From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Fri May 07 2004 - 21:47:08 BST
Hi Mark,
I take your criticism seriously, and I want to understand it, but I
often have trouble understanding you.
> First of all, I see two perspectives that need to be understood and
> reconciled in explaining the MOQ. The primary one which is empirical
> is the perspective represented by the equation Quality = Experience.
>
> Mark 7-5-04: Hi Steve, Quality = Undifferentiated experience?
I don't know what you are saying. When you punctuate in this way I get
confused. Do you mind clarifying?
Thanks,
Steve
>
> The second perspective is represented by Quality = Reality. The
> equating of Quality and Reality is not empirical to the extent that we
> don't simply mean "Experience" when we say "Reality," but rather
> Quality = Reality is an evolutionary theory.
>
> Mark 7-5-04: Quality = Mystic reality.
> Undifferentiated experience = Mystic reality.
> The MoQ incorporates evolution, but Quality isn't an evolutionary
> theory?
> Only 'static' patterns evolve in the MoQ.
>
> (In the MOQ Experience
> also equals Reality but this is a postulate used to understand reality
> rather than empirically based.)
>
> Mark 7-5-04: Differentiated experience is patterned while
> Undifferentiated
> experience is Mystic?
>
> The difference between the two
> perspectives is experiencing a value pattern such as gravity directly
> as a pulling down on one's body (Quality = Experience)
>
> Mark 7-5-04: Differentiated experience = patterned reality.
>
> versus
> experiencing gravity as the pattern of experience or inference where we
> recognize that all things around us are pulled to the ground, too
> (Quality = Reality).
>
> Mark 7-5-04: Inference is an Intellectual activity and is experienced
> in a
> totally different way from the experiences of the body? We may
> differentiate
> with our fingers and logically, but they are two different levels of
> evolution?
>
> Here I intend to focus on the evolutionary
> perspective of understanding Reality in terms of Quality.
>
> I'll begin by putting Quality aside for now to focus on what a pattern
> is. I think that understanding reality in terms of patterns rather
> than in terms of substance and mind is an idea that one can use
> regardless of whether or not one accepts Pirsig's Reality = Quality
> postulate.
> I think that there are philosophers out there who consider
> themselves "patternists" though I couldn't name any.
>
> Mark 7-5-04: The Abhidharma Buddhist thinkers view experience in a very
> similar way to the MoQ.
>
> At any rate, I'd
> like to show what I mean by viewing reality (sq) in terms of patterns
> and then show how Quality explains patterns to give a more complete
> picture of Reality. In other words, a patterns view does not require a
> metaphysical grounding but certainly benefits from a grounding in
> Quality.
>
> Mark 7-5-04: If patterns are differentiation's then it may be asked,
> 'Why
> note some differentiation's and not others?'
>
> The clearest example that I might come up with for what I mean by a
> pattern is a river. If we try to define a river in terms of substance,
> "you can't step into the same river twice," but as a pattern, a river
> has a fairly stable existence with a recognizable structure.
>
> Mark 7-5-04: You have this the wrong way around Steve. The term
> substance has
> a meaning in philosophy which you may be confusing with common
> language? In
> philosophy, substance remains while its attributes change.
> On the other hand, a river as an analogy for a pattern is always
> flowing and
> is never the same twice.
>
> It's
> flowing "changingness" is even part of that structure, so it is without
> contradiction that we can call a river a "static pattern" even though a
> river flows. A river is not as stable as the patterns of molecules
> that we call rocks in some ways since we can move a rock to another
> location and all it's recognized properties will be maintained, but a
> river is more stable than a rock in other ways since forces that can
> break a rock into pebbles may only temporarily disrupt a river or
> divert its course. The rock better fits the concept of substance and
> is more real than a river in a substance-based metaphysics, but it is
> not more real than the rock in a pattern-based metaphysics. Using a
> patterns approach to reality, we might say that the rock is more stable
> but the river is more versatile, though relative to higher level
> patterns both are very stable and not very versatile.
>
> Mark 7-5-04: The river is only an analogy? A grain of sand is a small
> rock,
> and they are used in hour glasses?
>
> Patterns can have far weaker correlations with substance than a river
> does. We can think of gravity as a pattern though gravity has
> virtually no properties associated with substance. There are different
> ways in which we can do so. As a pattern of behavior of physical
> objects (which are themselves inorganic patterns), gravity is an
> inorganic pattern. As a symbol standing for this inorganic pattern in
> thought and communication, "gravity" is a social structure which is
> used in structures of thought. Structures of thought which we call
> ideas are recognized in the MOQ as intellectual patterns. So, a
> pattern-based metaphysics has no difficulty containing the forces
> described by physics nor the patterns of thought which are not
> influenced in the least by those forces.
>
> Platt didn't like the idea of thinking of a person as a pattern, but
> physically a person's atoms are exchanged with other atoms constantly
> while the pattern of arrangement of his cells is fairly stable. In
> Heraclitus' view, we never interact with the same person twice.
>
> Mark 7-5-04: Heraclitus used the simile of the river to indicate the
> flux of
> experience. Rivers and people are always changing, but some changes
> are more
> noticeable than others?
>
> But the
> pattern of a given person persists despite the ongoing exchanging of
> atoms and despite changes associated with the biological patterns of
> growing or aging and despite changes in the patterns of behavior
> identifiable as participation in social roles and despite changing
> patterns of thought. Despite all these changes, there is a structure
> called a person that persists as the river persists in spite of its
> flowing nature or changes in it's course.
>
> Mark 7-5-04: This abstracting of an underlying permanence is exactly
> what a
> substance is Steve. You are arguing against patterns and for substance.
>
> And like the river, our
> concept of a person includes the changes I've described above. Lack of
> change in the pattern of a person means death.
>
> Mark 7-5-04: Death is biological, but patterns of ideas and social
> institutions may go on? Lack of any change in anything is
> inconceivable.
>
> (When Pirsig uses the phrase "static pattern" I don't think that he
> means to exclude change or to associate change with Dynamic Quality.
>
> Mark 7-5-04: A static pattern is a repeating event which is stable long
> enough to be noticed, i.e. valued.
>
> I
> think the word static is used simply to distinguish static and Dynamic
> Quality and to associate static Quality with patterns, but "static
> patterns" may be redundant since I see patterns as static only in the
> sense that they are patterns. They represent structures or
> relationships that can include change as a river is constantly flowing,
> yet these structures are static in the sense that the patterns of flow
> persist over time.)
>
> Mark 7-5-04: If you try to think of a Dynamic pattern you will
> discover that
> you can't. Patterns are, by their nature, differentiated. You may
> visualise
> motion and see motion, but what you are seeing is stable long enough
> for you to
> impose boundaries. Even looking at a TV screen showing white noise
> will have
> you seeing things that are 'are and are not there.'
> True Dynamic cannot be experienced as a pattern. Thus, time itself is a
> pattern differentiated from the 'white noise' of the event stream. I
> am using an
> analogy here, for the event stream is experienced as aesthetic.
>
> Up to this point I've talked about patterns with minimal reference to
> Quality in part to point out that an introduction to the MOQ can begin
> with an explanation of the four types of patterns rather than the
> metaphysical postulate of Quality. (I would also recommend that in
> trying to explain the MOQ to someone who has not read Pirsig that
> patterns may be the best place to start.)
>
> Mark 7-5-04: You are suggesting that it is better to begin with
> something
> which is open to disagreement rather than something which is
> experienced by
> everyone Steve? What the hell are you playing at?
>
> But once one does postulate
> that Quality = Reality, the types of static patterns become even more
> powerful in explaining reality because one can then understand how
> values and much of mind can also be understood in terms of patterns and
> how types of patterns can be examined in light of knowledge of the
> direction of the evolutionary arrow to identify moral and immoral human
> behavior. This is because all the structures I've discussed can be
> understood as value relationships.
>
> Mark 7-5-04: You disagree with Anthony McWatt's approach taken in his
> text
> book on the introduction to the MOQ?
>
> As Pirsig demonstrated, a cause and effect relationship like A causes B
> can be just as sensibly reworded as B values precondition A. The
> pattern of gravity for example can be thought of as a preference that
> is extremely reliable like the pattern of me ordering General Tso's
> Chicken whenever he goes out to a Chinese restaurant (i.e. the pattern
> of preference for chicken is part of the collection of patterns that
> constitute me). So patterns are maintained as valuations. Thus, all
> patterns are really patterns of value.
>
> Mark 7-5-04: We notice gravity because it is a repeatable pattern. We
> value
> the pattern and then postulate value as a metaphysical basis for the
> patterns
> behaviour.
>
> I don't know whether what I have said will be controversial or seem too
> obvious to have been said. I'm interested in your thoughts.
>
> Mark 7-5-04: I should rather not say what my thoughts are Steve. My
> aim it to
> help not hector.
>
> All the best,
> Mark
>
>
>
>
>
>
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