From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Jan 21 2005 - 12:23:44 GMT
Hey Chuck,
I'm a little surprised anyone took up the "challenge," mostly because I
expressed my feeling that they were impossible questions. And the questions
certainly should've felt redundant, as they were all after the same point.
All of the removed questions gradually spiral into the first, root question,
“How do we know when we are Dynamic?” The gist is that as long as the
answers use a certain conceptual form, the skeptic’s questions are
pertinent. Given that I think the questions impossible to answer, you can
assume that I'll ask another round of skeptical questions. So, what I need
to know is why you don't think the skeptic in need of an answer. I don't
think saying, as Paul more or less answered, "He's an idiot. Let him ask
the questions," suffices because you can't do that during a conversation
without looking like a fool yourself. I think the only way to shake the
skeptic is to change your language enough, your vocabulary, your
metaphysics, etc., to not allow the skeptic a foothold. You have to get rid
of the conceptual machinery that allows the problematic.
An instance of the problem, Paul said that we have absolute certainty in
Dynamic Quality (or from DQ). Paul has also held the line that the
difference between static patterns and Dynamic Quality is simply a
description between two different kinds of experience. Question: is
absolute certainty better than less-than-absolute-certainty? Then why
doesn't that privilege in an awkward, skeptical question inducing manner?
Another instance, Dynamic Quality is often used to justify or explain the
betterness of a reply or innovation or whatever. Question: If a person has
privileged access to their Dynamic Quality experience (other people aren't
privy to it), then why can't a person ask, "How do you know what you just
experienced was Dynamic Quality?" And more importantly, how could a person
respond to such a question without detaching the idea of Dynamic Quality
from the parts of the justification or explanation doing the actual work?
I'll run through Chuck's reponses to expand on the above two points.
Matt said:
"How do you know capitalism is more Dynamic than communism?" (Jan 9)
Chuck said:
I don't. "Capitalism" and "communism" are conceptual systems. I don't know
that one is more Dynamic than the other intrinsically or in and of itself.
If you want to use specific examples, say present-day American Capitalism v.
present day Chinese Communism, if we agreed that those specific systems were
in fact examples of capitalism and communism, than I might give you an
answer backed-up with specific examples and points on fact. The theories
themselves, on paper, I suspect, they lack any Dynamic Quality. In other
words, such theoretical sytems are static until practiced, at which time
they acquire some Dynamic Quality, which, in turn would be constantly
fluctuating, I suspect.
Matt:
I was alluding to the section in Lila where Pirsig says that capitalism is
more Dynamic than communism. The reason I would ask this question is
because, as your answer brings up, the answer would be "backed-up with
specific examples and points of fact." I think the more specific you get to
actual cases and examples, the more extraneous any mention of Dynamic
Quality will become, turning into an ornament. Pirsig's answer in Lila is
basically a substitution of "Dynamic" for "free" from typical American
explanations of the preference for capitalism over communism. He thinks it
is an improvement, but I can’t really see how. You can substitute “free”
for “Dynamic” every time and still make just as much sense. In the context
of historico-sociological explanations, Dynamic Quality doesn't play a role
in the explanation. Freedom does all the work.
Matt said:
"How do we know when we are being Dynamic? How do we know when we are
following Dynamic Quality and not static patterns? How do we verify it?"
Chuck said:
We discussed "the sweet spot" some time ago around here. I prefer "being in
the zone," but I think both turns-of-phrase refer to pure Dynamic Quality,
being in absence of thinking. Have never had that experience? Do you know
to what phenomenon they refer? That's being Dynamic.
Matt:
This punches up the privileged access each individual has to Dynamic
Quality. So if a person has never had this experience (or more the case
from a Pirsigian standpoint, has never thought to call it DQ), and absolute
certainty, betterness hangs in the balance, how do you explain or justify
your own experience of Dynamic Quality? How do you get the person to accept
the certainty you feel for the betterness?
Also, why is "being in absence of thinking" better than "being in presence
of thinking"? How do you have Dynamic Quality experiences that leap off of
intellectual patterns if DQ is the absence of thought? How do you have
Dynamic thoughts, philosophical innovation, conceptual growth? How is the
MoQ a Dynamic growth over SOM if the Dynamicness is the absence of thought?
Matt said:
"If unmediated reality is better than mediated reality, then how do we know
when we are apprehending unmediated reality?"
Chuck said:
This is the same as the Dynamic Quality question. I think, though I'm not
sure, that Dynamic Quality is like pornography; I can't define it, but I
know it when I see it.
Matt:
Why should that be? How is it that you "see" a thought? Aren't we running
back into the dangerous Platonic/Cartesian idea of using visual metaphors to
describe the search for truth?
Matt said:
"How do you establish criteria for determining which is which, criteria that
will satisfy the skeptic?"
Chuck said:
I think one must determine this on a moment-by-moment basis. Phaedrus made
a list in ZMM of criteria for a quality writing as it pertains to the
English essay/paper though I don't have it in front of me at the moment.
Matt:
But what could these criteria be except static patterns? Again, the work
done in the determination of betterness is not done by Dynamic Quality.
Matt said:
"Why does Pirsig not need to answer the skeptic when the determination of
good and evil, better and worse, hinges on distinguishing between static
patterns and Dynamic Quality?"
Chuck said:
Because the determination of good and evil, better and worse does not hinge
on anyone's ability to distinguish between "static patterns" and "Dynamic
Quality."
…
Regardless, the determination of good and evil, better and worse, hinges on
choosing what is best at the moment and that is Dynamic Quality.
Matt:
Choosing what is best at the moment is Dynamic Quality? Don’t we always do
that, though? Who would choose what was worse? If “choosing what is best”
is DQ, then, again, DQ completely swings free from the determination of
better and worse.
And besides, I thought Dynamic Quality was betterness? Why would it swing
free from our determination of such things?
Matt said:
"How do you know a "simple, unambiguous and direct" [Dynamic] response is
better than a "complex, ambiguous and indirect" [static] one?"
Chuck said:
Are you serious? What's the point of communication, after all? Find the
answer within the question.
Maybe I missed the point of this one.
Matt:
The point is that “communication” is a statically patterned affair. Once we
move into static patterns, there’s no problem with establishing things like
the efficacy of “simple, unambiguous, and direct.” But, if DQ is undefined,
how do we know its “simple, unambiguous, and direct” except defining it that
way, as betterness, as simple, unambiguous, and direct?
Matt said:
"Can we look at a philosophical proposition and instantaneously know whether
it is good or not? Isn't this what Pirsig's implying, that the Dynamic
insight is the one immediately in front of you [knowledge by acquaintance]?"
Chuck said:
That depends on one's experience or baseline, specifically, background of
philosophy or exposure to such ways of thinking.
Matt:
One’s experience, or baseline, or background in philosophy, or exposure to
such ways of thinking are all different names for static patterns. Dynamic
Quality, i.e. kenntnis or “knowledge by acquaintance,” is different from
that. Are you saying that our acceptance of a proposition swings free from
Dynamic Quality?
Matt said:
"How do we know this immediate flash of insight is leading us aright and not
afoul?"
Chuck said:
If it is pure, it is aright. The trick is recognizing real insight or the
purely Dynamic and, again, that depends on one's experience.
Matt:
How do we know purity? That’s even fuzzier than “simple, unambiguous, and
direct.” If “real insight” or “the purely Dynamic” depends on our
experience, then you’re saying it depends on our static patterns. But how
could recognizing DQ depend on our static patterns? Wouldn’t that mean that
our “insights” would simply be endorsements of the static patterns? Isn’t
DQ supposed to be a rupture of static patterns? But if that’s the case, how
do we tell a good _rupture_ from a bad one, Dynamic from degenerate?
Matt said:
"How do you know the way you've 'described' Dynamic Quality is the right
way?"
Chuck said:
I don't.
Matt:
Then how can you be so incredulous at my questioning of “simple,
unambiguous, and direct”?
And isn’t DQ supposed to supply absolute certainty?
Chuck said:
Regarding the "appearance/reality distinction," I don't see a problem there.
Doesn't Pirsig acknowledge this distinction as being illusionary, but an
illusion we're forced to cope with?
Matt:
What’s an illusion that we are forced to cope with? Are you saying that we
can’t get rid of it? If we can see something as an illusion, can’t we
figure out a way to dispel it?
And anyways, my problem isn’t with what Pirsig directly says about any
appearance/reality distinction or SOM. It’s the way he says everything
else. He denies with the left and takes with the right. I’m claiming about
Pirsig the same thing Pirsig claimed about Plato. Why can Pirsig
investigate such a claim and I can’t? Why do I have to have it repetitively
pointed out to me that Pirsig denies what I see him doing subconsciously?
Isn’t that the entire point of me saying I detect an “appearance/reality
distinction _unbeknownst_ to Pirsig or his mainline interpreters?”
Matt
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