Multiplying DQ is exactly what Aristotle did.
Not a good move boys, not a good move.
Even Aristotle follows Plato in the final analysis: the Good is
undifferentiated.
When ARE you guys going to feel the penny drop?
All the best,
Squonk.
In a message dated 8/8/01 1:02:19 AM GMT Daylight Time,
gmbbradford@netscape.net writes:
<< Subj: RE: Re: MD Self, Free/Determinism : a short essay (again... ;)
Date: 8/8/01 1:02:19 AM GMT Daylight Time
From: gmbbradford@netscape.net
Sender: owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk
Reply-to: moq_discuss@moq.org
To: denis.poisson@ideliance.com ("Denis Poisson"), moq_discuss@moq.org
John B. and Denis and all,
DENIS:
"Quality is still undefinable, and the Universe non-mechanical by nature.
It
still escapes the intellectual nets we're trying to wrap around it.
Pirsig's
definition still stands : "We are determined when we follow SQ, and Free
when we follow DQ.""
The exact quote is:
PIRSIG, Ch. 12
In the Metaphysics of Quality this dilemma [free will vs. determinism]
doesn't come up. To the extent that one's behavior is controlled by
static
patterns of quality it is without choice. But to the extent that one
follows Dynamic Quality, which is undefinable, one's behavior is free.
It's a hollow "solution" to the free will/determinism problem.
All he's done is recast a nearly identical problem in MOQ terms. Now the
question becomes, "When am I free to follow the path of DQ and when am I
constrained to follow static patterns of quality?"
JOHN B:
Ummm. Sounds like the chatechism to me. Pirsig's first cut fails, in my
opinion, right in his prime example of the song on the radio.
It is simply wrong in most cases to suggest that dynamic equals novel
with music!
Yes, or that dynamic things are necessarily perceived as having the *most*
quality. It's also my experience that a song will peak some time after
its first listen, when it's well on its way to being staticly latched.
JOHN B:
I will go a step further. DQ is a myth.
I think so, too. I guess this is the racy part Denis snipped.
JOHN B:
Quite commonly [DQ] is equated with
novelty, which is a nonsense... this is so far from the incisive
first cut he sought that it is laughable. DQ is many things, of different
kinds; not one thing as Pirsig would have us believe.
Right. As examples of DQ, Pirsig offers many different kinds. There's
DQ in a new song, in the excitement of being in a hurricane, in looking
at your hand after surviving a heart attack, in the religious experience
of peyote, in the driving force of evolution, in the intuition of
scientific hypotheses, in all the experiences of a new-born, in the
interaction of carbon atoms in the formation of life, and the pain of a
hot stove on your butt.
In more general terms, DQ is associated with "events" having to do
with freedom, novelty, change, and subjective experiences. In
even more sweeping terms, DQ is attributed to just about
anything for which explanations involving SQ do not exist
or do not do it justice (such as substance-based explanations
of consciousness). In short, DQ is ascribed to all that is
mysterious, and called an explanation.
None of these, however, prove, or to my way of thinking, even suggest,
that DQ exists as an objective phenomena. Quality, despite all the talk
around here, seems very much to be in the eye of the beholder. Further,
arguments that the self is an illusion and reality is a dynamic, flowing
continuum are unsubstantiated and these beliefs are products of
Eastern dogma, liberal interpretations of drug or meditative experiences,
and blissful doses of self-deceit. And I don't mean to offend.
I'm actually very sympathetic to self-deceit.
JOHN B:
Value is relative when it is applied to the social and intellectual
realms, and arguably not so in the biological realm. And I still fail
to grasp how value impinges on the inorganic realm at all. I think it's
just an imposition for the sake of theoretical niceness.
Well I completely agree, and "theoretical niceness" is a nice way to
put it. The universality of value gives it the ring of a good
scientific theory, like the universality of gravitation and the 2nd
Law of Thermodynamics. It's enough to keep any INTP personality type
enthralled, at least for four or five listens :)
Glenn
>>
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