LS:
Here finally is my attempt to define DQ.......the topic of the month. Pardon
me if I overlap with previous posts, but the consistency can at least be a
sign of consensus, and differences can be opportunities for better
understanding.
Before defining Dynamic Quality, I need to start with the term quality. As
Pirsig explains on p12 of SUBJECTS, OBJECTS, DATA AND VALUES, quality is not
a thing. It is an event. It involves relationships and the point where
subjects and objects meet. However it is not just the result of the collision
between subjects and objects, in fact the event is the cause of the subjects
and objects.
Throughout Lila and SODV, Pirsig goes back and forth between two types of
definitions of the elusive DQ. Only by focusing that quality is an event, am I
able to synthesize these approaches. On p18 of SODV Pirsig refers to DQ as
the "Conceptual Unknown". On p133 of Lila , he refers to it as the "front
edge of experience", and "The source of all things." On p132 he mentions DQ
"has to be continually rediscovered". However, in other places he seems to
simplify his terminology and use DQ and experience somewhat interchangeably.
For example, on p137 he calls an infant's stimuli "DQ". On p12 of SODV he
hints at the synthesis......"DQ is a stream of quality events going on and on
forever, always at the cutting edge of the present."
As for static quality, Pirsig treats it quite differently from DQ, but he
again defines it around the quality event. For example , on p12 of SODV he
writes........."But in the wake of this cutting edge are static patterns of
value. These are memories, customs and patterns of nature." On p134 of Lila,
in discussing man's customs he says....."Later he generates static patterns of
thought......". On 137 he explains an object as a "complex pattern of static
values derived from primary experience." And on p114 " .....a thing that has
no value does not exist.........value has created the thing."
Putting this all together , I arrive at the following bit of simplification:
1) Quality is an event or experience.
2) Dynamic Quality is the conceptually unknown part of the quality event. It
is the cutting or front edge of experience. It is the source of all.
3) Static quality is the wake of this quality event or experience. It includes
subjects and objects (things), memories, maps of reality, customs, etc.
Ant explained the dynamic/static division according to Buddhists as
"unconditioned reality" (DQ) and "conditioned reality" (SQ). I find these
terms insightful.
Some Lila Squaders have mentioned "static experience" this month. At first,
this seemed like a contradiction in terms.....how can experience be static?
But applying Ant's Buddhist terms clears it up for me. "Conditional
Experience" implies that this is experience where we have lost touch with the
dynamic aspect of an experience. We filter or condition it. I believe the
Dynamic aspect is always there though.
Another discussion this month has been whether sq can exist without DQ. Pirsig
on Lila p139 writes that DQ creates the world but sq preserves it. "Neither
static nor Dynamic Quality can survive without the other".
I have gained immensely from the discussion this month . Thanks , and as
always, your feedback and critiques are appreciated.
Be Good All
Roger Parker
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