ROGER GATHERS SOME RELATED THEMES
FROM RICH, KEV AND GLOVE AND TRIES TO
ARGUE THAT PIRSIG DISCRIMINATES AGAINST sq
Allow some cut and paste from recent posts by Glove and Rich.....
RICH:
<< And we all seem to speak as if this is the only 'real'
'reality'. But - Pirsig makes very clear that Quality is not
exclusively Dynamic or static. Both moral situations are necessary
for the continued manifestation of Quality. If DQ cannot exist
without static pov's, then are the spov's not JUST as real?>>
ROGER:
I would say yes. There is direct experience and patterns derived from
experience. Quality requires both. Sometimes I think Pirsig's own static
Romantic/Classic splits keep him from seeing this himself. DQ gets a
capitalized God-like treatment, and sq is relegated to lower-case graveyards.
RICH:
<>
ROGER:
To further complicate it, time is another static abstraction from experience.
RICH:
<<If DQ is that driving, preconceptual, evolutionary force of
BETTERNESS, I am then led to understand that the closer to the
Quality Event, the better... But is not ALL of reality a "continuous
stream of QE's?>>
ROGER
I don't think it is proper to conceptualize DQ at all except as something to
"reference". Betterness is an abstract label of the interplay between
experience and patterns. Via static latching and complexity, direct
experience is evolving toward higher quality.
KEV:
>>In short, all minds are made up of matter (a brain is atoms)
and all matter is made of mind (an atom is its own brain)>>.
RICH REPLIED:
<<No - I think this is perhaps missed, or I don't fully get it:
The way I understand it is: Intellectual value does not exist, CAN NOT exist
without social
patterns of value. This is perfectly logical.>>
ROGER:
I don't mean to be rude, but Kevin's definition seems kind of convoluted and
confusing......sorry!!! Pirsig explained this issue so simply that I think
we should remember his analogy of the computer. The program is contained in
the hard drive, and the blue print for the hard drive is contained in the
program. This is not contradictory at all. In the same sense, matter is
simply an intellectual abstraction, and mind is something composed of matter.
Mind contains matter, matter contains mind. Let's not complicate this
elegant Pirsigianism. I also agree that intellect is socially
derived.......in fact psychologists are finally coming to this conclusion and
finding that mental studies in isolation from a creature's society is not
scientifically valid.
GLOVE QUOTED PIRSIG:
>>In the second paragraph of his March 1997 paper
"Quality", Ant wrote the following:
"Fundamentally Pirsig's term (Quality) is a mystic one, and
refers to the undifferentiated, indeterminate, reality from
which the universe has evolved (or grown) from."
On March 29th 1997 Pirsig wrote to Anthony with the
following comment about the above statement:
"Although this is true at a Buddha's level of understanding
it would be confusing and illogical in the world of
everyday affairs to say that the world is evolving both
from and toward the same thing. I have had some reader
mail that has pointed out that at one place I seem to imply
that Quality and chaos are the same and at another that
they are different, so I haven't been clear on this myself
and have left an opening to attack. To close it up, let us
say that the universe is evolving from a condition of low
quality (quantum forces only, no atoms, pre-big bang)
toward a higher one (birds trees societies and thoughts)
and that in a static sense (world of everyday affairs)
these two are not the same." (from Ant's LS email - in nothingness there is
a great working)>>
GLOVE THEN ADDED:
>>This correspondence seems to suggest there are two points of view that
Pirsig uses and that these views are not the same, by which I take to mean
they cannot be used simultaneously. Since this letter was written after
Lila, it suggests to me that Pirsig's thoughts have evolved more fully and
that he is attempting to resolve some of the ambiguities in Lila by putting
concepts of the framework of complementarity into action.>>
ROGER:
I see him stating that in a predefinition mystical way the world comes and
goes to DQ. But then in a metaphysical definition this is too vague and
contradictory. Pure Experience is evolving toward higher quality. The higher
quality is a static term (as are all terms).. It includes those experiences
that we call trees societies and thoughts. These are higher level patterns
derived from higher quality experience.
GLOVE:
<<
Dynamic Quality is not just change. It is more like change for the "better",
although that's not quite right either. Often times I have found that it is
the seemingly inconsequential, unlooked for irrelevancies that signal
something Dynamic, although that Dynamic something itself is never apparent
except in retrospection. Dynamic Quality is undefined, unbounded "something"
but it is also what makes one leap off a hot stove at a 90 degree angle.>>
ROGER:
I agree with your self edit that it is not necessarily for the better.
However, the QE interaction/creation of sq from DQ is evolving toward greater
dynamic complexity and freedom. Both are needed, and as such perhaps we
should elevate sq to SQ status.
Be Good,
Rog
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