From: Dan Glover (daneglover@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Jul 26 2004 - 03:31:12 BST
Hello everyone
From: David Morey (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Wed Jul 21 2004 - 19:21:08 BST
Paul:
Agree, I think instinct is easily confused with Dynamic Quality and I'm
not sure where to draw a line between the two.
DM: Instinct implies same again, repetition, DQ gives us something new out
of nothing, agree? I also agree quality has to be sensed, but can we expand
upon our senses?
Hi Paul and David
I ran a google search on define: instinct just so we know we're on the same
page. This is part of what I found:
1. Automatic and innate, prescribing actions required for survival. Comment:
Instincts are not actually a form of knowledge, although the effect is the
same. Knowledge is the product of a mental process. Instincts bypass this
entirely.
2. Behaviours which do not need to be learned.
3. All processes whose energies aren't under conscious control are
instinctive.
4. A complex and specific response by an organism to an environmental
stimuli that is largely hereditary and unalterable, does not involve reason,
and has as its goal the removal of a "somatic" (inst. note: physical,
relating to the body) tension. also, Behavior that is mediated by reactions
below the conscious level.
I think the MOQ would both agree and disagree with definition #1. Instincts
are a form of biological knowledge, that's why the effect is the same.
Intellectual knowledge is a form of mental processes. Instincts do indeed
bypass that entirely though. The MOQ would say these are different levels of
value.
I think the MOQ would say #2 might be better stated: behaviors that do not
need to be intellectually learned.
I think the MOQ would fiind #3 problematic. Instincts do not keep the atoms
in our bodies from flying apart. Those are the inorganic level forces of
which we are not consciously aware. I think the MOQ would say as well that
we are rarely in conscious control of social situations yet social patterns
are not instinctive either.
The MOQ tells us that Dynamic Quality cannot be defined. But it can be said
that: "every time you discover for the first time that something is better
than something else, that is where Dynamic Quality exists." (Robert Pirsig's
letter to Anthony McWatt, Feb. 23, 1998)
I think the key word is "discover." I think the MOQ would say that there are
high Quality intellectual discoveries as well as high Quality biological
discoveries and these are not the same. They are both Dynamic processes
however so I'm not sure there is a line to be drawn.
I think definition #4 might have somthing to do with David's reply. I think
part of RMP's point in using the hot stove analogy in LILA is that every
person who sits on a hot stove will move. It is repeatable but it's a
Dynamic discovery that it's better to move nevertheless. I don't see where a
line can be drawn. Instinct would seem to be a biological pattern of value
underlaying a Dynamic process, the fight for survival.
As to David's question, I believe scientific instruments expand on our
senses. Eyeglasses expand on sight. Hearing aids expand on sound.
Thank you for your comments,
Dan
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