Hello everyone On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 9:29 AM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote: > > Dan said: > > I like this quote: > >> "Lila is composed of static patterns of value and these patterns are >> evolving toward a Dynamic Quality. That's the theory, anyway. She's on >> her way somewhere, just like everybody else. And you can't say where >> that somewhere is." [LILA Chapter 11] > > > To paraphrase: The universe is evolving towards Dynamic Quality. It is on > its way somewhere but we cannot say where that somewhere is. How can choices > be made when there is no way of knowing where evolution is taking us? > > dmb says: > > Good question. Pirsig and James both give the same answer and it's a pretty > good one, I think. "We live as it were upon the front edge of an advancing > wave-crest, and our sense of determinate direction in falling forward is all > we cover of the future of our path," James says, "life is in the > transitions". (449-50 in Richardson's biography of James) This reminds me of > Pirsig's train analogy, wherein he says, "The leading edge is where > absolutely all the action is. The leading edge contains all the infinite > possibilities of the future. It contains all the history of the past. Where > else could they be contained?" (ZAMM 283) "Reality is always the moment of > vision BEFORE the intellectualization takes place. THERE IS NO OTHER REALITY. > This pre-intellectual reality is what Phaedrus felt he had properly > identified as Quality." (ZAMM 247) It also reminds me of Pirsig invocation of > Whitehead saying that we are led forward by a dim apprehension of we know not > what. > > > I think the idea is that DQ can only exert a push or a pull in a certain > direction, toward betterness, but you can never say in advance where this > will lead. There is no program controlling it, no end plan, no specific goal > toward which we are headed. And yet the present moment, as the cutting edge > of experience, grows out of the past and leans into the future, it's the > Dynamic transitional moment between our static memories and static plans. > Consciousness itself is just a name for a series of experiences all knit > together by this transitional cutting edge in a seamless stream of experience. > Think about what that conceptualization would mean in terms of art, in the > context of painting a picture or fixing a motorcycle. When Pirsig says that > following Quality is what gets you unstuck or, more positively, when Quality > leads you through that project, I think he is talking about riding the wave > life a surfer or riding the wind like a sailor. It's way too rich and complex > to formulate any set of procedures or to be taught through verbal > instructions. Riding this edge is more like a combination of skill and > sensitivity, a matter of active engagement in the moment. It also helps to > have good wax for your surfboard, good brushes for your paint and the quality > of our verbal and conceptual tools is important when you're trying to hang on > to the dynamic leading edge of thought itself.
Hi David Yes I like that, especially the part about life being in the transitions. There is no school, no lesson to be taught. Yet it pays dividends to study our predecessors and how and what they thought, spoke, and acted in certain situations, so as we don't have to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. Still, to follow Dynamic Quality (freedom) is to leave all that behind. My son sent me a movie that I liked a lot called "A Beautiful Mind" with Russell Crowe playing the lead. It chronicles the life of the mathematician John Nash. When he went to college, he refused to attend classes. His thinking was that by attending classes original thought processes would be stifled. Despite the heckling of fellow students and even professors, he managed to produce a work of startling originality. But it was clear that he didn't know what he was doing. He really had no idea where his path was leading. It was all a spur of the moment happening, a kind of surprise. Living on the edge of Dynamic Quality is like that. Static quality seduces us into a comfort zone of knowing. Generally, life is planned out in minute detail, with no opening for Dynamic Quality to leak into. The few surprises that come along are easily explained away as inconsequential and meaningless. Yet living on the edge like that, like John Nash, leads to peril. We need anchors in our lives. Something to hold onto... otherwise we lose touch with the static quality reality that holds our world together. I think it is safe to say that Quality is not just a matter of freedom, or free will. It is a combination of both the determined and the undetermined. Both are needed. Thank you for your thoughts, Dan 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/md/archives.html
