Cntryforce, David T, David B. and Jonathan and Squad.
For CNTRYFORCE
Welcome on board. I agree with most of what you say. Very much
in certain places, but not about the low quality (if that is what
your 'static' means) quality of the sailboat chores. If your're not
interested anything is boring.
> I still don't get it. How can you have static and Dynamic Quality
> simultaneously? Whenever I think about questions like this for too long, I
> feel like I'm gonna go crazy. I feel Dynamic insanity nudging gently at my
> mind. It drove Pirsig crazy for a while, so I guess if we're not careful it
> could drive us crazy too.
I too am cautious about this aspect.
> I don't know if there's any escaping the dominance of static Quality. For
> anyone. I think it is possible to obtain static and Dynamic Quality
> simultaneously, but I think that static Quality is always the stronger, more
> dominant form of Quality. I think only intellectual Dynamic Quality can
> surpass (for brief moments) intellectual static Quality. On the power gauge
> for all the various forms of Quality, only the intellectual variety ever gets
> a Dynamic advantage. The only time Dynamic Quality truly rises above static
> Quality is on the intellectual level. In our minds.
Yes, it would be strange if dynamic quality operated in the old
static layers. Like you I tend to see DQ where the Intellect borders
on the dynamic environment ....and possibly where matter "rests on
top of it" (see my reply to David T.).
> ......... We eat, sleep, go to the bathroom. Our bodies do the same
> stuff day after day until we die. There's no escaping it. So maybe
> all this means is that Dynamic Quality is nothing but a mental phenomena?
Agreed, except about the "mental" if used in the SOM way, but - relax
- we'll return to that!
For DAVE.
You wrote:
> In the real world I can hear the AIDS virus(?) shouting, "Whoa there, you
> sayn' I ain't dynamic?, better smile when you say that partner!" What about
> the ever new annual strain of the "Diana's Domicile" flu?
Wonder if you and I are talking a little past each other? A new
virus strain isn't exactly a new life form ...as I see it. (what do
you say Jonathan?). Between the static layers there are
border cases where it is hard to decide what belongs where. In the
said case (Inorganic/Organic) it's hard to say if a virus is dead or
alive, but particularly dynamic? Could we agree on seeing the
"seams" between the static levels as something like the fault lines
between earth's tectonic plates?
Higher up the static sequence - between Biology and Society -
it's hard to decide if it an organism or a society. Magnus Berg
(remember him ? :-) once argued forcefully on that point, and at the
Society/Intellect border the uncertainty principle is even more
pronounced.
But it depends on what vision we have of the Q universe. Mine is that
of an enormous disk in an ocean and a smaller one on top of
that and so on upwards. Consequently I see matter "resting on
top" of DQ and Intellect bordering on to it. And as I interpret
quantum physics, matter does show chaotic qualities at its roots as
does Intellect if carried into the absurd.
What you write about Zen and Buddhism I endorse. If I understand
it correctly you say that Zen is a philosophical parting from the
original "religious" Buddhism, and that all "Zen and.." books is a
further widening of the gap - a westernization of the Eastern
message. Very apt. I see Pirsig's works as the ultimate result of
that process: the West has reached maturity with the Q idea.
For DAVID B.
I was also (believe it or not) in the process of writing a comparison
between Alan Watts and Robert Pirsig. Not on meditation, but
on another similarity that have always struck me .
I read Watts long before RMP and in his "The Way.." there is a
passage about the notorious Western tradition of revolutions: full
stop and a new direction. For example the French one where not
only "le ancien regime" was overthrown, but all religious tradition
as well. This compared to the Eastern tradition where things have a
tendency to go on as usual below the surface (it may be argued
regarding the Chinese cultural revolution and the Cambodian Red
Khmer, but typically they were inspired by imported Western political
ideas).
I sensed that Watts had something very important to say here and my
copy is heavily underlined around page 30-31-32 (Pelican Paperback),
but it was a little like Kipling over again: They have their way, we
have ours and the twain shall never meet .... With Pirsig it was
explained in a most clear manner and I see the Rt trail (Chap 30) as
the most penetrating piece of writing that I know of.
Finally. Be as honest as you always have been. I like your style and
your stamina.
For JONATHAN
Does it suffice to say that I agree wih you? The DQ/SQ dualism is a
tool different from the subject/object one. However, the difference
is enormous and for me that dominates the field.
That the MOQ will meet with problems is certain but at the moment
its potential looks unlimited.....if people just would understand
what the abandoning of the subject/object (mind/matter)
metaphysics signifies.
Thanks for your attention.
Bo
["Quality isn't IN the eye of the beholder.
Quality IS the eye of the beholder".
(Platt Holden)]
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
