From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Nov 20 2005 - 15:31:12 GMT
Hi Dan,
Wonderful to hear from you. The debt we have to you for producing "The
Lila Squad" can never be repaid. I trust you've been well and that your
entrepreneurial business is booming. :-) Thanks for taking the time to
write.
Previously from Paul:
> > > >So, as with all knowledge according to this thesis, the intellectual
> > > >pattern of the MOQ is itself generated by a procession of value
> > > >judgements, which leads us to thesis (2).
Platt:
> >I translate this as: First, DQ produces value judgments, then value
> >judgments produce intellectual patterns. It's a two step process.
Dan:
> Thank you for writing. It seems to me that it's attentiveness to Dynamic
> Quality that produces value judgements; it seems a mistake to say anything
> at all about Dynamic Quality itself. Dynamic Quality is best thought of as
> "not this, not that."
>
> This also seems to pertain to your "Calling all atheists" post. By
> erroreously equating Dynamic Quality with creative development we get
> statements like: "the creative power of DQ--an indefinable, mysterious
> force -- resides at the heart of the MOQ."
>
> For me, this statement only perpetuates confusion. Rather, it's
> attentiveness to Dynamic Quality (experience) that resides at the heart of
> the MOQ. There's nothing mysteriously God-like about "it." It seems to me
> that this is why Robert Pirsig says that the MOQ is anti-theistic, as David
> Buchanan reminds us with his excellent "Anti-theism in the MOQ" post.
Well, what I think I know about DQ emerged from Pirsig's pen. For example
(emphasis added):
"Dynamic Quality is the pre-intellectual cutting edge of reality, the
SOURCE OF ALL THINGS, completely simple, always new. It was the MORAL
FORCE that had motivated the Brujo in Zuni." (Lila, 9)
"Although Dynamic Quality, the Quality of freedom, CREATES THIS WORLD in
which we live, these patterns of static quality, the quality of order,
preserve our world." (Lila, 9)
"Biological evolution can be seen as a process by which weak Dynamic
FORCES at a subatomic level discover stratagems for overcoming huge static
inorganic forces at a superatomic level." (Lila, 11)
"What the Dynamic FORCE had to invent in order to move up the molecular
level and stay there was a carbon molecule . . ." (Lila, 11)
"But restriction that stop the degenerates also stop the CREATIVE DYNAMIC
FORCES of evolution." (Lila, 17)
Either I've misread Pirsig or he does indeed describe DQ as a creative
power. In fact, throughout the MOQ you'll find forces at different levels
competing one one another as well attempting to smother the creative force
of DQ.
Platt referring to Paul's statements:
> >Now we learn that DQ produces more than value judgments. It produces
> >INTELLECTUAL value judgments. The difference between plain old value
> >judgments and intellectual value judgments isn't explained. Further, these
> >intellectual value judgments produce not intellectual patterns but
> >"explanations."
Dan:
> If we look at attention to Dynamic Quality (a definition of consciousness)
> as the key to the formation of value judgements, then the formation of the
> explanations (the results of value judgements) are indeed intellectual
> patterns of value, or ideas.
Yes, a two step process: formation of value judgments, then formation of
intellectual patters. Values precede concepts. I find it most interesting,
however, that your define consciousness as "attention to DQ." Since DQ
played a key role in the development of biological evolution, I presume
you believe (as I do) that consciousness existed long before humans came
on the scene, in fact, was there from the very beginning.
> Again, it is attention to Dynamic Quality that produces value judgements
> which produces ideas which produces what we know as matter. Reach out and
> touch the desk in front of you. Your idea of desk is filtered through the
> experience of desk, an experience built up over the course of a lifetime.
> So even though it may seem as if desk is really there, apart from the you
> touching desk, desk is really part of the idea of you that has taken a
> lifetime to construct. Without the idea of you there would be no desk.
> Therefore, just as the idea of you comes before you, the idea of desk comes
> before desk.
No argument there, except the idea of "attention to DQ" being the creative
force. The concept of "attention" presupposes an existing entity capable
of "attending." Do you think that quantum particles are capable of
attending? And who or what created this ability to attend if not DQ?
> >Questions left hanging are:
> >
> >Do value judgments occur on a sliding scale from good to awful?
> Of course they do.
Agree. No doubt about it. Also from beautiful to ugly.
> >Are value judgments ideas or feelings?
>
> They can be both.
I thought we agreed that value judgments always precede intellectual
patterns? So wouldn't that rule out ideas?
> >Are ideas intellectual patterns?
>
> According to thesis (1): No. According to thesis (2): Yes.
>
> Perhaps this quote from chapter 2 of Buddhism: Plain & Simple by Steve
> Hagen will help to clarify: "We've all heard the expression 'seeing is
> believing.' But the fact is that believing is not true SEEING. In fact,
> they're opposites. Belief is at best an educated, informed conjecture about
> Reality. In contrast, SEEING -- raw, direct, unadulterated experience -- is
> the direct perception of Reality Itself." (Caps originally in italics)
>
> So, if we apply the MOQ to the above quote, it would seem that Paul's
> thesis (1) equates to SEEING while thesis (2) equates to believing.
Now I'm really confused. :-)
> >Is there anything intellectual about value judgments?
>
> All in good time. Remember the hot stove example in LILA.
Yes, the time element seems crucial --first the value, then the intellect.
> >Do explanations always consist of intellectual patterns?
>
> Yes and no. Again, look to the hot stove example.
Are you saying a value judgment amounts to the same thing as an
explanation? If so, I disagree. I think explanations are always derived
from intellectual patterns. But "understanding" can come from value
judgments alone.
> >Are intellectual patterns always "contextualized?"
>
> Yes I should think so.
>
> If so, how?
>
> Culture.
>
> >Does "contextualize" mean that intellectual patterns are always relative?
>
> Culturally relative. No one lives in isolation, in a vacuum.
Got it.
> >Can an intellectual pattern be Dynamic?
>
> I think we'd agree that an intellectual pattern is more dynamic than a rock
> on account of the idea's propensity for change. Yet it seems best not to
> equate Dynamic Quality with intellectual patterns of value.
I agree it's best to keep value judgments separate from concepts, ideas
and intellectual patterns of any kind.
Best regards,
Platt
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