From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Mon Sep 29 2003 - 03:08:06 BST
DMB,
No, I am not confused about the meaning of dynamic/static in the MOQ
(though, as I discuss in my last post to Platt in the "final solution or new
frustration" thread, it looks to me like Pirsig was confused on this matter
in his hot stove example). I see thinking happening as a range from almost
entirely repetitive to almost entirely creative. Fully dynamic thinking
would be "pure thinking", something one aspires to.
When you say "He doesn't use the phrase "intellectual DQ" because there is
no such thing. Pre-intellectual experience is prior to all thoughts." you
are just repeating the MOQ, which I am rejecting. I see no reason to add DQ
to explain creativity in thinking, as it seems sufficient to me to just say
"thinking is (or can be) creative", to see creative thinking as dynamically
creating new concepts in the context of old ones. (The "just" in the last
two sentences hides some big issues: mainly the role of nominalism in
Pirsig's thought, which I discussed in the aforementioned thread, so won't
repeat here.)
Hence I see the difference between Pirsig's metaphysics and Steiner's as
whether one puts one's money on some paradoxical, nebulous non-thing called
"pure undivided experience" or on some paradoxical, nebulous non-thing
called "pure thinking". For argumentation for the latter, see the books
mentioned in my response to Bo in that same thread. As I said, I don't think
it appropriate to argue for it here, but I do want to clear up
misconceptions.
- Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Buchanan" <DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2003 1:19 PM
Subject: RE: MD Dealing with S/O
> 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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