Hey, David --
On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 7:55 AM, "David Harding" <[email protected]>
wrote:
Does a Pirsig quote trump an Anthony McWatt one?
"Unfortunately 'static' and 'Dynamic' have a meaning in physics
that refers to space and time and motion and this can be confused
with the static and Dynamic of the MOQ" - Lila's Child.
[Ham]:
The ancients weren't talking about "quality"; they were describing
an immutable deity. Since empirical reality is "defined", perhaps
"undefined" would be a more suitable label for what Pirsig
confusingly calls "Dynamic Quality".
I think you may have an argument here but I'm yet to be sold.
Well, then, let me try to sell it to you. ...
The transitional world we live in is differentiated into solids, liquids and
gases; animals, vegetables and minerals; and a multiplicity of objects, all
of which can be defined and described. We call this our "reality" and Mr.
Pirsig calls it a "subject-object metaphysics". But, to borrow from Hegel,
it's really a world of "appearances". Underlying these appearances is a
fundamental Reality that is uncreated, undifferentiated, and unchanging.
Those who do not acknowledge fundamental Reality consider it "nothingness".
Those who view it as the cause of experiential reality are either
pantheists, subjectivists, or mystics. I would put Pirsig in this category.
He defines everything--including the conscious self--as a "pattern of
quality", but because he can't define the fundamental source of this
quality, he names it Dynamic Quality. By patternizing the experiential
world the MoQ does away with subjects and objects, but not the space/time
dimensionality of the physical universe.
Why not simply call the two modes of reality "defined" and "undefined"?
You quote the author as saying "the term dynamic in 'Dynamic Quality' can be
confused with 'movement' but that is not what Dynamic Quality is. Dynamic
Quality isn't anything at all, including movement." I understand that
Dynamic Quality isn't an entity or "thing" in the experiential sense.
However, the word dynamic relates to "dynamics" which is an active process,
or (as Webster's Dictionary states), "marked by continuous, usually
productive activity or change." Thus, I submit that Pirsig positied his
"fundamental Quality" as Dynamic to allow for its supposed evolution to
"betterness".
But why must the fundamental Reality be a "process"? Religion didn't
conceive God as a process, nor did the theologists of Greek philosophy. If
the nature of the Creator is Oneness, it logically transcends all
conditional attributes, including movement and change.
This is why I subscribe to the ontogeny of an "undefined absolute". I have
named it 'Essence' because it is "essential" for anything to be, and because
Essence means "the permanent as contrasted with the accidental element of
being - the real or ultimate nature of a thing as opposed to its existence."
Cusa posited 'not-other' as the coincidence of all otherness, including
nothingness and contrariety. He reasoned that if actuality did not exist,
then nothing could actually be. But "things appear"; therefore actuality
exists. Possibility and actuality are co-dependent in existence but
coincide in the non-contradictory Source -ultimate reality in which
opposites like 'positive/negative' and 'being/nothing' are equivalent. If
the possibility of contradictory otherness is always present in Essence and
becomes actualized when there is an awareness to experience it, then it is
this actualization that we call existence.
How does the aesthetic property called Quality, whether static or dynamic,
create existence? Or does Mr. Pirsig consider ontogeny inexplicable?
Thanks for this opportunity to present my argument, David.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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
