dmb replies: I don't understand the first question. Does Pirsig confuse DQ and Quality and how so? If you're talking about the difference between ZAMM and LILA, I think the MOQ consists in both and the former is revised by the latter, especially on this point. As I understand it, Quality includes both static and dynamic, neither of which can exist without the other. (Q=sq+DQ) Static quality and dynamic quality, together, are identical to Quality. Dewey's terms "stability and flux" or James earlier terms "perching and flights" are parallel with static and dynamic, obviously, but I'd guess Dewey's name for both of them together would be "situation". I don't know it that helps explain why I don't understand the question but at least you can see how I'm using the terms.
[Krimel] The question revolves around the idea that with Lila Pirsig replaces the Quality of ZMM with DQ and thus DQ is characterized as having all or most of the qualities of Quality. [dmb] I think I understand the second question, even if I don't understand how the door was opened to it. If we can rightly characterize DQ "in terms of change and rates of change", then it IS definable. Okay, granted. But I don't think we can rightly equate DQ with change. While words like "novelty" and "change" can be used it is also true that some "change" is almost entirely static. Take radioactive decay or the face of a properly functioning clock, for example. In that case, the "rate of change" is calculable, predictable and steady. [Krimel] There are of course qualitatively different kinds of change. With your clock example we have linear change. The ticks of the clock are additive and cumulative. This is the kind of change that has been most widely studies as we have readily available tools, especially mathematical tools, to study it. I could say that DQ is more easily envisioned as nonlinear change. This is more like the straw that breaks a camel's back. It is a slight linear looking bit of change that rather than producing a cumulative effect radically alters the whole system. [dmb] And there is also the epistemological claim about DQ being pre-intellectual and therefore prior to definitions, but that's almost another topic. [Krimel] I think the whole pre-intellectual line of thinking is very productive if somewhat more pedestrian than one might think. We have what I like to think of as the sense of senses. It allows us to integrate and make sense of the multiple modes of sensation that we have coming in all of the time. The main function of this is to say whether something is good or bad or somewhere in between. We use it to find patterns and to react to events in the world. The nature and workings of this pre-intellectual process of sensing and processing events in the world are critical to who we are and what we do. I think the philosophical focus on the meanings of words takes us far away from this most fundamental aspect of perception and the creation of meaning. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
