Hi Wim,
Your following post has a number of good points, a few of which I'd like you
to expand on.
> Dear Denis,
>
> You wrote 10/11 23:07 +0100:
> "'Things', like cities, are often composed from more than just
> one type of patterns."
>
> How would you like my alternative (developed in the "Things and
> patterns, Pirsig's authority" thread):
> Experience (that is made conscious as experience) of "things"
> often contains elements of more than just one type of patterns
> and of more than just one pattern of any kind.
> Experience is composed from quality events. Patterns can only be
> experienced when you take a lot of experience together. Even the
> pattern "a chair" in the toddler example in my 6/11 22:27 +0100
> is composed from several consecutive head bumpings. The pattern
> "chairs" needs more experience for its composition and the
> pattern "artifacts" even more.
Interesting. So in your opinion, we experience a series of quality events
(aka. everyday life ;), and then when a series of similar quality events has
reached a certain "critical mass", we "see" the pattern... That's a very
good intuition, Wim ! Of course, the critical mass depends on the
"staticity" of the human patterns involved, and might even never be
reached - never underestimate the power of self-denial ! ;)
This might be why John B. thinks that Pirsig is wrong when he says that
Quality is immediately recognized. It isn't, because it does not become
present to our consciousness (in the Freudian sense) before we can get it in
static form : the form of a pattern ! The birth, the realization of the
pattern IS the Dynamic Quality, not just the "experience" !
Often, it has been said, or implied, that Quality and Dynamic Quality were
one and the same. But perhaps this isn't the highest-quality explanation.
Quality, as understood by mystics, is beyond all duality. It is the
"oneness" of the Universe, the background of all existence, at every level.
Matter, behaviours, thoughts and feelings are all manifestations of Quality,
the Tao, the Spirit. Surprise, ignorance and knowledge, everything is
Quality.
But if Dynamic Quality is (loosely) defined as the emergence of a pattern,
at any level, then Pirsig is right : DQ is only an aspect of Quality, the
leading edge of the train. But Quality is as much the train as its leading
edge, and also the track. It is the "experience" of the train, both static
and dynamic. As such, it IS immediately recognized, but at a subconscious
level. It is the flow of experience, filtered through whatever static
patterns it manifests through.
When this filter is breached and new patterns emerge, then it is Dynamic
Quality. And when the patterns just "do their thing", then it is Static
Quality. The Quality of a song is there all along, and it is accessible, and
immediately "felt", but we need to integrate it as a static pattern before
we can recognize it. By doing so, we just accept a larger part of Quality
into our lives.
Russel distinguishes two kinds of knowledge, he says :
"There is a meaning of "to know" in which, when you have an experience,
there is no difference between the experience, and knowing that you're
having it."
This is so close to what Pirsig means (and this is Bertrand Russel, no less
!) that I nearly had a fit when I read that ! I believe Russel came really
near the realization that experience IS primordial, but he rejected it
because the proponents of this theory (Whitehead and alii) couldn't give any
reasons why experience alone would create some solutions that are better
than others. They couldn't explain why science isn't a mumbo-jumbo of
whatever strikes your fancy. But still, on his own he came close.
This is an example he gives : "Suppose that your are walking on a rainy day,
and that you see a puddle and avoid it. It is improbable that you said to
yourself : 'There's a puddle : it would be best not to walk in it.' But if
someone was to ask you : 'Why did you step aside ?', you would answer :
'Because I didn't want to walk in the puddle.' You know in retrospect that
you had a visual perception, to which you reacted in the appropriate manner;
and in the afore-mentioned case, you would express this knowledge in words.
But what would you know, and in what sense would you know about this if
someone hadn't brought your attention to it ?"
The experience comes first. The rationalization after. Still, the example he
gives is about a grown man who knows about life. In all probability, he
learned the hard way that stepping in puddles, while fun, gets you with cold
feet. :) So he integrated the pattern, and TRANSCENDED it ! That's why I
believe that Pirsig is wrong (in a way) when he says that a child knows all
he has to know about Quality. The child knows about the Bouddha, but not the
Dharma. He experiences Quality only in its Dynamic aspect, and that's why he
has to learn everything that will one day make him a human, with all the
possibilities of a human (speech, rational thought, moral judgment etc.) The
sad experience of "feral children" has shown us that babies cut off from
human contact suffer from serious disabilities in their development, ones
that they can never recover from.
Wilber starts from the pioneering work of Piaget in child development and
various mystic traditions in mystic states to explain that all humans must
pass through different stages to grow in their potentiality of knowing the
Spirit. And that at each stage, they must differentiate, integrate and
transcend the patterns they've discovered. But once they fall into the
non-dual stage, the highest mystic state of oneness with the Spirit/Quality,
they recognize that it had been here all along ! He goes on to explain that
the hardest thing in recognizing that you are no different from the Cosmos
is that it is so OBVIOUS ! It stares at you in the face all along, but it's
so close that we never "get it". It is the ultimate Dynamic breakthrough,
the destruction of all dualities, S/O or DQ/SQ or yin/yang or whatever. The
state that Pirsig briefly experienced himself before thousands of volts "era
sed" it, along with his memories.
Quality is always there, but Dynamic Quality must be discovered, so that we
can integrate the patterns it produces, in an evolutive fashion, and
ultimately transcend all patterns, all Dharma, to find back the "face we had
before we were born".
And most of us never get there.
> Patterns of value are not elements to compose anything from, they
> are not to be treated as objects. If we do treat them as such, we
> are discussing SOM and not MoQ.
This isn't as clear, and I'd like you to expand on it, please. I mean, it
seems obvious that atoms are patterns of value, and that they do compose
molecules, which are also patterns of value. Similarly, words are
intellectual patterns of value that compose sentences. And sentences can
join up to form a play or a novel. So, what did you mean exactly ?
>
> I am now proving the general drift of your 7/11 14:57 +0100
> message: Please "acknowledge the superiority of my views, and
> then we'll be able to start the *real* work!". I liked it very
> much. The best jokes are not at the expense of others, but put
> your very Self into perspective...
"The Tao that cannot be laughted about is not the Tao." - Lao Tzu
And besides, I'm too young to be a sourpuss ! ;)
Take care,
Denis
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