Andre: I am mere adhering to Pirsig's own division of Quality here (Lila, p119): DQ/SQ. Are you suggesting that Pirsig hasn't written his own MoQ properly?
[Krimel] I think Pirsig is vague on this point and this has led to different interpretations. Andre: There is nothing vague about this. How can I (rather Pirsig) remove Quality from the MoQ by 'dividing Quality into DQ/SQ?? i.e as the basic division of his emerging MoQ? (Lila p 119). SQ swims in the river called DQ. SQ is immersed in DQ as little patterned revelations of Quality. One cannot remove Quality from this, not even with the biggest front-end loader in the world. 'Dust in the wind' as the song goes and all static patterns of quality are the dust and the wind is DQ. [Krimel] But the view you are espousing is the DQ and Quality are identical. And yet you talk about it as though DQ is indeed recognizable and definable. It is a "the river" it is "the wind". It is the active/dynamic (Yang) pole of the static dynamic continuum. Andre: 'Dynamic Quality is the pre-intellectual cutting edge of reality, the source of all things, completely simple and always new....It contains no pattern of fixed rewards or punishments. Its only perceived good is freedom and its only perceived evil is staic quality itself- any pattern of one-sided fixed values that tries to contain and kill the ongoing free force of life.(op cit.). [Krimel] This is close to James' view that perception is the continuous, ever changing stream of experience. Conceptualization is the process of breaking the continuum into discrete units of thought. I do tend to disagree to an extent here because I think perception is built from sensations. But the idea remains that concepts, static patterns of thought arise from and depend upon the dynamic stream of perceptual experience. And as I have said many times, I think it is a mistake to regard the pre-intellectual as good, as freedom. I certainly do not think the static quality is evil. In fact quite often dynamic is evil and static is the ultimate good. If you reflect on this for very long I think you will see I am right about this. [Andre] DQ is... . There is no good or bad. If only living 'things' can respond to DQ the resultant action is no reflection, nor responsibility on or of the nature or quality of DQ. What static patterns 'do' with DQ is their responsibility. [Krimel] One can also say the SQ is... there is no good or bad. What living things do in response to DQ is also their responsibility. Living things take advantage of recursion and feedback loops. They preserve remnants of the past that effect how they respond in the present and the future. They are changed by their experiences. It is this process of learning that allows living things to construct meaning which is reduction in uncertainty. [Andre] I have said in an earlier post that some social static patterns have much to gain by (ab)using DQ to further their own interests. It is an area which Pirsig designated as the Giant...an economic/socio/ political/ philosophical/religious 'force' that has everything to gain by keeping things as they are. Ultimately Pirsig couldn't say much about it as these are forces playing at the social/intellectual intersection which are in continuous battle with eachother. The rust belt. [Krimel] Here you fall into Bo's trap of talking in terms of anthropomorphized levels. They are not in conflict with one another. Each successive dynamic level arises as a direct result of and depends utterly upon stasis in the level below it. [Andre] My humble opinion is that the intellectual level is still too much divided. It doesn't know itself very well, it tries to please its parent and grand-parent and in this compromise leaves most ordinary people bewildered and lost.And thereby pissed off and tending towards slightly more clear (and extreme) forms of 'guidance'. A return to tradition and what is known ( or remembered)...hence static patterns of (bygone) quality. [Krimel] As I understand it, the intellectual level is the aggregation of mental tools that have evolved over the course of human history. It is the collection of knowledge, lore and skills that every human being has access to. It is the most dynamic of Pirsig's levels because it changes most rapidly. What makes the present era SO dynamic is that we have created intellectual level tools that give all of us instant access to just about every bit of knowledge acquired by mankind over the past 12,000 years. This is an unprecedented expansion of human consciousness. It is the very dynamic quality of this expansion of consciousness that threatens the stability of society and biology and in fact the inorganic level as well. 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/
