Steve said to Arlo:I think what Pirsig said is that only a "living being" can
respond to DQ. Inorganic patterns seem so static (is the speed of light
changing?), yet the exact same set of preconditions never present themselves a
second time, so I think I am agreeing with you when I say that dynamic and
static quality should still be applied to explain preferences on the inorganic
level while the balance is decidedly for the static. ...The other comment I
have is that I think the MOQ cosmology begins with radical empiricism rather
than a big bang and evolution. ...Evolution is an idea and as such it is an
aesthetic creation of humans. When we read DQ/sq back on to evolution and to
the responses to quality of animals and rocks and trees and even other people,
we have less of an empirical basis for talking about such things. It is
Pirsig's evolutionary theory. It is an idea that either holds up to rational
discourse or not, while Experience = Quality and DQ/sq are axioms that ar
e either found worth accepting or not.dmb says:I think that's right. Bravo.If
the evolutionary cosmology is taken for reality itself, as opposed to a set of
intellectual descriptions, the MOQ will be misconstrued as a kind re-arranged
version of the metaphysics of substance. The levels of static patterns agree
with the present scientific understanding so we can talk about the big bang,
the evolution of life and cultural development in Pirsigian terms, but in the
MOQ reality is equated with experience, not any particular ontology or
cosmology. Because reality is equated with experience, the epistemology comes
first. Or maybe it would be better to say the epistemology replaces the
ontology. As you rightly point out, this is where the importance of Radical
Empiricism comes into it. I was surprised to learn that Carl Jung's conception
of the collective unconscious is one that goes all the way down to the
inorganic level too. I think there might be some problems with his theory t
hat could be solved by a bigger dose of radical empiricism, but his conception
can be used, I think, to help us imagine what Pirsig means in saying that we
are a collection of static patterns from all levels and that we're capable of
responding to DQ, in saying the MOQ agrees with the mystic's claim that "Thou
Art That", in saying that the subjective self is the little self as opposed to
the Dynamic Big Self and all those sorts of things. Somehow I got the wrong
idea about the collective unconscious. I thought it was limited to social
patterns, to put it in MOQese. The myths and archetypal heros and all that
stuff is certainly part the unconscious but, according to Jung, it goes all the
way down. In his view, we are born with the collective unconscious. We are the
very opposite of a blank slate. We inherit the whole evolutionary history of
the universe in our unconscious. And he distinguished the ego, or normal waking
consciousness, from the Great Self. In the same way that
the ego is the center of consciousness, the Self is the center of the total
self, which includes the not only the ego but also the personal unconscious and
the deeper collective unconscious. And for Jung, psychological health demands
that the ego integrate the unconscious mind. For Jung, this integration process
is called individuation. This is the hero's journey that Joseph Campbell made
famous. For Jung, the process of individuation is a process of becoming whole,
healthy, holy. Or as Pirsig puts it, reality is the undivided immediate flux of
experience and to fully realize this lack of division is become
enlightened.Thanks.
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