From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Mon Feb 07 2005 - 16:16:46 GMT
Hi Matt
Paul previously said:
What you are saying is that you associate quality with the idea that
there is "an appearance/reality distinction unbeknownst to Pirsig or his
mainline interpreters." Therefore, one says, "Great, then you are
already certain about what Quality is."
Matt replied:
This is my point. Dynamic Quality, and the absolute certainty conferred
upon its apprehension, plays no actual part in the determination of what
is high Quality. I say, "I'm certain what I'm doing is high Quality."
Paul replies, "Yep. I bet you are certain. And you are also wrong.
Not in the certainty. No. You are certain. But you are wrong in the
high Quality path. Just as the Nazis were."
Paul:
Dynamic Quality, and the absolute certainty conferred upon its
apprehension, entirely determines what high quality *is*. You only know
what high quality is through the direct apprehension of it. Furthermore,
there would be nothing to talk about as being high or low quality if one
hadn't Dynamically valued it enough to talk about it in the first place.
However, Dynamic Quality, and the absolute certainty conferred upon its
apprehension, plays only a part in the determination of what *has* high
quality. The subordination of quality to this or that - the conversion
of quality from a noun to an adjective - is always a partially static
endeavour. This is the difference between the experience of value and
value judgments. Value, Dynamic Quality, is always ahead of any value
judgments in the sense that once a value judgment is made, Dynamic
Quality is not 'there' anymore.
As is proposed in LILA, high quality from a Dynamic point of view and
high quality from a static point of view are different. With respect to
your statement above, the ongoing high quality you are certain of but
can't define is Dynamic but the argument that says whether what is 'left
in its wake' is right or wrong, i.e., whether what you or the Nazis do
is right or wrong, is mainly a static one based on complex definitions
and fixed criteria. That is, the behaviour and creations directed by
your immediate sense of Dynamic 'rightness' are subsequently defined
within a wider scale of static rightness, which has been constructed
emotionally, traditionally and/or intellectually. As you know, the MOQ
scale of static rightness is based on the proposed hierarchical
superiority of levels ordered in accordance with a modified theory of
evolution.
Therefore, in the case of the Nazis, the MOQ can say that although the
holocaust provided, for its proponents, biological and social level
quality, it was at the cost of the intellectual and ongoing Dynamic
Quality of those it destroyed, and was wrong because it retarded
evolution, on a massive scale. It can say that a social pattern does not
have the right to destroy biological and other social patterns when its
own survival is not threatened.
In the case of the static quality of your understanding/analysis of
Pirsig compared to others it's much tougher to place within a scale that
we could both agree on as, in terms of evolutionary levels, both are
intellectual patterns. In your scale, neo-pragmatism is more 'highly
evolved' than any form of metaphysics, it is better than the MOQ, it is
better because it sheds the conceptual baggage which is of no aid to
intellectual evolution. In my scale, the MOQ is more 'highly evolved'
than neo-pragmatism because, as well as incorporating the pragmatist
view of truth, it acknowledges, and places at its heart, the
non-linguistic awareness that pragmatism denies, without which, I think,
one cannot make a connection between western and eastern thought. Both
of these arguments are driven by the fact that we are both perceiving a
motivating sense of betterness which we may not be able to fully
conceptualise and it is moral for us to follow this perception to see
what static intellectual patterns emerge in its wake. You wouldn't be
debating at all if you didn't sense it was better than not debating.
In terms of the appearance/reality distinction and whether Pirsig
maintains it or not, I guess that within your intellectual patterns, the
MOQ fits within a pattern that says that it maintains that distinction.
In my patterns it fits without it. The debate is about which set of
patterns, yours or mine, are the best ones in which to incorporate the
MOQ.
Matt said:
The reason I get frustrated is because you are answering the questions
like a good Pirsigian, just how Pirsig would answer them.
Paul:
That is my project, if you hadn't already figured that out.
Matt said:
But I know how a good Pirsigian would answer most questions. I was one
once.
Paul:
I'm not sure about that, which, of course, is one of my arguments.
Matt said:
How do you tell the difference between DQ and static patterns? By
virtue of DQ being immediate? But that answers nothing, because you
want to _divorce_ DQ from static patterns and I'm trying to figure out
how you would know if you'd done it.
Paul:
In terms of experience, and within the structure of the MOQ, completely
divorcing DQ from static patterns constitutes enlightenment. All I can
say is that you would know when you had 'done it' although there would
be no 'you' left to know, in the general sense of the word.
Matt said:
If DQ is immediate _and_ better, then there has to be a way of knowing
that your liking is a DQ response and not a static one.
Paul:
In terms of overall value judgments and knowing whether they are 'DQ or
not', they are almost always a combination of both static and Dynamic
Quality. Any decision taken is, to varying degrees, dominated by one or
the other. I would suggest that the part of the decision which, when all
other motivations have been identified and reasoned, can only be
explained as, 'it's just better,' is generally the Dynamic part. This is
taken from Pirsig's AHP lecture:
Questioner: Is it your position that one should act without the benefit
of the static [quality] and just rely on the Dynamic [Quality]?
Pirsig: No, the two should be combined. They are combined whether you
want them to be or not. I have said (and this is very theoretical and
not very true, i.e., it is a metaphysical statement and not a Zen
statement, if I can make that distinction) that the apprehension of pure
Dynamic Quality is the entry into Nirvana and it occurs very rarely. In
almost all of our life there is a mixture of the two and in some the
Dynamic aspect dominates and it has a fresh and vibrant, new feeling,
and in some the static dominates [.] If you abandon static quality
you're in a mess, you're just going to be lost. [Pirsig, 1993, AHP
Lecture]
Matt said:
If _all_ immediate responses are DQ, then that means all immediate
responses are _better_ responses. But that doesn't seem right.
Paul:
Well, when you say things like "DQ is better" I think you misunderstand
what I am talking about. When I suggest that "all immediate responses
are DQ" I just mean that 'betterness' is sensed immediately. This
betterness is the front edge of a continuum of experience which is
constructing your static awareness in conjunction with your accumulated
static patterns.
I would say that the degree to which one is aware of this new and simple
betterness that precedes static awareness, and follows it, determines
how 'Dynamic' one is. Much betterness is missed/dismissed as static
achievements are often favoured overall. This is an essential part of
evolution; as essential as Dynamic progression is the stability afforded
by static achievements. It is a constant battle which I, for one, am
aware of all the time.
When you formulate responses to this post, what is occurring when your
response is created and modified? Pay attention to that process.
Matt said:
We often go better directions when we think about things.
Paul:
Yes, when static and Dynamic are combined. You formulate options based
on all the static information you can get. Then, the choice between the
various formulations on which you will act is made, in part,
Dynamically.
Matt said:
And we might as well ask this question: what is doing the liking or
disliking?
Paul:
This seems like a question straight from SOM assumptions. In fact, Bo
asked this question and Pirsig answered it in LILA'S CHILD:
---------------------------------------
Bo: If the world is composed of values, then who is doing the valuing?
Pirsig: This is a subtle slip back into subject-object thinking. Values
have been converted to a kind of object in this sentence, and then the
question is asked, "If values are an object, then where is the subject?"
The answer is found in the MOQ sentence, "It is not Lila who has values,
it is values that have Lila." Both the subject and the object are
patterns of value.
---------------------------------------
Matt said:
As far as I can tell, the Pirsigian response is that the atomic self is
dissolved into a set of static patterns. That means that a set of
static patterns, pragmatically considered "an individual," responds to
DQ. That means that your _static patterns_ are what is doing the liking
or disliking. I would say that this means that the very _act_, the very
_event_ of liking or disliking is the sifting through static patterns.
Paul:
I think this is to say that one's likes or dislikes are always based on
existing patterns? If so, I think that is partially right. The event of
liking or disliking something new creates the liked or disliked (and
this includes the ongoing self) and what is created depends to some
extent on the accumulated static patterns of likes and dislikes that
constitute an individual. That is, the static patterns created by an
event are indeed partially dependent on other static patterns.
"The names, the shapes and forms we give Quality depend only partly on
the Quality. They also depend partly on the a priori images we have
accumulated in our memory. We constantly seek to find, in the Quality
event, analogues to our previous experiences. If we didn't we'd be
unable to act." [ZMM, Ch20]
However, I would say that the actual event is not just a case of
"sifting through patterns." The event is also the pure
attraction/aversion that one experiences without knowing what or why. We
tend to think that the attraction or aversion is already in us waiting
to be triggered but this is, of course, what the MOQ turns on its head.
"This means Quality is not just the result of a collision between
subject and object. The very existence of subject and object themselves
is deduced from the Quality event. The Quality event is the cause of the
subjects and objects, which are then mistakenly presumed to be the cause
of the Quality!" [ZMM Ch19]
Matt said:
Which is why I keep asking, "What is the point of differentiating
between two types of experience?" It seems to me that there is one type
of experience: static patterns interacting with DQ.
Paul:
I kind of agree. This "two types of experience" is bugging me actually.
There is just experience but within this there is a scale of awareness
between static forms and Dynamic formlessness. I think this range is
loosely correlative to the intensity of value one is experiencing - high
intensity value produces a more Dynamic awareness; a low intensity value
results in a more static awareness. Static awareness broadly corresponds
to everyday subject-object awareness. Dynamic awareness broadly
corresponds to mystic awareness.
Regards
Paul
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