Hi, Dave
I find in this post much that I agree with, but taking quality (lower-case)
out of reality (Quality upper-case) is IMHO opinion just as bad as making it
the central tenet of a "rational morality".
I've taken the liberty of snipping much of your post which is descriptive
and with which (except for a few points I'm not going to nitpick about) I
mostly agree. I'll just discuss your most polemical point below.
> So we come to Pirsig's idea. Quality. He defined
> reality as being quality so there was some innate
> quality within reality which we can look at and choose
> the best interpretations of dynamic reality purely by
> opening ourselves up to these quality values that are
> innate within dynamic reality. I tend to disagree,
> reality is just reality, it doesn't innately have
> quality we must ascertain quality for ourselves based
> upon the static patterns we have built up.
That's kind of similar to what I believe too. In my own words I would say
that Value isn't only about quality, and that the moral view point is a
restrictive one (Victoria and I had an argument about this, in August).
Value (as static patterns or DQ) contains many dimensions, the moral one
being just one way of identifying it.
> In the
> evolution example above Pirsig would answer that the
> fact that the process did achieve some gains was due
> to the innate quality but the process has quite solid
> groundings in the forms of static patterns that cause
> it and the gains it creates are not an absolute
> improvement of quality, they are an improvement only
> for specific tasks within specific parameters. In
> fact it is tenuous to say that an absolute quality
> exists.
I'm not sure that is the final position of Pirsig, either. While ZAMM ended
in such a tone, it is clear that the Rigel experience left Pirsig facing the
problems of leaving Quality (still then confused with the usual notion of
quality) undefined.
While ZAMM was trying to destroy the validy of a SOM approach to human
problems (and made a pretty good job of it), it wasn't solving much on an
intellectual level, and left us only with the escapist approach and a few
advices about having a "good attitude". While a worthy book, ZAMM didn't
solve much in the field of philosophy.
With 'Lila', Pirsig tried to find a better way of applying our intellectual
skills to human problems, and identified two kinds of quality (still
lower-case), two kinds of "good". One was the static good, recognized
because of apprenticeship and training, and the other was the dynamic good,
recognized because of an pre-intellectual awareness of Value. Behind the
latter, Pirsig identified the principle of evolution, be it in the
intellectual, social, biological or inorganic level. Unfortunately, since
Pirsig was still not making a clear distinction between quality (goodness)
and Quality (pre-intellectual reality), he ended up saying that any Dynamic
event was more moral than the existing static patterns of value, as long as
it managed to find a static latch*. This smacks of "novelty for novelty's
sake", as long as I'm concerned, and lead him to many a dead-end, including
his "rational morality".
But, you have to admit that his idea of an EVOLVING notion of goodness
disqualifies the notion of an "absolute quality".
[* This diregards the fact is that evolution (at all levels) has gone
forward with many setbacks, took many wrong turns, and not because of any
lack of static latching ; unless you discount hundreds, thousands or
millions of years of existence as a proof of "static latching".]
> In many situations a person can make a clear
> judgement on what is of higher quality between two
> items, but a different person would make a completely
> different choice.
The reason why being explained by Pirsig : different sets of static patterns
of value or an opposition between the static immune system and a dynamic
perception of Value.
> When you are studying something
> that you are unfamiliar with you will have a hard time
> judging what is better or worse within that category
> as you have few static patterns upon which to make
> those judgements. For example when you start drinking
> wine, it's very hard to pick a good wine from a bad
> wine, the main distinguisher is flavour but in terms
> of food flavours for which you are familiar. As you
> become accustomed to wine and learn the flavours,
> quality and results of drinking various wines then
> judging a good wine versus a bad wine becomes
> relatively easy.
Again, you do not render justice to Pirsig's ideas. The passage about the
Zen monks and their incredibly static lives, full of rituals, makes it clear
that Dynamic perception does not arise from "unfamiliarity" or lack of
static patterns, but out of the MASTERY of the latter. The static patterns
must be transcended, not bypassed, if one is to judge the morality/goodness
of something. I refer you to the Lilasquad archives of August 1999 for a
discussion about this (especially Diana's posts).
> If Pirsig's absolute Quality existed
> then some one who held themselves more in the dynamic
> and could view genuine quality would have an instant
> appreciation for good wines which is not the case.
> Pirsig also used quality for the basis of making a
> moral choice, this is a good thing because it
> re-introduces morals into the metaphysical world. His
> morals were based on the fact that if you were
> replacing a pattern of a lower evolutionary form with
> one that is more evolved then doing so is the moral
> decision to make. This is where Pirsig brought his
> levels into play. Because Social levels only come
> into play after a biological level is established then
> social static patterns are clearly more evolved than
> biological ones. Because intellectual patterns (which
> have only really come into the fore in relatively
> recent times) came after social ones they are of a
> higher evolutionary level then social patterns.
> Therefore if you have to make the choice between an
> intellectual pattern (freedom) and a social pattern
> (etiquette) the intellectual pattern should always win
> since it is clearly more evolved because it's
> intellectual not social.
You forget the passage about the preservation of the lower levels. What is
the good in calling somebody a retard (even if it's true) if this destroys
the social interaction going on ? Pirsig, I believe, understood this.
> I don't think this
> necessarily holds true as a basis for morals. I like
> the thought of more evolved static patterns being of
> better moral value, it's the levels that are more of a
> sticking point. In the biological world we have
> humans and then we have cats. One of these things is
> much more complicated so many would say that humans
> are more evolved. But really humans and cats have
> been evolving for the same length of time, they are
> both just as evolved but they are differently evolved.
So if a cat and a little girl were both in mortal danger you would be
intellectually incapable of choosing which one should be saved first ? I do
not think this is the case. Even if the little girl was not a little girl
but a criminal, it still would be immoral to let the criminal die and save
the cat.
> So the moral choice should not always favour the
> human over the cat. It's the same with freedom vs
> etiquette. If a new static pattern comes along that
> is in conflict between these two then it shouldn't
> automatically favour the intellectual, it should be
> preferable to any parts of the social level which it
> is more evolved than and any parts of the intellectual
> level that it is more evolved than.
I agree up to a point. If the lower static pattern is actively opposing the
upper one, and if the quality of the higher static pattern has been
established (it has, for better or worse gained a static latching of its
own), you are wrong.
For example, I hold that racists hate-mongers shouldn't be censured unless
it is in those actions that actively harm the social level (bombings,
physical attacks and other criminal acts). They have a right to voice their
opinions, and any opposition ON THIS LEVEL should be an intellectual one
(debates and counter-propaganda).
This is not a *truth*, or a rational proposition in the sense that Pirsig
meant with his "rational morality", but a moral statement which you should
judge. Hopefully its goodness will be apparent to you (especially if you
have given some thought to the subject), but if it isn't, I'm ready to
listen to your side. :)
>
> So, in rough conclusion I think the important thing to
> take from those last sections is that within the
> Metaphysics our task is to keep looking into dynamic
> reality and improving our static patterns. Our
> process of doing this is through a filter caused by
> our static patterns. This filter in recent times has
> been the filter of objectivity from science and the
> SOM. Pirsig puts forwards that the filter should be
> Quality and based upon moral decisions. This is a
> very good filter but along the way there are many
> judgements that we will have to make about which
> static patterns are more moral than which other static
> patterns. Some times our old patterns will be better,
> often hopefully our new static patterns that we are
> building from the dynamic reality will be better. We
> just need to strive for the new, better patterns.
And how would you recognize new "betterness" if you only build your
judgments from older static ones ? The quality of new Values has to be
recognized somehow, and I still believe the way to do this is
pre-intellectual awareness, hopefully attained by mastering previous static
patterns.
(Of course, if anyone has an idea about how I could get an instant fix of DQ
perception, I'm game ! ;)
> The
> biggest risk of modern life is to get bogged down in
> the old comfortable static patterns that we have and
> to lose sight of the dynamic reality for which we
> should strive.
That, I believe, is what Pirsig said (at least, it's the parts I agree
with).
>
> A final note on Zen philosophy. I admit I don't know
> much about this but the rough understanding I have is
> that the goal of Zen is to discard all the unnecessary
> paraphernalia of this world and reach a state of
> oneness with nothing.
False, Zen strives to attain "action without thought", by mastering the
patterns and being guided by pre-intellectual awareness to new levels of
excellence. The best book to read on the subject (that I know of, at least)
is Herrigel's "Zen and the Art of Archery" (which inspired the title of
ZAMM, as you might know).
> This within the Metaphysics is
> trying to discard all static patterns of the mind.
> This is not however trying to be in the dynamic. If
> you are heavily in the dynamic reality then you will
> be building static patterns very quickly, I think what
> Zen is, is trying to discard all the static patterns
> while keeping focused beyond the dynamic reality in
> order to reach a state with no connectedness to
> reality whether static or dynamic, this is the
> nothingness that they preach (maybe).
>
> Anyway, just some thoughts mainly to get my ideas in
> some semblance of order.
This is definitely the best use of a mailing-list such as ours !
Be good
Denis
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