cause B because that's based
on the assumption that matter is a completely dead and stupid thing. It has
no life or spirit or will or volition or preference. Its just this inert,
inactive stuff that doesn't participate in anything. It just sits there
until its acted upon by some other force. Pirsig rejects that assumption and
tells us that even inorganic static quality has experience and makes
choices. He's saying that even inorganic patterns have interior experience.
B values precondition A. The data are unchanges by the shift from causality
to preference, but it changes the meaning of that data quite profoundly.
And this is already too long, but the same kind of notion applies to
static patterns at every level, all the way up to the intellectual level.
The MOQ is radically different than SOM at the lowest level, it would never
dream of attributing any kind of volition to inorganic objects. And SOM is
equally at odds with the MOQ at the top level, but in precisely the opposite
direction. SOM would never dream of attributing objectivity to thoughts,
dreams or peyote visions, but the MOQ does. It say that intellectual
patterns are as real as rocks. They're really real and have actual
existence. And there is a certain objectivity to static value at the highest
level, but its less pronounced and less obvious simply because where talking
about a different kind of values. Intellectual values include and enfold all
the lower levels, but they are of a different nature than all of them too.
The levels are not forever alienated and seperate from each other like
subjects and objects are, but they do exhibit important distinctions as
their evolution unfolds. And it is the shift from one level to the next, the
real and actual differences between them can make it appear that subjects
and objects are primary and that everything in reality is one or the other,
but that's the big mistake dis-solved by the MOQ. Pirsig is saying that
everything, every sort of static quality, has subjectivity AND objectivity
simultaneously. And that both of those aspects arise from a more primary
reality; Quality. Subjects and objects are seperate at all, they're just
different facets of static quality, different aspects of the various kinds
of value patterns.
I haven't forgotten about Dynamic Quality, its just that patterned
quality is our topic today. Thanks for your time.
DMB
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