Hi Risky and David,
This is one of the best threads I've seen in a long time. Thanks! My
first thought on reading this post was, "Ah, now we're getting
somewhere." My next thought was, "What if there's no such thing as
Dynamic Quality?"
Pirsig seems to follow a strict Darwinian evolutionary model in the
creation of the levels. Imagine for a moment that the levels are
species and Quality is the recognition of fitness or rightness of
purpose. If you look at it that way, there doesn't have to be a force
for change or a striving for Good. There just has to be environmental
pressure - an existence of a need or a vacancy required to achieve
stability, and when stability is achieved it is Good. Carried further,
this implies to me that if the need is not met then the currently
existing evolutionary system becomes unstable and will "naturally" fall
back to its previous most stable state.
Well, actually that's not true. Since evolution will have proceeded
apace up to the point of the instability the previous stable state no
longer exists. So, in an evolutionary system the collapse will always
result in some new pattern that never existed before. This departs
somewhat from what RMP said, but I don't think it departs from what
actually happens in his system.
The beauty of RMP's system is that it encompasses not only biological
evolution but social, inorganic, and intellectual evolution as well. He
has taken Darwin's theory and run with it. In his example of the
Victorians, he shows how SOM Logic evolved to value its own existence
and discussed the destabilizing force of the Hippies. But after the
Hippies, we didn't fall back all the way to Victorianism (the previously
most stable state) because the environment had changed too much.
Instead, we fell back to something partly Victorian and partly
Intellectual - a new stable state that had never existed before.
I'm not sure that I should be jumping in in the middle of your
conversation, but...
> > [David Buchanan]:
> > To say DQ is "the source of all things" is a cosmological claim. To
> > say
> > DQ is the "primary empirical reality" or "direct experience" is an
> > epistemological position. To say DQ is "that which all is evoloving
> > toward" is an ontological description. Together, these three
> > definitions
> > constitute a total metaphysical description of DQ.....
> > DQ is the creator of all experience, the
> > primary empirical reality and the goal of nature's evolution.
Mary:
I think these 3 divisions of metaphysics are SOM divisions reflecting
the SOM world-view that nature, thought, and being are separate
realities, and because of that, it's going to be really tough to define
DQ in those terms.
Roger:
> > I would agree that the nature of the universe, thought and being can
> > be
> > explained by the Experience definition. But the "evolving to"
> > definition
> > doesn't fit within my understanding of either term...Experience or
> > Ontology.
Mary:
As you can tell from my intro to this post, I'm having trouble with the
Evolving Toward element of DQ too. This causes me to think of DQ as
deterministic; implying that the 'source of all things' is
deterministic. Or, put another way, that 'primary empirical reality' or
'direct experience' is being pre-determined for us. Is this what RMP
meant? If so, then I can't help thinking of DQ as being an Objective
Truth. But then RMP also says there are no objective truths, so I end
up going around in a circle.
> [David Buchanan] defined the branches of metaphysics...
Mary:
Thanks David. These definitions are very helpful and I am going to save
them for future use.
Roger:
> > You know what I sometimes suspect Pirsig has done? That he has
> > accidentally grouped anything which is uncertain, free, new , or
> > undefined into DQ. DQ might be all of these, but does it follow that
> > everything that is one of these is DQ?
> >
> [David Buchanan] Seems like you're accusing Pirsig of being
> sloppy of lazy, but I really don't think so.
Mary:
In a post last night, I mentioned thinking that Pirsig probably deduced
DQ from his observations of the levels - and if you follow his various
definitions of it then that must be so. He recognized that he was
experiencing 'something' which he couldn't define, categorize, explain,
or point to, and named it Dynamic Quality. No, Pirsig was not sloppy or
lazy - just self-admittedly out of his depth.
>
> > [David Buchanan]:
> > Static quality is left in the wake of Dynamic experience.
> >
> > (ROGER):
> > Does this mean it is made of DQ, or from DQ? Or is it different?
> >
> [David Buchanan] It is all made of Quality, every last bit of
> it. The part we can define and know is static, by definition. Think of
> all the water in the world as Quality. We'll say all the liquid water is
> DQ and we'll say snow, hail, freshwater ice and saltwater ice are the
> four levels of static patterns. In that case, it hardly makes sense to
> ask what anything is made of. The answer is always simply, "water". Same
> with asking if SQ is made of DQ. They're just different states of the
> same thing; Quality.
>
> > (David):
> > DQ creates and discovers what is good, what is of value, what is moral
> > and
> > sort of locks it in.
Mary:
Again, this makes me think of DQ as an absolute truth, making judgments
about what is Good. But if what is Good is what has rightness or
fitness for purpose then there's no need for judgment. DQ's judgment of
what is Good will be that thing's own continued existence. That which
is not good - is wrongness, is unfit for purpose, or destabilizing will
not last. DQ doesn't have to create and discover what is Good, because
what is Good will be always a stabilizing enhancement based on the
environment as it is at the moment - where 'environment' is defined in
Pirsig's larger context of inorganic, bio, social, and intellectual.
> >
> > (Roger):
> > How does it create and discover? How does it lock in?
> >
> [David Buchanan] QEs create and evolve static patterns in a
> constant and infinite stream that moves in all directions. How? By
> value-ing awareness of Quality and "choosing" it. (this is where
> causality used to be) The words value, quality and morality all imply
> some kind of awareness. Pirsig chose those words for lots of reasons,
> but it's a mistake to be too picky about it. Where he says "patterns of
> value" another could say "bundles of information" or "systems of
> rightness" and mean the same thing. Pirsig's words carry connotations
> that he intends to imply, but that shouldn't distract us from realizing
> the general idea in his scheme. The universe is growing more conscious
> and static patterns retain what has been learned so far.
Mary:
As far as I am 'aware' ;), only biologically based entities have evolved
awareness. The Universe as a whole, being an inorganic entity has no
awareness of itself. It is only capable of latching static patterns of
inorganic molecules into formations that promote stability. If the
Universe were not striving toward a stable state (though often failing)
we would not exist. I think Pirsig's own definitions of the levels
implies this too. You know, the part where he explains that each level
cannot comprehend the values of successive ones. The inorganic level
being unable to recognize the values of the biological, etc.
>
> > (DAVID):
> > Static patterns of Quality preserve what DQ has created
> > through awareness. The quality event manifests itself as a static
> > pattern as way for reality to latch on to the Good it has found in
> > itself.
Mary:
To me, the Quality Event at the inorganic and biological levels is that
moment when, by sheer bumbling around in the dark, something that works
randomly occurs, is found to have fitness for some purpose, supports the
stability of the larger idea of the environment as it currently exists,
and does not violate the fundamental laws of physics. When those
criteria are met we encounter rightness or Good. Is awareness required
in this process? At the inorganic level no because awareness is not a
value at that level - awareness doesn't exist. Awareness didn't come
into being until somewhere along the continuum of the biological level.
But at the levels where awareness surely exists (social and
intellectual) then yes, awareness is required. The levels that value
awareness and use it as a tool will be picking and choosing among
possibilities and valuing what they judge to be Good.
Now there's been a lot of discussion in the past about how inorganic
matter/energy can have awareness. Perhaps we need to define what
awareness is? My understanding is that awareness requires detection
(aka experience) - some kind of sensory acknowledgement of an event. But
awareness requires even more than that. To detect something is not
awareness until that detection is delivered to something that
acknowledges it, makes a judgement about it, or reacts based on the
detection. And it doesn't require a fully developed brain as a
receptor. Single-celled organisms are aware and react to their
environment effectively without one single brain cell. Contrast this
with the hot stove example. Does the stove know it's hot?
David:
> > Somehow rocks must "feel" their weight and the stars "know" they're hot.
> > Thirst and hunger are obviously biological awareness and must be pretty
> > fundamental to all organic patterns. Peer pressure, moral outrage and
> > the pride that comes from duty are all examples of social level
> > awareness. And the intellectual level is the easiest to grasp as we are
> > operating on that level presently.
It's interesting that we are composed of all the levels, and thus should
have an affinity for understanding them, yet you were unable to explain,
in the excerpt above to Roger, how awareness is manifested in inorganic
matter. Well, I can't do it either and I don't think anyone can -
because it's not there. Matter doesn't need it because matter can be
neither created nor destroyed, it just is. Awareness evolved in the
biological level and above because everything above the level of pure
matter or energy can be destroyed. Awareness is a necessity in that
situation.
> > (ROGER WROTE):
> > 3) There are four distinct categories of static quality. Each level
> > emerges
> > from its underlying level. Each level has more freedom and higher
> > dynamic quality than that from which it emerges.
Mary:
To me, Pirsig's big breakthrough is in defining the levels and spelling
out the rules for their interactions. He has given us a set of rules
that parallel those found previously only in the inorganic level. What
a relief! We now have a way of determining the 'rightness' of something
based on an elegant abstraction. Each level evolves away from its
predecessors, achieving greater and greater degrees of abstraction and
complexity - and complexity is to be valued because it's more stable -
more redundant. Is it easier to completely destroy a tree to the point
that it will never regrow or a single-celled organism? Is it easier to
kill an idea that encompasses many needs or an idea that encompasses
only one?
> > Thanks for the continuing discussion,
> >
> > Roger
> >
> [David Buchanan] THANK YOU !!
Mary: THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
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