Glove Horse Roger Walter and all the lurkers who should be posting...
I've deleted Roger's comments just for the sake of read-ability etc,.
Sorry I haven't had a chance to respond to Horse's thoughts yet and
Walter's very recent post was great too. This feels like a real
conversation. It's beautiful!
> -----Original Message-----
> From: glove [SMTP:glove@indianvalley.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 1999 10:47 AM
> To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> Subject: MD The 99% Solution?
>
> Hello everyone
>
> Thank you for the welcome back Roger, and thanks for drawing me back
> with
> your 99% solution post. From your reply to my reply, I see we are very
> close
> in our thinking, but perhaps we are approaching the problem from
> different
> angles. Therefore please allow me to go back to your original post
> once
> again and attempt to identify those differences as I see them.
>
> It seems to me that Dynamic Quality is an ambiguous term that can be
> used
> in many correct ways. In his SODV paper, Pirsig uses Dynamic Quality
> to
> designate the "outside" of Niels Bohr's unambiguously communicated
> observations, as depicted in the diagram Pirsig drew, with the dotted
> circle
> surrounding the entire observation, the outside of which represented
> the
> "unmeasured phenomenal object". I believe the key word here is
> "ambiguous".
> The Quality Event is not an ambiguous event, but rather it is a
> static,
> unambiguous communication. The Quality Event may be derived from
> Dynamic
> Quality but it is no longer ambiguous Dynamic Quality. Unambiguous
> agreements have "changed" it into a concept.
>
[David Buchanan] The reality Pirsig calls Dynamic Quality is
ultimately a mystery. I guess you could say that the term is ambiguous
in that sense, but I think its a mistake to confuse it with Bohr's
problem.
I think your explaination of the quality event is a confusion of
cosmology and epistemology. As Walter put it, "Now I see more clearly
than ever that my struggle with DQ is mainly based on the difference in
these two perspectives", which he calls the "universal" and the "human"
perspectives.
Neils Bohr's philosophy, Complimentarity, did include the idea
of two unambiguously communicated sets of data in the physics experiment
as an attempt to solve a paradox that the SOM perspective couldn't
crack. Pirsig includes this in his paper only to show us how the MOQ can
solve the paradox better than SOM or even Bohr's Complimentarity. These
are epistemolgical issues. How can I know that what I see is real? How
are my thoughts and senses connected to the things I perceive? Are they
really as I see them? If a tree falls...? These are the issues raised in
the wave/particle paradox.
Now the actual formation of said particles and waves, the
"physical" manifestation of those realities (INORG PATTERNS) is a
cosmological problem.
When the physicists look at atoms very closely, they see that
they exists in a state of potential reality. You could say that the
particles and waves form out of an unpatterned potentiality. Particles
and waves emerge out of the Undifferentiated aesthetic continuum, which
can also be called the unpatterned quality continuum or simply DQ. They
exists in a state that allows them to "snap" into existence as either a
particle or a wave, where previously they were neither. That is how a
Quality Event occurs on the inorganic level. No intellect need observe
this kind of Qualitry Event for it to occur. But you could say the
inorganic patterns sort of recognize reality on their own "subjective"
level. The idea that the quality event always inplies some kind of
awareness is preserved when you think of atoms and snowflakes this way.
They sense Quality too and decide exactly how they are going to "be"
based on it. The simple structures only have so many choices as to how
they're going to be. They have limited freedom. As complexity increases
in the static patterns, they have more freedom, more choices about how
they are going to "be". These basic inorganic structures show us how the
whole universe takes shape and evolves. A trillion, billion, gazillion
Quality Events later and you've got yourself a whole universe with stars
and galaxies and primordial goo on at least one of the countless worlds.
Now that's cosmology!
> I don't see Pirsig's usage of Dynamic Quality in the same light that
> you
> describe here, as per my paragraph above, although the ambiguous
> nature of
> Dynamic Quality would seem to say to me that we are perhaps both right
> and
> both wrong at the same time. The Quality Event is the "measured
> phenomenal
> object" lying inside the dotted circle of Pirsig's diagram, while
> Dynamic
> Quality could be said to be the "unmeasured phenomenal object" lying
> outside
> the dotted circle. However, it must also be recognized that Dynamic
> Quality
> also lies within the circle as well. It is simply our unambiguously
> held
> agreements that cause us to ignore it altogether, and shove it, so to
> speak,
> completely out of the picture so that no ambiguity remains in our
> minds.
>
> Dynamic Quality is not a concept, for concepts are unambiguous
> agreements.
> Dynamic Quality is ambiguous in that as soon as we form an agreement
> as to
> what "it" is, "it" is no longer that which we have named it as. The
> Quality
> Event, on the other hand, is a concept, created by unambiguous
> agreement
> between us and the environment we find ourself in.
>
[David Buchanan] I almost agree with your claim that "The
Quality Event is the measured phenomenal object...". But I think its
more accurate to say the Quality Event creates the phenomeanl object.
Quality Events create all static patterns, at all the levels, all the
time. There's a big sale 'cause we're over-stocked. But the rest of
what you say here mixes the cosmological and epistemological issues.
Maybe you'll comb thru it again and see what I mean.
>
> Take a cup for example. A
> cup is simply a cup. The Quality Event of cup is completely
> unambiguous,
> whereas what lies outside of cup is ambiguously, phenomenally unknown
> until
> we agree that cup is here or there, that it holds this or that. That
> is the
> Dynamic potential of cup. Cup itself remains unambiguously cup, though
> cup
> has the ambiguous potential to hold tea, coffee, water, or to be in my
> hand,
> on the table, in the cupboard. Yet no matter what it is holding or
> where it
> is, cup is always just cup.
>
[David Buchanan] I really can't respond to the Cup stuff. I
don't get it?
>
> From my ponderings on this, it is my opinion that Dynamic Quality
> cannot be
> said to evolve. It is the static quality patterns of value making up
> our
> reality that evolve towards Dynamic Quality, perhaps, but our concept
> of
> evolution is a static quality pattern of value in itself, as all
> concepts
> are. It may well be that Dynamic Quality evolves as well, or it may be
> that
> "it" doesn't, but there is no way we can ever say either way with
> unambiguous certainty, for Dynamic Quality is ambiguous. It seems to
> me that
> that is why we all "know" what Quality is, yet no one can define it.
>
[David Buchanan] You backed off from a good point here. I think
you're mostly correct in saying "It is the static patterns...that evolve
towards DQ". I guess I'd prefer to say that the static patterns are
evolving toward greater freedom. DQ drives the whole thing thru a
infinite series of Quality Events which create the patterns we think of
as the phenomenal universe, the world of things. But all the static
patterns are just a kind of crystalized memory of what has been
discovered to have Quality. The evolution of the universe is DQ filling
itself with the static awareness of the Good. Static patterns keep what
has value, but the whole thing is dancing and playing in an infinite
ocean of DQ.
And it probably goes without saying, but I will anyway. The
Quality Event that creates the static patterns is certainly not confined
to the inorganic level. Quality Events drive the evolution of life too.
QEs created and continue to drive the evolution of social and
intellectual patterns too. All these levels continue to evolve
simultaneously. The universe is still expanding. New forms of life will
emerge in time. (Is the SOM killing so many species or could it be DQ?)
History demonstrates an evolution is Western societies and I'm
sure wolves and dolphins express some variety and change in their social
structures too. And we all agree the intellectual level is evolving
toward greater freedom too. We can sense the changes in the top two
levels on a personal level. We can relate to their evolution because of
our own growth from children to adults. I can remember how I used to see
things and look back and know that I've aquired higher quality
intellectual patterns. When I was a kid all dogs were boys, all cats
were girls and clouds were made of mashed potatoes. And on the social
level, I no longer scratch, bite or pull hair. Although I do tease my
wife a little.
David B.
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