From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri May 28 2004 - 21:27:11 BST
Hi gang,
How is everyone doing?
I let my hotmail account expire when I let a month go by without accessing
it, and I guess that got me unsubscribed, so I've just been taking a break
from posting (and giving you a break from me posting:-)). But I've been
peeking at the archives periodically to see what's been going on, and I just
couldn't let this remarkable development go by without comment, so I
resubscribed:
Platt wrote on May 7th:
>I agree with you and DMB that change in and of itself doesn't always mean
that DQ is involved, a point I've repeated several times in other posts.
So when you say, "When Pirsig uses the phrase 'static pattern' I don't
think that he means to exclude change or to associate change with Dynamic
Quality," I say, "Right on."
I remember you and others pretty much dismissed me when I was making this
point last year, you all said that static patterns never change, by
definition. So I'm glad to see you've expanded your rigid definition of
static patterns. Static patterns change when they are influenced by other
static patterns. In fact, static patterns are always changing, quite
obvioulsy in the case of individuals (witness Platt's coming around on this
topic but still being Platt) and less obviously in the case of a glass of
water (it loses atoms very slowly). Even patterns like Gravity must slowly
change, I would think.
An important aspect to a pattern no one mentioned is the element of time
passing in the repeating of a pattern. A pattern represents the past
becoming the present, according to the pattern. It is formed from
experience and is expected to continue into the future. The pattern of a
glass is an expectation, based on the pattern, that it will remain a glass,
and that carries it into the future. If the glass falls and breaks (because
the pattern of glasses breaking when they hit the floor is stronger), then
the pattern is gone. The stronger an expectation, the stronger the pattern,
and the greater value it has. Value comes from expectation being realized,
from patterns continuing. The patterns of things that no longer exist, like
the Holy Roman Empire, do not exist any more, only the pattern of it as a
historical concept exists now, and only the historical concept continues to
exist into the future to create the present.
So, that's what I say a pattern is. I agree with Pirsig that they are
"integral and inherent in reality".
Have any of you given any more thought to how Expectation neatly expresses
morality, value, and quality? Or have you been relieved not to have to hear
about it? I've been reading Neitzsche and Heidegger, and I think
Neitzsche's Will To Power is a way of expressing the ontology of
expectation: expectation is what will be, and values it being so, as that
empowers expectation itself.
Johnny
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