Hi Dave, The Aphorism: One doesn't _have_ static patterns, one _is_ static patterns.
Matt said: I want to deny that we should think about the relationship between the standards and the process on that analogy between static patterns and DQ. I'm not sure yet how best to defend this on Pirsigian grounds, but I take it that by saying our non-Cartesian self _is_ static patterns, one is saying that you do not _have_ standards, but _are_ standards. And if this is the case, what is "in process" other than those static patterns/standards (one's "self")? Because if you _have_ the patterns, then you can make an easy distinction between the process and the standards (and thus begin with the process/DQ and end with standards/patterns). But how one makes the distinction doesn't look clear to me if one subscribes to the aphorism. DMB said: You're only working with the static half of the aphorism and this static side has been flattened or simplified to become simply "static patterns", as opposed to a complex, migrating forest of patterns from the various levels WITH the capacity to respond to DQ. DQ is the other half, of course. If you're going to subscribe to Pirsig's pithy description of the self, I think it's only fair to include the whole idea. Matt: I thought about my lack of inclusion of how DQ fits in the picture as I was finishing the post, but I wasn't sure then (nor now) how exactly its inclusion was going to adversely effect the limited point I was making. (I also am assuming for the sake of time, energy, and space that leaving pieces of a systematic philosophy out is reasonable and expected so long as one doesn't get what one leaves in or out wrong.) In particular, as Dave T. has recently reminded us of, I'm not sure why Pirsig's late-stage formulation of DQ as the background isn't easily incorporated into the picture I gave. For example, say we use the analogy of DQ with a blank piece of paper: it seems to reinforce the point I'm making that it is a misnomer to say there's a process going on before there are words (static patterns) on the page. Say, however, one pursues the analogy and replies, "what about the thinking that goes into the first word written?" Even here, it seems equally valid to say that thinking is done with (is made of?) static patterns (with a reminder of Pirsig's definition of the intellectual level in Paul Turner's letter). "What about before the thinking?" This seems to me a more appropriate response--the staring at the blank canvass that scares so many with the endless possibilities. DQ, on this picture, is what happens before one is kicked into the motion that is the process. (It's fair to say here, I think, that the words don't _begin_ the process, the blank page does, but what kind of beginning that is I would like to move further toward.) I think it is further illustrative of my point to consider, along the lines of the DQ-as-blank-page analogy, what Pirsig suggests to the girl in his composition class in ZMM: "start with the upper left-hand brick." (Ch. 16) His point, as to the girl, is that the background whole of reality is too big to start with--you start with a little chunk: a static pattern. That begins _the process_, from which one can expand in any direction to include as much as one wants. And it happens _on_ the page and always in relationship to it. But to say, as you were, that one begins with DQ/process and then moves to static-pattern/standards seems to me to misunderstand the nature of the process. As you say, "the question of WHAT you ARE and the question of HOW you should ACT are two different questions." I agree for the most part, but I hope this makes more sense of why I wish to reformulate your practical answer of where to start the creative process by reflecting on the theoretical question of what the creative process is. Matt 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
