From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Sep 28 2003 - 20:19:44 BST
Scott and Gents:
Scott said to Dan:
My objection does not have to do with definitions. It is instead that Pirsig
does not distinguish between thinking and thoughts, but lumps them both
under the heading SQ. I consider thinking to be, at least potentially, the
creation of static patterns, not itself a static pattern. Likewise, I see
the mind as a locus of DQ/SQ interplay, again, not as just SQ.
dmb says:
If I understand Bodvar on this point, he was quite right to point out that
all static patterns can respond to DQ, not just intellectual static
patterns. And I can understand why you might want to assert that thinking is
dynamic, but this is where I think Paul was quite right. There is a world of
difference between the big self and the little self. I mean, by analogy we
might conclude that motorcycles are dynamic becasue they move down the
highway at great speed, but that's not really what dynamic means. The
static/Dynamic split is not meant to point out a distinction between what is
in motion and what is still. Its related to these connotations, but not
identical to them. Not that you put it that way, but your distinction here
between thoughts and thinking seems to imply it. I think we can see
intellect responding to DQ when it is in the throes of creativity, such as
we see in the SODV paper or in Ponciare's creation of a hypothesis, but that
only means that DQ is at work in these kinds of creative acts. Most of the
time, however, thinking is utterly depends upon grasping ideas, bringing
static forms together in a disciplined and orderly way and is static in all
kinds of ways. Again, don't let the fact that thinking is a process and
entails something like thoughts in motion lead you to the false conclusion
that it is anything other than staic. Bricks and brick laying are both
static, you know?
Scott said to D. Morey:
Thinking (or reason, which I take to be more or less synonymous) is
inherently dynamic. Concepts and ideas are the static result. ...
I don't like "Quality=experience", not because I think it is false, but
because the way Pirsig uses it it tends to focus on experience as
perception and overlook thinking. Pirsig frequently says "pre-intellectual
DQ" but not "intellectual DQ".
dmb says:
He doesn't use the phrase "intellectual DQ" because there is no such thing.
Pre-intellectual experience is prior to all thoughts. It is what we
experience before we have a chance to think about it. Don't think of Dynamic
Quality in terms of action or movement, but rather in terms of nothingness,
emptyness, the void, the ineffable divinity out of which all staic forms
arise. If we think of DQ as the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum, then
we can say that both thoughts and thinking itself is all about the
differentiated, that which has become distinguishable from everything else,
see?
P.S. I've really enjoyed the exchanges between you and Paul and have been
flagging lots of posts, but its been kind of crazy here at work for weeks.
Not that I could add much to Paul's excellent efforts, but I would have
liked to try.
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