[Andre]
Can I summarise the discussion as centering around the question: when is an
experience Dynamic and when is an experience a 'normal' reaction to something?
[Arlo]
Here's the point. ALL experiences, as they occur, contain an amount of
probability that something "unexpected" will occur. But, most familiar
experiences contain a high degree of probability that a certain response will
repeat. It is those repetitions that we later call "static patterns".
There are NO "dynamic experiences" or "static experiences". There is ONLY
"experience". And this experience is ALWAYS the organism responding to DQ.
However, repeated circumstances leads us to see highly probable responses as
"static", so likely to occur they seem "guaranteed" to do so.
I don't have LILA in front of me here at home, but I'll cite (since it makes
Platt forget that his agreement with you reverses his position entirely) the
passage therein where Pirsig talks about "causation". To paraphrase, he says
that particles "prefer" to do what they do (this drives Krimel bonkers, so I
say this with some risk there), and that what we see as static patterns are
merely highly probable preferences. But in that same passage he
stands outright
against the idea of "absolute certainty". There is ALWAYS a CHANCE a
particular
pattern will NOT respond in a predictable way, as ALL experience
at-the-moment-of-experience is a response to DQ.
Or rather, DQ IS the response to experience. Just because we can "predict"
something does NOT mean its a "static response" (every time Platt says this an
angel loses its wings). What it means is that it is a response to DQ that is
highly probable.
You are correct, the more unusual the experience, the greater the chance for
unexpected behavior. But if that experience was repeated, if you
found yourself
in a hurricane every Tuesday afternoon, your initial responses may
end up being
"preferred" responses, and we'd start to see them as a "static pattern", a
pattern of probable responses.
To bring in some other lingo, we are "habituated beings". We are creatures of
habit through and through. We develop "analogues" (as Pirsig calls
them) and we
strive to apply these analogues to our experiences. Sometimes we run into
situations where we have no applicable analogues. And in those cases, yes, I
would fully expect the probability of something "off-the-wall" occurring is
fairly high.
[Andre]
I suppose what I am getting at is that a DQ event is one whereby one is
'confronted' with the un-likely within the likely...
[Arlo]
I'm nitpicking, to be sure, but I would say there is no such thing as a "DQ
event". This implies there are non-DQ events. All experiences contain, as I've
been saying, some "chance" that the response will be "new", or not following
some probable path. Even in the most mundane of moments, the most routine of
habits, the most usual of everyday moments, there is a CHANCE that
the response
will be "off the wall", something new, something unforseen and
creatively wild.
One does not need to be in a hurricane for this to occur. It can happen on yet
another drive to work, or sitting on one's porch for the umpteenth
evening in a
row staring at the same trees one has seen since one was a child.
This is what makes Quality such a powerful idea. And why Pirsig's first book
was devoted to "clues" or "ques" one can leverage that may help someone see
something new in the same old things they've been seeing for a while.
And, when seen this way, Quality does not become an "external" manipulator or
external "force" which acts intermittently on some things but not
others (where
Platt's view leads).
When Pirsig said "Quality IS the response of the organism to its environment",
right there he says what I feel is the single most important aspect
of the MOQ.
By saying "the DQ event" or "static biological responses", one makes DQ
external to experience (applicable to some, but not others). It is not.
"Quality IS the response of the organism to its environment". And in that are
the seeds that such a response will be unpredictable (the dynamic
aspect of all
experience), and also that certain responses are highly probable
(what we later
end up calling "static patterns").
At any rate, again, I think we are 99% in accord here. As with
chance, maybe we
use some terminology differently.
[Andre]
I think that when Pirsig says that "These patterns can't by
themselves perceive
or adjust to Dynamic Quality. Only a living being can do that' (Lila, p165) he
suggest the degree to which a living pattern can perceive or adjust depends
upon the level of freedom achieved. An amoeba can't pack its bags and migrate
to the Bahamas/or China. Other animals can only run and hope the fire stops
somewhere, or that there is food somewhere else. Man can fight the
fire/ or the
flood/ or take measures to reduce the impact of an earth quake. Man
grows food,
learns, and has developed a variety of ways to adapt
(biologically,socially and
intellectually) to many different environments and conditions.
[Arlo]
I kept your entire passage here intact, because I think its spot on. I've long
argued that this Pirsig quote is simply Pirsig misspeaking, as everything he
says elsewhere would dispute it. You wisely went back to ZMM to
reform the idea
he was getting at, and I think that is exactly what I've been saying.
ALL "things" respond to DQ, but do so within the "probability field" their
particular repertoire of responses allow. Yes, as one moves up the MOQ levels,
greater and greater repertoires of possibility open up. It is NOT that man
responds to DQ but the amoeba responds to "static biological
quality" (as Platt
suggests), that's outrageous. BOTH respond to DQ but man has a much,
much, much
greater repertoire.
But even the phrase "respond to DQ" annoys me as it too implies an DQ as some
external-to-experience "force" or "entity". To really be precise,
I'd say, both
amoebas and man experience and respond, which IS Dynamic Quality, and their
responses to their environment are shaped by their level of complexity, and
their responses as they attain certain levels of probability become seen to us
(after the fact) as "static patterns" (patterns of preferred responses).
I guess what I am belaboring here is that the power of the MOQ is in keeping
Quality AS experience, not as some outside force or whatever acts on us, or
manipulates us, or orders us, or that we can respond to... and certainly NOT a
force that acts on some things but not others. Quality IS the everyday lived
experience, and ALL those experiences are at the moment Dynamic, all contain
seeds of improbable responses, it is our preferred responses that later get
conceptualized as "static".
As I said, I think we are mostly in agreement here.
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/
