From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Wed Jul 06 2005 - 08:45:30 BST
Matt,
A brief response.
--- What I would like to do is suggest that harmony shouldn't be used as it
--- is
--- typically used by Pirsigians. There are basically two versions I would
--- here
--- like to criticize. The first is the idea that harmony is represented by
--- a
--- static pattern's harmonious relationship with Quality/DQ (it matters
--- little
--- which).
Paul: Actually, that wasn't what I was suggesting. I was saying that
harmony is a description of a successful reweaving of static intellectual
patterns to resolve or alleviate tension or contradiction.
So, when a static pattern changes, what we call a moment of DQ
--- or
--- DQ's intervention can also be described as the static pattern falling
--- into
--- harmony with Quality/DQ. What is important in this version is the idea
--- that
--- Quality/DQ is the cause of the change. Paul gives very good expression
--- to
--- this version when he says, "From this point of view static patterns of
--- intellect are forced by Dynamic Quality into reweaving new relationships
--- between existing patterns." The important word is "forced."
---
--- I think this is bad because it creates a representational-style
--- relationship
--- between static patterns and Quality/DQ.
Paul: I don't think so. I am suggesting a purely causal relationship.
Bad static patterns fall away
--- (are
--- broken) when they achieve harmony with the antecedently existing
--- Quality/DQ.
--- Quality and DQ have to be phrased as "antecedently existing" because
--- of
--- the use of "harmony" as a good description of the relationship. Harmony
--- only occurs between two things that exist. Harmony doesn't occur with
--- one
--- note, it occurs with two. So if we use "harmony" I think we commit
--- ourselves to an appearance/reality distinction and a representational-
--- style
--- relationship. Bad static patterns are seen to be bad, and only
--- "appearances," once we "see," become harmonious with, "reality," Quality
--- or
--- DQ.
Paul: I'm not sure this criticism still holds given my answers above. It's
not that static patterns get better and better at *representing* Quality,
which is what you imply I am saying. It's more about the tension or
equilibrium between two parts of reality and the causal relationship between
them. This relationship is really central to the MOQ e.g. it is the
proposed force of evolution.
---
--- Paul has been speaking out against the appearance/reality distinction
--- and
--- its engendered representationalism, so I hope to persuade Paul to drop
--- this
--- use of "harmony." We shouldn't have any truck with "antecendently
--- existing"
--- anythings that "force" us into patterns we can call "better." We should
--- remember that DQ is "no thing."
Paul: Agreed, of course, that DQ is "no thing." But it is characterised by
novel experience which exerts an influence on existing static patterns.
Force is perhaps too misleading a word. As I see it, I am taking the
standard Pirsigian idea that static patterns can't change by themselves and
drawing out its consequences. I see that you are doing the same and that
you wish to dispense with the standard idea but I don't see that it leads to
an appearance/reality distinction, although it definitely involves a weak
dualism i.e. static-Dynamic.
--- The idea
--- that we
--- have a "relationship with reality as a whole," however, is mistaken. We
--- don't _have_ a relationship _with_ reality, we _are_ a relationship _in_
--- reality. Saying we "are a relationship" punches up the description of
--- us as
--- static patterns. We don't _have_ static patterns, we _are_ static
--- patterns.
--- We are the interrelationships between "things," a notion itself that
--- is
--- fluid once we describe ourselves _as_ static patterns, as relationships.
--- The only thing that gives us any definiteness is our stable relations.
--- This
--- is why we change, because we, as static patterns, _aren't_ completely
--- static-they swim. They move about through reality (though they are what
--- constitute reality). Inorganic patterns are practically static because
--- they
--- are so stable as to almost be immutable. Intellectual patterns,
--- however,
--- are extraordinarily fluid. They are always shifting.
Paul: This is spot on. As I see it, though, we are the relationship
*between static and Dynamic Quality* as well as between static patterns.
I'll leave the rest of your post until we see where we are going with my
answers.
Cheers
Paul
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