ROGER REPLIES TO BO AND RICH ON STATIC PATTERNS
BEING INTELLECTUAL CONSTRUCTS THAT ARE MODELS
OF THE TRUE AESTHETIC CONTINUUM AND ENDS WITH
A POST SCRIPT TO JOHN AND RICHARD ON EXPERIENCE
AS QUALITY
To Bo and Rich and Company:
Bo wrote:
How Intellect connects to DQ? IMHO in the same way as all the static
levels connect. Forget about thinking as something special ...all
right it is special in the same way that life is special compared to
the Inorganic, but not as a spiritual exercise.
Roger:
I think the SOM world of distinct things and patterns is derived from DQ as a
product of thinking. This means that thinking is the bridge from the one true
Dynamic universe to the static world of levels and maps. We are so used to
mentally manipulating this world of maps that we forget it is a model. Or as
Pirsig states.... "The world has no existence whatsoever outside the human
imagination."
Rich wrote:
What, then is mind? I think here of the zen Mind, or Experience, which is
Dynamic, which is Quality itself - undefinable, beyond distinctions... is
this what you have "in mind"?
Roger:
No, sorry for the confusion. I was refering to SOM mind, when I wrote:
"This, of course, does not mean that all is contained in mind. The
intellect is not the same as mind, and the mind is half the duality
itself, not the vessel that holds it."
Rich then goes on to agree that thinking is a form of experience that creates
thoughts but then offers:
Rich Quote;
<<<<<
Yes, thoughts are derived from DQ, but what about the concept of thoughts
ONLY being possible through the framework of cultural language, and a brain
and nervous system, and a physical planet on which to think? One can use the
analogy of "jumping energy levels" at each Quality event. That is,
every"thing", every Event must occur, and be experienced, in the following
order; let's use the Experience of the Act of reading Lila, and take two
chronological perspectives: that of Cosmological Evolution, and that of
Immediate Experience.
1) Cosmological Evolution.
The book, like everything, by definition is a creation of Dynamic Quality.
However, that creation follows an order.
The existence of that book on your desk does NOT follow this order of
creation: a-DQ, b-intellectual patterns of value(interpretation) b1-Roger,
b2-book
It follows this order: a-DQ, b-inorganic pov's (physical universe),
c-biological pov's (life on earth, homo sapiens), c-social pov's (life on
earth, culture), d-intellectual pov's (printing press, metaphysics),>>>>
Roger:
The world you describe is an accurate metaphysical description of reality,
with Inorganic building to biological,etc. However, metaphysical reality is
not the true reality of DQ. It is a mental recreation and a map of reality.
I agree the map of reality, which is a very high quality map, is derived
exactly as you state. But because the map is an intellectual one, it requires
the intellect to exist before the map can exist.
Again, in Pirsig's words:
<<<<In the MOQ, experience is pure Quality which
gives rise to the creation of intellectual patterns which
in turn produce a division between subjects and objects.
Among these patterns is the intellectual pattern that says
"there is an external world of things out there which are
independent of intellectual patterns".
That is one of the highest quality intellectual patterns
there is. And in this highest quality intellectual
pattern, external objects appear historically before
intellectual patterns...
But this highest quality intellectual pattern itself comes
before the external world, not after, as is commonly
presumed by the materialists. If the law of gravity
preceded the concept of the law of gravity, by, say, 3.5
billion years, then what happens to that 3.5 billion year
old entity, when someone like Einstein changes the law of
gravity? Does that mean that what happened 3.5 billion
years ago has to change retroactively? Thats amazing how
Einstein can change something that existed 3.5 billion
years before he was born. Even the fake Hindu swamis don't
claim to have that power.>>>>
I think that the metaphysical world you describe matches the high quality
intellectual construct that RMP mentions. Being an intellectual pattern means
that intellect precedes the patterns that are later used to justify the
emergence of itself. In other words, DQ includes the high quality experience
(labeled thinking) that creates the world of conceptual maps called sq.
DQ is the uninterupted aesthetic continuum from which thinking creates
discrete levels and patterns. Thinking is special in that it is the bridge
between experience and static quality. The world of sq is very accurate and
of high quality, but it is a pale specter compared to the brilliant aesthetic
continuum from which the patterns emerge.
Do I make any sense at all?
Roger
PS -- John, I never got around to responding to your latest post, but I think
I can summarize our differences succinctly .... I do equate experience with
Quality, and am convinced that Pirsig does too (for example see the first
line in the above RMP quote.) Regardless of which path is "true", the act of
choosing the path certainly leads to completely different views on reality.
Thanks for the great dialogue!
PPS -- Richard, you ask if equating Quality to experience implies a pre
existing subject which experiences. This is an excellent question. In my
post on March 22 in the MD Archive, I explain in depth why this is not so.
(For some reason I can't cut any quotes from it, so I will instead just refer
you to it.) But, here is another quote from RMP that clarifies the issue (it
is actually the lead-in to the above quote.)
<<<<The sentence "There are no things in
themselves outside experience" is true but the MOQ sees
experience differently from subject-object metaphysics.
Experience in a SOM is an action of the object upon the
subject. In the MOQ, experience is pure Quality which
gives rise to the creation of intellectual patterns which
in turn produce a division between subjects and objects.>>>>
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