Ron and all: Yes, you've given voice to the same concerns I have. As infants know it, the dynamic state is literally meaningless. By contrast, the "zennies" and other mystical traditions have developed "technologies" for overcoming the static patterns, especially intellectual static patterns, the ego, the conventional self. The mystic don't return to a pre-linguistic state, erase their egos or otherwise return to a blank slate so much as they go beyond them. Pre-personal and trans-personal consciousness are similar in that neither are personal but they can't rightly be equated. To say that babies and mystics are the same is to say that dying and never being born are the same.
If I understand what Pirsig is talking about when he talks about getting stuck, this theme would serve as a concrete description of what it means to transcend static patterns. Dynamic growth doesn't have to take the form of a full-blown mystical experience. That's sort of just a supreme version of what occurs all the time in everyday experience, for all forms of life. I mean, getting unstuck is natural. It is tied in with that basic tendency toward betterness. The MOQ was born out of Pirsig's own personal stuckness just as many great inventions were born out of an effort to solve a particular problem. This idea is echoed strongly in developmental psychology (Maslow's hierarchy, etc.) and is central in our mythology, in the "hero's journey". Even in the crime drama schlock we see on TV, the story opens with a murder or some other problem and lots of questions about it and by the end, the mystery is solved. People like to see this cycle over and over because it reflects the way we live our lives. We're constantly seeking to overcome something. This is what drives evolution in general and our own biographies in particular. We can even think of Zen koans as devices designed to attack intellectual static patterns with stuckness. And they inflict this on purpose because they know the benefits of getting unstuck. We you get past something, as opposed to retreating from it, then you've grown. The idea of suffering being a necessary part of growth also figures in here. I think this basic idea is found in just about every relevant discipline and don't know of anyone who'd disagree. There is also getting "stuck" as the past-tense of "stick", like when somebody really sticks it to you or when you get stuck paying the tab, but that's not it. When a problem seems impossible to solve within the existing options, within the existing static patterns, its time to get creative, dynamic. When getting unstuck demands going beyond the static, very cool things start happening. Or you crash and burn. Round and round she goes. Thanks, dmb Ron said previously: > to all involved, I think it is important to realize in this discussion > of artificial conditions in an effort to "maximize DQ" we must consider > that our mind functions utilizing memory and connections of remembered > experience in order to understand any sort of sensory stimuli. > Consequently you are always going to be dealing with static patterns > when it come to any sort of comprehension. > I would reckon, by virtue of this, that maximizing DQ would be something > akin to Alzheimer's disease in your definition. Pure access to DQ would > be to not remember or retain anything about prior experience. > but > is this the level of awareness that is pointed to by Pirsig and the > "zennies"? Perhaps, but pragmatically it doesn't do much for our > situation unless what you are after is saying that Pirsig is advocating > that everyone get in line for their electro shock therapy. > > I think what both Pirsig and the "zennies" are pointing to is the > ability to have our cake and eat it too. I mean, what good is DQ if you > can't comprehend a damn bit of it? what makes the endeavor "mystical" > is just this balance of dynamic/static awareness. > > > > Maximizing it suggests quantifying it and quantifying DQ is meaningless > in universal terms. I hear SA and Dmb arguing much the same, a society > of Maximized DQ entities, (for you can not call them human as we know > the term) is not a society at all. What you would have is a collection > of individual entities which would experience but would not comprehend a > damn thing. > > what you would have is an incredible technologically complex group of > goldfish. > _________________________________________________________________ The other season of giving begins 6/24/08. Check out the i’m Talkathon. http://www.imtalkathon.com?source=TXT_EML_WLH_SeasonOfGiving 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/
