[DM]
How would you describe more static responses.
[Arlo]
I'd say what we see as a "static pattern" is the amalgamation of
many, many responses to Dynamic Quality. Hence in my understanding,
there is no such thing as a "static response", there is only (from a
larger vantage point) highly probable Dynamic responses.
[DM]
To some extent jumping off the hot stove is a habitual/patterned form
of behaviour and so is SQ. I thinks all experiences and processes
have a DQ/SQ mix.
[Arlo]
I think the "pattern of behavior" we see is a highly probable
response to DQ. But I would also say that the probability of that
response derives from the static patterns that make up the respondent
pattern in question. This is partly what I meant, and Pirsig touches
on, when I said that "how" something responds is DQ is both enabled
and constrained by the totality of responses in its particular
repertoire. Humans (and cats) "jump off the hot stove" because they
are made up of biological patterns that have a high probability to
find that situation "low-quality".
Consider this. A person with a nerve "disorder" that can't feel a
thing, has no sense of touch, will still suffer biological
deterioration when sitting on a hot stove, even if no signal ever
reaches the brain to signal a "jump"). The cells, muscles, bones,
etc. in this individual still respond to this low-quality situation
in highly probable ways, but the "higher response" of "jumping off"
(made possible by the possession of a central nervous system) will
not occur. That is, on the lower-level of biological complexity, the
cells still respond to Dynamic Quality, but in this case responses
from a higher level repertoire are not available. Assuming no social
mitigation (a friend yelling "you're sitting on a hot stove!", only
when the biological damage becomes severe enough to register in the
brain from other channels (loss of blood, e.g.) will higher-level
responses become available.
So to this end, yes I agree, all experience is a mix of DQ/SQ,
although I would say that all experience of DQ is constrained (and
enabled) by SQ. A "cat" repertoire of responses is both made possible
and constrained by the static patterns of which it is formed. The
same goes for "man". The same goes for an amoeba. The same goes for an atom.
This is why I do not see the cosmos as "dead", either in the sense
that it needs "man" to observe it or in the sense that evolution for
all things but "man" has ceased. How sad that Platt's view seems to
be one that should all "men" disappear, that would be the end of DQ,
nothing would ever evolve, the cosmos would practically "die". "Cats
would still be cats", he says. Having "lost" their ability to respond
to DQ, as have all other things, a cosmos without man becomes "dead"
or "eternally stagnant".
On the other hand, a cosmos where DQ is pervasive, where on every
level responses to DQ continue to happen, new evolution is always
possible, as much today as a thousand years ago, or ten thousand
years ago. Should "man" disappear, Dynamic Quality will continue to
push the force of evolution to greater and greater ends.
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