Roger and Squad,
You don't think that the MoQ solves the purpose better than the other brands?
Speaking as an ex-neo-existialist, one who quite confortable with the universe
having no inheirent purpose, I really think the MoQ does do a better job than
the other brands including neo-existialism. If I remeber correctly R. Pirsig
describes Dynamic Quality is like a force of nature, say gravity, that values
freedom over all. The universe evolves toward Quality, Dynamic Quality.
Perhaps we in the West have been a little too focused on the goals of our static
patterns and not the processes involved in obtaining them.
Considering the historical record, the idea that the universe was going toward a
particular goal is recorded earliest amoung the Summerians who actually, as far
as recorded sources go, invented escatology (the idea of an end to time, a last
battle, a war of the gods), in other words, that the universe had a
destinantion. All systems that i've heard about previous to this were pretty
cyclical in nature. The idea almost undoubtedly arose before it was written
down but it doesn't appear in any Western or Eastern religions before the
Summerians. (As a side note the Hebrew idea that Eve was created from the rib
of Adam can be attributed to a mistranslation of the Summerian story of
creation, no surprise since the Summerians describe a wandering tribe called the
Habiru.)
Cheers,
Glen Dickey
RISKYBIZ9@aol.com wrote:
>
> What's Good all?
>
> I continue to wrestle with the issue of the purpose of life and the universe.
> I am still not sure how well the MOQ solves this riddle. Below are snippets
> of salient comments that I have collected this month to spur my thoughts. It
> is a collage, and I am taking definite risk of losing or distorting the
> intended meaning by destroying the true context of each of these quotes.
> Therefore with apologies at the forefront, here goes...........
>
> Mr. Pirsig says on page 117 that ".......the apparent purposelessness of the
> universe and the life within it are all monster platypi created by the SOM."
> Then on p166 he defines the explanation of life as a "migration of static
> patterns toward Dynamic Quality."
>
> In the book "The Collapse Of Chaos" by Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart the authors
> attempt to deal with this and most of the other topics in Lila. Despite the
> lack of a metaphysical foundation and language, they come to remarkably
> similar conclusions....In fact, though it is obvious they haven't read it,
> many passages could have been in Lila. ( In some areas I would even argue
> they got further than Pirsig.) They never completely throw off SOM, but they
> do toss out reductionism and you can tell they don't buy into conventional SOM
> "wisdom."
>
> On page 431 they address the topic as follows: "A dynamic does not
> necessarily imply a purpose. Darwinian evolution has a dynamic, but organisms
> do not seek to evolve. The existence of attractors does not imply that
> dynamical systems are goal-seekers: on the contrary, they are goal-finders,
> which only recognize what the 'goal' is when they have found it." They then go
> on to state that it is a tempting fallacy to " derive a sense of purpose from
> a dynamic and see it as a spiritual frame that we must use. "
>
> On 9/8 Ken Clark wrote " As I see it DQ is not a goal, but simply a force that
> is directed by our individual, previously-established patterns of value."
>
> On 9/9 Horse stated "This doesn't mean purpose ceases to exist though, just
> the opposite, it goes at a completely different
> character..........Purpose/Meaning is value. To exist is to have purpose and
> meaning."
>
> Jonathan Marder on 9/15 wrote "I think that 'purpose', that SOM platypus, is
> the
> bridge between the August and September discussion programmes."
>
> My final clip is again from Horse on 9/8 in response to my question from a few
> days earlier where I wondered if the journey and the goal were one and the
> same thing........."Why not? Who says there must be a goal!"
>
> Sorry again for stealing and perhaps abusing your thoughts, but I have had
> trouble finding a consistent flow to this portion of the topic-o-the-month.
>
> Be Good!
>
> Roger Parker
>
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