Hello everyone On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 9:57 AM, Matt Kundert <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hey Dan, > > Matt said: > You go on to say that you think "Dynamic Quality comes before the > coin" of better/worse in the MoQ. I still don't think that is a correct > apprehension of how Pirsig describes the MoQ. But as this is an > issue of scholarship, the task of amassing evidence and > counter-evidence is yet the task not done. > > Dan said: > It seems apparent (to me) that RMP equates Dynamic Quality with > pre-intellectual experience. I take the prefix "pre" to mean before. > That's why I said Dynamic Quality comes before the coin. > Intellectually, we decide what's better or worse, after the Dynamic > moment has passed. > > Matt: > Yes, DQ is pre-intellectual experience. And I took it that Pirsig was > saying that evaluative responses were our root experiences, and > therefore pre-intellectual in nature, which means low/high > evaluations are pre-intellectual though the _words_ "low" and "high" > come later.
Dan: Yes we are in agreement. > > Dan said: > If Dynamic Quality is seen as synonymous with experience, then I am > not so sure that there is a longitudinal evolutionary history outside a > personal history. In ZMM RMP talks about the law of gravity and how > it did not exist before Newton "discovered" it. What he seems to be > saying is that the law of gravity (personal history) and gravity > (longitudinal evolutionary history) are one and the same. In fact, > when I asked him about this in LILA'S CHILD he responded along the > lines of: How could they not be the same? So I will leave you with > the same question... > > Matt: > The trouble with this line of thought is that in Lila, Pirsig will talk > about how some intellectual patterns are of high value (like > distinguishing between subjects and objects was for a time, and still > can be). Dan: Right... for example... the idea that matter comes before ideas is a high value idea. But in the MOQ, ideas come before matter. I understand this may trouble some people... I know several members on this list got downright angry with me when I brought it up in the past. Matt: > I think the endgame of the ZMM ghosts passage is more > complex than you're allowing here, Dan: Definitely... but in order to build to that complexity it seems better (in my mind) to begin simple. I believe simplicity is a hallmark of beauty and perhaps an indicator of Dynamic Quality in action. Matt: > because I think Pirsig in the end > would argue that while it is silly to think that gravity existed before > Newton made it up--because intellectual patterns are incumbent > upon people making them up--on the other hand it is internal to the > correct functioning of that intellectual pattern that it be true for all > previous time, in the past. Not all intellectual patterns have this > flavor, but a lot of the one's out of the natural sciences do. Dan: I would suggest that it is assumed intellectual patterns have been as true in the past as they are now. There is no way to prove that, however. For example, there are a number of different theories today pertaining to gravity and at least one of those theories espouses the notion that gravity has changed over time. Matt: > (Principally, I think, because a lot of the stuff in "nature" was around > before we personally were.) Dan: Now, I see that as a problematic statement. While I think it is a high value idea that lots of stuff in nature was around before we personally showed up how do we know that with any certainty? Isn't this idea a culmination of social and intellectual patterns informing us as to the nature of the world we inhabit? >Matt: > So how could evolutionary history not be the same as personal > history? Two distinct reasons. 1) one should make a distinction > between "persons" and "not persons": rocks have histories, too, > which means that though persons write the rocks' histories, persons > should make a distinction between their own history and rocks' > histories. Dan: Since the MOQ states that ideas come before matter, then it is our ideas about the histories of rocks that take precedent over rocks themselves. That is (what I took to be) the point in ZMM about the laws of physics and the number system being seen as ghosts. The history of rocks exists as an idea in our heads. There are many people walking around today who are convinced that the earth was created just a few thousand years ago. For them, that is a high quality idea. And it cannot be scientifically refuted. Sure, a scientist can carbon-date a rock as billions of years old but a creationist will say what if the rate of radioactive decay was different before we discovered it? And what if it was? Who can say with any certainty? The point is, creationists will write the history of rocks much differently than a person who believes in the theory of evolution might write it. There is no one history of rocks that is any more true than another. It is all subject to speculation and implicit assumptions. Like the laws of physics, history exists in our heads, and like gravity it came into being when we discovered it. Matt: > 2) one should make a distinction between one's "I" and > everyone else's "I," with the recognition that a lot of previous, > now-dead I's have been around. The point here is that the current > crop of I's we see walking around are the inheritors of the evolving > intellectual patterns created by people like Newton. So we should > make a distinction between _my_ personal history (born in > Wisconsin, 1980, etc., etc.) and the histories of _groups_ of > persons that extend beyond the range of a single person's lifespan > (like the US, born in Pennsylvania, 1776, etc., etc.). Dan: I think that the MOQ views those histories as the same. What we as living beings have inherited is the culture in which we are born and which informs us as to the nature of the world. If for example I had been born in a South American rain forest to a tribe of Indians who had never had contact with the Western culture, I imagine my ideas of the world would be quite different. I would still be informed by ideas that I inherited from those who came before me, however. I take those inherited ideas and make them part of who I am as a person. I may not realize that it is happening but over the years I am gradually indoctrinated and educated into believing there exists a separate and distinct history of the world quite apart from my own personal history. It makes sense. It is a high value idea to be sure. But still, it is an idea. >Matt: > My "shoulds" denote that I think these are high quality static > intellectual patterns. We can, for example, blur the distinction > between persons and not-persons, and between personal-history and > group-history. Good insights have come from so doing (as Pirsig did > in the ghosts passage). But I think the outcome is often a better > understanding of relevant differences, not the obliteration of the > distinctions. For if "the law of gravity (personal history) and gravity > (longitudinal evolutionary history) are one and the same," then why > didn't gravity die with Newton? Because of his ghost, right? Dan: Ideas don't die in the same way biological patterns die. They operate on different evolutionary levels. It isn't "his" ghost... what RMP seems to be getting at is that all the laws of physics are ghosts. These ghosts are what inform us on the nature of what and who came before. Now it is our turn... when we die, the patterns we leave behind will inform our ancestors on the nature of their world. Matt: > Well, > there you have the distinction: group-history as ghost-history. Our > ghost-histories aren't our own first-personal experiential-DQ, they > are what we drag with us from past first-persons' experiential-DQs. > That's why I made the distinction between experiential-DQ and > evolutionary-DQ. I want to find just the right way of putting their > relationship. Dan: I appreciate that. I believe the MOQ says that the relationship exists in our heads though, not out there in the world apart from us. So I am unsure there is a right way of distinguishing between them. Thank you, 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
