ROGER FINDS A CONTRADICTORY PASSAGE TO
THE STATEMENT THAT ONLY LIVING BEINGS
RESPOND TO DQ
Lilacs,
The concern Mary and Rich and I have with the line that only living beings
can react to DQ is specifically encapsulated with the following quote.
>“Societies and thoughts and principles themselves are no more that sets
>of static patterns. These patterns can't by themselves perceive or adjust
>to Dynamic Quality. Only a living being can do that.” (Lila, Chp. 13)
This sentence seemed to make no sense to me because it implies that DQ and sq
are not metaphysical explanations of reality that can explain the emergence
of life out of non life. This statement seems to undermine the entire
explanation of the nature of reality as explained by the MOQ. It also implies
that DQ is some type of animistic life force. Mary has suggested that Pirsig
is only referencing societies and thoughts, but the group consensus has not
agreed with her yet.
I thought I had seen contradictory statements, and I finally found them. They
are on pages 167 to 171 regarding subatomic forces and carbon atoms. Below
are just a few of the key contradictions.
"...weak Dynamic forces at a subatomic level discover strategems for
overcoming huge static inorganic forces at a superatomic level. They do this
by selecting superatomic mechanisms in which a number of options are so
evenly balanced that a weak Dynamic force can tip the balance one way or
another."
" This ambiguity of carbon's bonding preferences was the situation the weak
Dynamic subatomic forces needed....... It was a vehicle they could steer to
all sorts of freedom by selecting......"
Read the entire passage, there are numerous other potential contradictions.
PATTERNS DO ADJUST TO DQ, AND NOT JUST LIVING PATTERNS.
This seems to me to negate Pirsig's first quote, and in my opinion, saves the
entire MOQ from a contradiction. It also puts more credence in Mary's
hypothesis. However, I need to get Glove and Platt's input to see if they
agree with my interpretation. It does seem to negate the below quote from
Platt's most recent post.
Platt:
>Just as a living-being observer in quantum mechanics is necessary to
>collapse the elusive quantum and create reality, so a living-being
>perceiver in the MoQ is necessary to respond to DQ and change the path
>of evolution.
I am now going back to my very first interpretation on this original Pirsig
quote. I think that in general his statement is correct because it is
usually living beings that are able to respond to DQ, but that in actuality
(using chaos terms) other systems in non equilibrium can adjust as well.
But I could be wrong,
Roger
PS -- Ken, the classical universe of subjects and objects and big bangs and
gravity and trees and dishwashers IS THE CONCEPTUAL MODEL. It was formed out
of the mythos. Don't get me wrong, something is out there, and our models are
extremely accurate at dealing with IT. But what is really "out there" is
mysterious and by definition, undefinable. But again, ICBW
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