On Thu, 01 Oct 1998 07:18:33 +0000 Diana McPartlin
<diana@hongkong.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone
>
> It's Oct 1st and time for the new program - What is Dynamic Quality?
>
Hi Diana and the LS.
As I was one of the people who suggested this topic, I
thought I better be one of the first to have a stab at it.
So please find a few paragraphs derived from my latest
academic paper on Pirsig's work. It's not published yet so
any criticisms will be appreciated.
Ant.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Though there are no objects or subjects as traditionally
thought of within the MOQ, for pragmatic reasons (i.e. it
makes human existence much easier by employing concepts)
Pirsig terms the continually changing flux of immediate
reality "Dynamic Quality" while any concept abstracted from
this flux is termed a pattern of "static quality". It is
important to keep in mind that "Dynamic Quality" is not a
concept but only a referring term for immediate experience
i.e. "The purpose of the description of 'Dynamic Quality' as
'the continually changing flux of immediate reality' is to
block the notion that Dynamic Quality is some kind of
object. To try to take that definition as some kind of
philosophic object itself is to pervert the purpose for
which the statement was intended."
(Pirsig, Jan. 2nd 1998.)
According to Pirsig, the stream of experience is
Dynamic Quality, so by inference, it is the fundamental
building block of the universe. As it is a continual
changing flux, it is impossible to produce an exact
definition. This is partly because by the time any
complete definition would be stated (and it would have to
take some time!) immediate experience would have
subsequently changed so resulting in a consequent
inaccuracy of such a definition.
Dynamic Quality is especially useful as a term as it allows
reference to "conceptual unknowns" (as termed by the
physicist Niels Bohr) i.e. quantities that are ineffable
whether, for example, in the context of mystical and
aesthetic experiences or in the context of wave-particles
in quantum mechanics.
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