Thank you Platt & Denis for your responses. I’ve
tried to put together some ideas based on them. So
here goes…
Platt said >>
1. If reality doesn't innately have quality, why and
how did the static
patterns of the evolution process arise?
2. The same question as 1. but expressed differently.
How do you
answer Pirsig's questions, "Why do the fittest
survive? Why does any
life survive?" (11)
Seems to me there are three possible answers. The
religious answer--
it was God; the scientific answer--it was an
accident; the MOQ
answer--
it was good.
<<
So really, what are these static patterns, why do they
build up, how does it work. Is some force driving
them (God) or are the coincidence (Science) or are
they good (MOQ).
So what allows these static patterns to build up, I
believe it is the existing patterns that allow them to
build. As an analogy, I am trying to build a column
of water. If I pick the water up and try to stack it
on top of the other water I don’t get anywhere, it all
just flows away. But if I introduce some static
constraints for my dynamic water (eg a bucket) then I
can stack the water quite happily in the bucket until
it reachs the top and starts flowing over.
In our universe (or at least the part of it that I
inhabit) there are a lot of base level static
patterns. These control things like what a substance
is, how it behaves what other substances it reacts
with, does it dissolve, does it burn etc. So when I
try to build more complex patterns I will only be able
to do so where I use the characteristics that are
already in place, ie I can’t build my stack of water
because it is a fluid, but if I freeze it and use it’s
characteristics then I can stack it quite happily. So
I can build larger static patterns out of smaller
ones. But in this case I am the driving force. What
about dynamic reality and the seemingly spontaneous
creation of static patterns?
Well, dynamic reality is doing loads of stuff
continuously, dynamically. All of the dynamic is
creating static patterns, the real key is not how to
create the patterns, it’s how to retain them. When we
talk about seeking quality we’re not really saying
only create static patterns that are good, we are
saying look at the static patterns being created
dynamically and pull out and retain the good ones.
For society and people this is mainly an intellectual
task and the decision of which patterns are good and
bad is a judgement that is made within the human mind.
But in nature some other force is at play making that
judgement call. This force is the static patterns
that have already been built. For instance, if I drop
a large stone into water it will create some extensive
patterns (ripples) but these patterns, although I
would say they are static very quickly decay. As soon
as they reach the edge of the pool and start
reflecting they quickly break up and dissapear. If
however we drop the same rock onto soft sand then a
static pattern will be created in the sand which has a
much lower rate of decay. The pattern will remain
until the tide or wind or some other force change it.
So evolution, why do we get survival of the fittest?
Why do species improve? Dynamic reality doesn’t
automatically create better fitter creatures, in fact
if you look at any group of children of any species
you will notice a wide range of traits ranging across
children who are clearly superior to their parents to
those which are clearly inferior with the largest
numbers somewhere in the middle. So we aren’t
developing better patterns automatically, to improve
the overall quality of the patterns you must cull a
portion of the sample. So if I have a group of
children and 50% are as good or better than their
parents and 50% are the same or worse if I cull the
worse 50% then this generation is overall better than
their parents.
But I’ve made a quality judgement, from that group
I’ve decided which are better and which are worse. My
decisions would be different if I was looking for
different criteria. If I was looking for smartest
then I would probably get a quite different group than
if I was looking for tallest, or fittest, or best
looking. So what basis drives evolution? A simple
one, survival. But the rules are different for
different creatures. The static patterns and rules in
which they must survive are very different and you
find a huge range of animals because different
adaptations can exploit different niches in the static
patterns. Eg predators, they often evolve great
strength and attacking characteristics, but they will
also generally have poor peripheral vision, low
endurance (sacrificed for high speed in the short
attack), and a lifestyle involving a lot of rest and
only hunting when the opportunities present. Prey
animals (antelope etc) will develop excellent
peripheral vision, a nervous attitude, long endurance,
and a active lifestyle involving continuous movement
to find new sources of food and water. Now, it is
worthless to argue wether the lion has more quality
than the antelope because you can’t compare their
characteristics directly. We could try to compare
their success at survival, but they have both passed
that test admirably, we could look at them and try to
judge them with our “pre intellectual quality” meter
but this would only tell us what a humans preference
is. These animals haven’t been created to good, they
have been created to survive. So why did they keep
getting “better”? Because the ones that weren’t
better at surviving died. Survival is not a measure
of quality, it is a measure of your ability to
withstand the static patterns within which you live.
And I would say that you can’t build new static
patterns if none already exist. You can’t molecules
without atoms, you can’t build proteins without atoms
and molecules, you can’t build animals without
proteins (at least not yet J ), you can’t build social
and intellectual patterns without animals (although
this is more about our definitions of what a social
and intellectual pattern is than anything but you get
the drift).
Even within the modern world where basic survival does
not affect the large portion of the western world we
can still talk about the survival of the static
patterns. For instance I could sit down and write a
dozen “urban legend” type stories and start spreading
them. Probably only 1 or 2 of them would survive and
propagate and become a genuine urban legend. This
would not mean that it was the story with the highest
“quality” it would be the one that fits in with the
existing social and intellectual static patterns the
best. The one that “rang a bell” with the most
people. The best lie is the one that contains mostly
truth, ie the one that will most easily fit in with
the existing static patterns rather than conflicting
with them and decaying.
Denis >> But, you have to admit that his idea of an
EVOLVING notion of goodness
disqualifies the notion of an "absolute quality".
<<
This I think sums up what I’ve been trying to say. If
goodness is evolving than goodness and value
judgements them selves must be a form of static
pattern that is building alongside all other static
patterns.
Denis >>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 very much agree with this. And I am sorry if it
seems I do not give Pirsig’s ideas enough justice. I
am not trying to attack Pirsig’s ideas, I would not
say I remotely have a full enough grasp of Pirsig’s
ideas to do so. I am trying to establish what my
ideas are, which is not to say that my ideas are
original, they are a build up of a lot of different
authors ideas.
Denis >>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.
<<
Ok, a bit of a spurious example on my part, I think I
like my Lion / Antelope analogy better. But even so,
I would be able to make the choice but I couldn’t
honestly say that I made the choice from an
intellectual quality/evolution stand point as I have
too many emotional and social static patterns that
bias me in favour of humanity. A cat would probably
be similarly biased against the girl.
Denis >>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 ! ;)
<<
You find the new “betterness” in dynamic reality, it
is not that I build my judgements from the older
static patterns, it is that my older static patterns
have a large effect on what I perceive in dynamic
reality. As you say, you can really understand the
dynamic if you totally master the previous static
patterns. So if my static patterns are part of the
lens I view the world through then I can only really
see the world truly if I improve that lens to a level
of perfection.
I also have a number of ideas about pre-intellectual
awareness, which I think is a good thing and is a
large part of the way I live my life, but they will
come another day.
Cheers
Dave
PS, I didn't proof read this, my brains had a bad week
so apologies if it's a bit rambly or unclear.
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