GLOVE REBUTS ROGER'S ATTEMPT AT DOING AWAY WITH VALUE FORCES.
Hello everyone
Roger:
Please follow me on a journey into the exciting 99% of the MOQ which has not
yet been discovered. Today, I will take us away from the familiar
shoreline
and into some uncharted waters. All I am asking is that you keep an
open
mind, and that you seriously give some of these concepts a chance.
My current journey started from a mixture of two threads, Platt's post
on MOQ
Principles that focused on AWARENESS, and the following exchange
between Rich
and Greg:
(Rich) "....I don't think dynamic quality is the goal".
(Greg) "Possibly forms of quality that are more dynamic, but can
anything
truly be dynamic?"
Thinking about this, I started reflecting on the two distinct ways RMP
uses
the term DQ. The first method is roughly defined as direct experience
(Platt's 'awareness'). DQ is the cutting edge of experience prior to
the
creation of patterns. The second type is the evolutionary direction
toward
greater freedom and away from static patterns. RMP also refers to the
Quality
Event, which is where DQ can turn into sq , and which creates subjects
and
objects. Isn't this just a broader version of direct experience
(broader in
that it can apply beyond biological experience/awareness)?
Glove:
The Metaphysics of Quality does not subscribe to the notion of subjects and
objects. The Quality Event does not create subjects and objects, rather "it"
pre-conditions our ability to describe what it is we believe that we are
experiencing as
subject and object. It seems to me that if the meaning behind Pirsig's
Dynamic Quality is properly understood, "it" is beyond experience, since
"it" is
beyond subject and object thinking, existing as simply "it" as in the book
Zen in the Art of Archery. The Quality Event is just exerience which
pre-conditions experience. Dynamic Quality is forever just beyond the
"moving" Quality Event that we call the now, the moment.
Roger:
He does try to
synthesize the terms by mentioning that DQ is a "stream of QE's". To
furter
complicate, he refers to DQ as the "unmeasured phenomenal object" in
SODV.
The problem then is with Pirsig using two terms (DQ and QE) for one
concept,
and in using one term (DQ) for three concepts (experience, freedom and
unmeasured objects). Rather than sort this out, I tried to start from
scratch
using Pirsig's metaphysics to explain reality with enhanced clarity.
Below is
my summary:
1) Experience is Quality
Glove:
Experience pre-conditions Quality, Quality is experience which we have
pre-conditioned ourself to recognize.
2) Quality/experience is all
3) Experience creates patterns (InorgPOV's). These are patterns of
experience.
Glove: Experience pre-conditions our ability to recognize inorganic patterns
of value, but in no way does experience "create" these patterns, for if it
did, all we would have to do is wish and our thoughts would spring into
creation. I have found this is not so.
4) Experience causes the patterns to become more complex (BPOV's)
Glove: Experience allows a greater degree of recognition, leading the
experiencer (you or I) to believe the patterns are becoming more complex.
The ordering of the universe does not take place outside the self. It takes
place within the self.
5) Pattern complexity leads to higher quality experience (biological
experience)
Glove: If ordering only takes place within the experiencer and not within
what we perceive as subject and object, pattern complexity is only the
result of the ever widening circle of life lived, a phenomenal happening
existing not independently from the experiencer, but IS the experiencer.
Roger:
6) Higher quality experience leads to even more complex patterns (S and
I
POV's)
7) This leads to higher quality experience.....(social and intellectual
experience)
8) Pattern complexity is defined as a pattern which is more dynamic,
which has
more freedom, more options, more potential. (It does not necessarily
mean more
complicated)
9) Pattern complexity is quality
The terms differ, but most of the concepts remain. However, subtle
differences
emerge in how reality is explained. Let me walk us through these
differences
and similarities point by point.
The first three points are consistent with the MOQ, however I have
dropped the
terms sq and DQ . You can re-insert them if you choose. The cost is in
clarity. "Experience creates Patterns" is the same as the quality
event
creating sq.
Steps 3 through 7 are just another way of explaining how the levels
emerge.
Another benefit of this terminology is that I have eliminated the
"forces of
value" term which Pirsig coins to try to explain the driving "moral
codes" of
the levels. He implies a connection of these moral codes/value forces
to DQ,
but these terms seem sloppy and "tacked on" to the MOQ. These terms
are
avoided in the new model.
Glove: In my opinion, forces of value are part of the 99% solution left
unmined by Pirsig and to discard it is a mistake. Pirsig's mention of value
forces, almost as an afterthought, is the way Dynamic Quality operates in
our reality. Shamans call this an omen, seers call it a sign, scientists
call it precession, detectives call it a clue. Whatever it is called,
Dynamic Quality always operates at a 90 degreeness to static quality
patterns of value in our universe.
Roger:
The "evolving DQ" of RMP is clarified as a characteristic of a pattern,
not of
experience, but the experience is richer, and of higher quality. A
side
benefit of this methodology is that it doesn't run into the problems
with
differentiating DQ from pure chaos. Freedom, which Pirsig attaches
incorrectly
to experience, is also clarified. Freedom is not a property of
experience, it
is a property of a pattern of experiences. Freedom is not a direct
experience,
it is the freedom of experience. Patterns are evolving toward higher
complexity and higher degrees of freedom. Experience is evolving
toward
richer, higher value. Everything is evolving to higher quality.
The benefits of this revised model are clarity, simplicity and the
elimination
of some minor MOQ platypi.
Glove: Once the subject object distinction is dropped, evolution becomes a
collection of static patterns of value, like fish swimming in a sea of
Dynamic Quality possibilities-potentialities, always interacting at a 90
degreeness to each other when unleashed, undefinable Dynamic Quality is
manifested through value forces. Everything is not evolving towards "higher"
Quality, for that requires a static reference point of Quality in the first
place. Rather, it is simply that everything we experience seems to be
evolving towards Quality because Quality is what everything is. Our
insistence on hierarchies only perpetuates the notion of "higher" and
"lower". As a great master once murmured, when passing from this existence-
It is just this, and nothing more.
Roger:
Please seriously consider RMP's request to extend the MOQ. Let's free
ourselves from static patterns and explore higher quality patterns. I
am
challenging us all to evaluate what is good within this revised model.
After
we examine it, we can easily begin tearing it apart. At the worst, the
exercise will help us better understand the strengths of the current
model.
Glove:
Comfort levels dictate that we statically latch onto that which is familiar.
It takes an act of insanity to break the cultural boundaries that enslave us
all, perhaps like living a hundred days in the deep mountains, eating
nothing but pine needles pounded to a pulp, until your skin turns green;
being tormented by demons and angels alike, until the self becomes just
this. Just what it always has been, and will always be. Is there anyone who
would undertake such an act of insanity willingly? I think not. Just as no
one would willingly endure the hardships that Pirsig endured during his
encounters with the mental health "authorities". Yet there is something
which demands that we follow the path laid out for us, so to speak. When you
get right down to it, there really is no free will. We will be what we will
be. Forces of value, creation and destruction, dictate what will be, and not
static patterns of value, which are ever changing and shifting into some
"thing" else.
Yet to free ourselves of static patterns is impossible, for we are static
patterns, and how can one ever be free of self? Only by recognizing the face
of Dynamic Quality, and that is value forces, can we hope to gain a foothold
on the other 99% of the Metaphysics of Quality waiting to be discovered.
No Roger, value forces are not just an ugly add on or a sloppy idea, no, not
at all! They are complementary in nature to static patterns of value, but in
fact are of higher value, and therefore I think forces of value tend to
scare the dickens out of most of us. It's much more comfortable to be sure
and determined, is it not?
Best wishes,
Glove
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