Dear Patrick,
Please don't say sorry for just a week silence (20/8 5:46 -0700), or I would
have to feel real guilty for often not replying to posts addressed to me for
months...
'Migration of social patterns of values towards Dynamic Quality' is not my
formulation but Pirsig's (chapter 11 of 'Lila'). I don't think Pirsig said
anywhere that growing complexity is necessarily 'good'. It is not a
cornerstone of his MoQ either. To the extent that we experience growing
complexity over time AND presume (like) Pirsig that 'all life is a migration
of static patterns of quality toward Dynamic Quality', this correlation
suggests a positive answer to your question 'Is evolution to increasing
complexity "good"; does it signify progress?'.
You write 'it's ... the nature of our social or experiential values that I
want to explain from an objective point of view'.
The MoQ tries to do away with 'subjective' and 'objective' viewpoints. The
only reality we know is the Quality/values we experience. The distinction
between 'subjective' and 'objective' knowledge of that experience is
meaningless under the MoQ. According to the MoQ social values/experience
just are/is. The first step to explain it, is to realize that is 'comes' to
us as recognized patterns. (Without recognition a 'patterned', value can't
be distinguished as inorganic/biological/social/intellectual. It is the type
of static pattern, or rather the way in which it is
latched/stabilized/maintained that gets it one of the four labels under the
MoQ.) These patterns evolve/migrate. Social values/experience can therefore
be explained from earlier (more primitive) social patterns of values plus
Dynamic Quality. Simultaneously they can be explained from the dynamic
improvement they enable in biological patterns of values: social patterns of
values mediate DQ to the biological level. They can also simultaneously be
explained from their (greater) harmony with intellectual patterns of values
(compared to more primitive social patterns of values): intellectual
patterns of values mediate DQ to the social level.
You can associate 'explanation from an objective viewpoint' with
'explanation from their role in biological progress' (which is coherent with
Pirsig's association of 'objective reality' with his lower two levels and of
'subjective reality' with his higher two levels). I would be interested to
explore this type of explanation, using the concepts of 'brain plasticity',
'habit', 'complexity', 'progress' and morality ('good'), but ... from a MoQ
point of view. What limitations do you see to such a point of view?
As for you 'spiritual contemplation' of 15/8 7:48 -0700 that '[you] find the
realisation that our identity now
relates intimately with the long history of the universe quite ... special,
deep, whatever word you prefer':
The word I prefer is 'Meaningful' (as in 'the Meaning of [my] life'). That
for me is the 'subject matter' of religion (with its root 're-ligare' =
're-connecting').
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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