Diana McPartlin (diana@asiantravel.com)
Thu, 16 Oct 1997 14:42:15 +0100
Doug Renselle wrote:
>
> Anders Nielsen wrote:
>
> >
> > As far as I see it, the only thing able to percieve dynamic quality is
> > humans or rather: sentient beings, but not societies, and certainly
> > not
> > atomic matter! (saying that dynamic quality for the inorganic static
> > patterns is the quantum flux, is pure nonsense to me...Im sorry to
> > sound so
> > harsh, but really I don't understand what people mean when they say
> > this).
> >
> > and to back this point I will quote Lila, p.192 chap. 13 (Corgi Books
> > paperback edition):
> >
> > [here pirsig is talking about the (im)moralness of the death-penalty]
> >
> > "And beyond that is an even more compelling reason:
> > societies and thoughts and principles themselves are
> > no more than sets of static patterns. These patterns
> > can't by themselves perceive or adjust to Dynamic
> > Quality. Only a living being can do that."
> >
> Anders,
>
> The key phrase here is '[by] themselves.' Do you agree that Pirsig
> makes it clear that any SPoV in DQ has potential for change?
>
> Do you agree that no biological patterns could exist were it not for the
> inorganic SPoVs being in DQ? Do you agree that inorganic SPoVs evolve
> and invent new biological SPoVs and so on up the MoQ static pattern
> ladder?
>
> Other members of TLS have broached the topic of how far down the ladder
> we go before the constituents of the SPoVs are not living. The
> classical human-centric SOM view is that only humans are sentient.
Pirsig does say that biological beings are the only ones that have a
sense of value. In Anders' quote that is implied and in SODV he says
"The Metaphysics of Quality follows the empirical tradition here in
saying that the senses are the starting point of reality, but -- all
importantly -- it includes a sense of value"
But then he also says that inorganic patterns can perceive dynamic
quality (p188 end of chap 12) " When inorganic patterns of reality
create life the Metaphysics of Quality postulates that they've done so
because it's 'better' and this definition of 'betterness' -- this
beginning response to Dynamic Quality -- is an elementary unit of ethics
upon which all right and wrong can be based"
Sounds like Pirsig has contradicted himself. If the sense of value
resides at the biological level and only living beings can perceive
dynamic quality, how did the inorganic patterns ever evolve into
biological ones?
Diana
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