Hi Horse, Roger (and others),
The subject Roger started was so close to what I was already working on for our DQ-thread,
that I thought it was better to respond to the whole group (I hope you don't mind). This is my
first post since more than 2 months, but I am reading the posts for a few weeks already and I
want you to know that I liked them very much.
I totally agree with Roger for starting the '99 Percent Solution?'-discussion. There are many
posts I wanted to respond to in this thread, but I can't reconcile them all with the piece I was
already working on. Therefore I didn't cut and paste your posts, but be sure this is a respons to them!
Horse, Roger:
It has been a while that I thought about our DQ-discussion. In fact Horses last post kind of
woke me up bringing me to work on it again. I still had a piece I wrote before which I couldn't
get to fit in, but before doing that I wanted to review our discussion so far. I studied most of the
posts we have written on the topic and to my shame I had to acknowlegde that it was mostly my
own st*** fault that I got so confused in our discussion.
The confusion for me began when I tried to link DQ and the beginning and expansion of the universe.
I wrote:
> This way I make an extra step in the understanding of DQ as a really working entity,
> as for many thoughts and ideas about DQ until now and in the squad have been at
> a conceptual level
> Don't get me wrong, at a conceptual level it works fine for me. I feel the division of Q in
> DQ and SQ comprises a lot of things I couldn't fit in before and there's still a lot to find
> out about this. But, do we have to leave it conceptual? Is there any chance we can link
> DQ to the forming of more complex patterns or do we have to leave it by saying that DQ
> was somehow 'at work' in the Quality event?
I now realize that the step I was trying to make is very big and pretentious. This is trying to
harmonize DQ with a mechanistic ontologic metaphysical view and so trying to really 'find' DQ.
It's like someone who is living in the time before Newton, is becoming aware of gravity as a
concept and even as something that is part of reality. After this he can try to find the explanation
of the very existence of it.
Don't get me wrong. It's not that I see DQ as a law of nature. DQ is the non-static, the 'conceptually
unknown', so even if DQ would be a law of nature, because of the essence of DQ it wouldn't be
DQ anymore. This 'the conceptually unknown'-DQ is only to discuss as a concept.
Horse wrote about this:
>HORSE:
>I might be wrong but I think that conceptual is as far as we can go. This isn't to say
>that conceptual has less value than being concrete, I just think that the nature of DQ
>will dictate this.
Still, in the next quote Horse talks about a more concrete angle to DQ:
Horse wrote:
> ...why do simple systems evolve into complex systems? There
> is no reason why this should occur and yet the evidence in
> support of these phenomena is available in abundance? DQ seems to have
> an awful lot to do with interaction and connectedness which are the
> foundations of complexity.
This is exactly why I feel there's something missing. WHAT is it that makes simple systems
evolve into complex systems, guys? There's coincidence/chance involved and interaction and
connectedness too, but these aren't the very reason for the direction we see towards more
complex patterns.
What is it!!??
I'm glad you're not here in Amsterdam to kick my ..., but the other reason I got confused was
also mainly my own fault. I wrote in one of my first posts that I wanted to start discussing DQ
from the general (universal) perspective, leaving the role of (sentience or) the human perspective
out of it. Yet, next I went on discussing DQ from this perspective anyway, leaning on my own
experience of DQ. Now I see more clearly than ever that my struggle with DQ is mainly based
on the difference in these two perspectives:
- exploring DQ from the more conceptual (universal) perspective.
- exploring DQ from the human-perspective (using empirical data from my own experience /
awareness of DQ)
In Lila we read that Pirsig does mix these two perspectives too. Mostly Pirsig explains DQ in a
conceptual way: as the conceptual unknown, as the anti-static, as the cause of static patterns
to brake down and the cause of the forming of new static patterns.
But Pirsig gives strenght to explaining the existence of DQ by giving examples of practical
situations in which people are confronted with DQ. Than he's talking about experiencing DQ.
Remember Pirsig's example of the great song you heard on the radio and you just had to buy
it on record, but after you had the record and played the song over and over again, the
DQ-experience diminished?
Humans can sense, feel, or intuit DQ, but how does this DQ relate to the (conceptual)
universal DQ, that works in the forming of static patterns?
Horse wrote:
> I think that there are many aspects to DQ, dependent on how you consider it and in what sense.
> Maybe that is why I came up with my idea about splitting DQ into different types.
I think Horse is right, but I also think that if we agree on the existence of more aspects of DQ, we
should try to find out what they are and explore them. That's why I liked the splitting up of DQ in
Formative and Conceptual so much, because it tries to do just that.
The types mentioned are Formative DQ and Contributive DQ, representing the Universal perspective
of DQ and the Human perspective of DQ (experience).
I think the distinction between these two is the dependence on the Static PoV's.
Formative DQ is INdependent of SPoV's. As soon as it is dependent of the SPoV it is no longer DQ.
Like Pirsig says: "Dynamic Quality is not structured, nor chaotic. It's a value that can be implied in/
couched in static patterns".
Contributive DQ is dependent of the SPoV. It is the outcome of the proces of the subject's
awareness of SPoV's. It is you standing in front of Picasso's Guernica.
The process of Formative DQ being the source of all, is reversed in the human experience of DQ
(Contributive DQ).
Formative DQ : QD evitamroF.
Gd grtngs y'all,
Walter
MOQ Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:54 BST