Hello everyone On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 8:15 AM, David Harding <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Dan, > > Sorry for the late response. I clearly haven't mastered the art of MD > posting..
Dan: No worries. Good to see your reply! >> >> Dan: >> Sure. We can also say that the city of San Fransisco experienced an >> earthquake and everyone knows what we mean. And I have no real problem >> saying we experience static patterns of quality either. It isn't wrong >> to say so. Sometimes, though, it is better to be precise, especially in >> this discussion group. > > Yes - indeed. > >>> Yes, it is. Well put. And that's why I say it is a matter of emphasis >>> depending on the situation as to what we treat as primary - static quality >>> or Dynamic Quality. Certainly, Dynamic Quality is fundamental. And >>> certainly, static quality is an attempted 'representation' of Dynamic >>> Quality. But by being a 'representation' and manipulating it as such, we >>> are treating it as if it exists.. >> >> Dan: >> Knowing it is a representation and treating it as it really exists is >> different from actually believing the representation exists. No one >> has ever seen the light of the world. We understand that light as a >> representation formed in our brains. > > Yes, belief is different from experience. The MOQ, as it is a good > Metaphysics, does away with a need for 'belief'. We experience the > representations and then we explain them, as best we can, using intellectual > representations. You don't need to 'believe' those representations exist, > you just value them and they exist. In fact, value creates their existence. > There's no 'belief' necessary. In SOM, belief and truth go hand in hand.. > You need to 'believe' something to be true because 'who really know's what's > true?' When value is placed as primary that whole belief problem disappears. > But I'm not arguing that we ought to believe they exist. I'm saying that we > treat these things as if they exist because it is valuable to do so. So > because it is valuable to treat these things as if they exist - we give them > names such as inorganic patterns of value and we say that we have experienced > them. Dan: I have no argument with this. > >> What are researchers measuring when they measure the speed of light? >> Are they measuring the speed of a real beam of light? Or are they >> measuring our representation of a beam of light? > > The researchers are measuring the inorganic patterns of light. They > interpret those measurements intellectually by firstly claiming there is a > thing such an inorganic pattern of light which they measure. It is static > value which creates the existence of static patterns. Dan: I think it might be better to say (in the MOQ) that it is Dynamic Quality (experience) that creates and leaves in 'its' wake static quality patterns. Ideas arise from experience; matter (inorganic patterns) arises from ideas (intellectual patterns). Now, if the researchers were using the MOQ as a metaphysical framework I might partially agree. I find this annotation from Lila's Child quite interesting. Please see what you make of it: Annotation 102. I see today more clearly than when I wrote the SODV paper that the key to integrating the MOQ with science is through philosophic idealism, which says that objects grow out of ideas, not the other way around. Since at the most primary level the observed and the observer are both intellectual assumptions, the paradoxes of quantum theory have to be conflicts of intellectual assumption, not just conflicts of what is observed. Except in the case of Dynamic Quality, what is observed always involves an interaction with ideas that have been previously assumed. So the problem is not, “How can observed nature be so screwy?” but can also be, “What is wrong with our most primitive assumptions that our set of ideas called ‘nature’ are turning out to be this screwy?” Getting back to physics, this question becomes, “Why should we assume that the slit experiment should perform differently than it does?” I think that if researched it would be found that buried in the data of the slit experiment is an assumption that light exists and follows consistent laws independently of any human experience. If so, the MOQ would say that although in the past this seems to have been the highest quality assumption one can make about light, there may be a higher quality one that contradicts it. This is pretty much what the physicists are saying but the MOQ provides a sound metaphysical structure within which they can say it. [Robert Pirsig, Lila's Child] Dan comments: So if a higher quality assumption is contrary to inorganic patterns known as light existing independently of experience, what are the researchers measuring who are measuring the speed of light? Are they measuring light or a representation of light? Are they not working with an underlying assumption that light exists independently of experience? > >>>> David H: >>>> I the cause is the growing of static quality over time which >>>> strangles the Dynamic Quality that is there all along.. I still think >>>> the MOQ explains this in a beautiful metaphysical way like I have >>>> never seen before. The way to 'kill' those static patterns which >>>> strangle the static quality over time is to master them, and they're >>>> gone.. >>>> >>>> Dan: >>>> I would say that by opening ourselves up to experience, or Dynamic >>>> Quality, we come to see that the symbols we take for experience are >>>> just that. >>> >>> I agree. At any moment, at any time, one can open up to experience and see >>> that the symbols we use for experience are just that. But once we have >>> woken up, what then? >> >> Dan: >> We do what needs to be done. :) > > Mmmm. What about we apply the experience of DQ back to our everyday life. Dan: Experience and Dynamic Quality are seen as synonymous in the MOQ. But we tend to bury the newness of experience under the static quality patterns we have grown used to and assume them to be our reality. By waking up to the moment we do what needs to be done with the fullness of our attention without thinking about what we will be doing next or what we will be having for dinner later. There is nothing to apply back to our everyday life. We are experience. > >>> No. That there is no chance to be better does not immediately imply that >>> stagnation has set in... >> >> Dan: >> If something cannot be better it implies (to me) that it is exclusively >> static. > > I agree. Static quality (without DQ) does not get better. But, it is Only > static quality which can get better (as a result of responding to DQ). This > is the key to our disagreement. The answer, I think, lies here. Can DQ get > better? I think the answer to this rhetorical question is obvious. DQ is not > any thing so it cannot get any better. This is why I say that once sq is > mastered it no longer exists. Because if you have mastered something, how can > you get any better at it? This is what you ask me and I agree with your point > that you cannot get any better after you have mastered something. I seem to > be saying that once something is mastered that's it for all time, for ever > and ever. (how depressing). But of course, we both know, that's not how it > works. No matter how 'enlightened' one may be, one cannot help but do things > and act in a certain way and VALUE things. This is unavoidable. Static > quality is unavoidable. Static quality will always ruin our Zen no matter how > enlightened and in line with DQ we may be.. Dan: So you are saying there is no enlightenment, or at least that's what it seems. > >>> David H: >>> To start with, what is this drive to be better, to become better? Where >>> does it come from? People naturally, without even intentionally saying >>> they do, experience quality, know what it is, and become better people. >>> Why is that? >> >> Dan: >> I tend to disagree. Some people may better themselves at the expense >> of others. Does that make them better people? Some people may better >> themselves by ignoring their family and devoting all their time to >> their career. Does that make them better people? Some people may >> better themselves by sticking their noses in other people's affairs >> and meddling where they are not wanted. Does that make them better >> people? >> >> I don't mean to say people are naturally nasty and brutish, however. >> Most of us like to think of ourselves as enlightening beings who >> wouldn't hesitate to help others who are down on their luck. >> >> Don't know if you read my tweet about the study done in New York >> concerning panhandlers: >> >> http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/06/do-you-give-money-panhandlers >> >> It's interesting that nearly everyone asked said they did. The author >> surmises: panhandlers would all have houses in the suburbs and buskers >> would all be millionaires if everyone here were telling the truth. > > Yes, I don't deny people can be bad. Of course they can. Of course people > make mistakes. Of course people still mostly just look out for themselves. > But if you look out at the history of the world, things have gotten better. > But this is not really vital to my point and was a rhetorical question so I'm > happy to leave it at that.. Dan: I wonder though just what it is that has gotten better in the history of the world? Our oceans are dying. We are at present experiencing one of the greatest mass extinction events in the history of the world. We are consuming far more resources than are sustainable leaving our descendants to do without commodities we all take for granted... peanut butter, honey, chocolate, fresh fruit and vegetables, sea food... these might all vanish except for the very wealthy able to afford such 'luxuries.' I suspect (due to our 'success' as a species) we are kicking the biological rungs out of the ladder of evolution and without that stable support the upper levels will collapse. I guess I don't share your optimism that things have gotten better. I think that is an illusion we tell ourselves to rationalize the destruction we have wrought. > >> >> David H: >> I think it is because people, like all things, are static quality. It >> is only static quality which can get better. Any and all static >> quality can always be better. >> >> Dan: >> I unsure if I agree. >> >> "Static quality patterns are dead when they are exclusive, when they >> demand blind obedience and suppress Dynamic change." [Lila] >> >> If we feel we've mastered something, that it is perfect, then we >> inadvertently suppress any Dynamic response to change... to become >> better. How can one improve on perfection? If something is perfect, >> doesn't it demand blind obedience? > > Yes, this relates to what I said above where static quality (without DQ) does > not get any better. But I still maintain that it is only static quality > which can better. Any static quality you can think of can get better. That > is the nature of static quality. Static quality is pain. To put it in > Buddhist terms, static quality is suffering. We treat static quality as if > it is reality and it isn't and this brings us suffering. > But without that suffering, things don't get better. We need static quality > to make those latches. Once those latches exist we need to suffer with them > by mastering them, to break them up and reveal the DQ which is there all > along. This is not blind obedience. There, hidden in the most ritualistic > static quality, the Dynamic Quality (and freedom) lies. > > As Pirsig writes in Lila: > > "You free yourself from static patterns by putting them to sleep. That is, > you master them with such proficiency that they become an unconscious part of > your nature. You get so used to them you completely forget them and they are > gone. There in the centre of the most monotonous boredom of static > ritualistic patterns the Dynamic freedom is found." Dan: Yes I think we've been over this before. He is speaking here of the ritualistic nature of zen monasteries and I have no disagreement with this passage. However, I don't think he means we have to forget everything to master something. And it is a bit of a misnomer to think of static quality as suffering. If not for suffering there would be no reason to improve one's lot. Good food, good drink, these are high quality patterns that do not entail suffering. A safe place to live, enough money to provide for one's family, these are high quality patterns as well. I would say suffering is a kind of response to Dynamic Quality. Without suffering there would be no reason to better our lot. > >> >> David H. >> You can always think of a way some such a static quality can be >> better. But alternatively, can Dynamic Quality get any better? That's >> like a Zen Koan, but being that it isn't any thing, >> >> Dan: >> Dynamic Quality isn't any 'thing' but it does exist. > > Yes, exactly, and so does static quality. :-) Dan: Okay... but isn't it better to think of Dynamic Quality as not this, not that? We understand static quality by what it is. We understand Dynamic Quality by what it is not. So to ask if Dynamic Quality can get better is to assume it is some 'thing' that we can fully define. 'It' is not. But 'it' exists nevertheless. > >> >> David H: >> it can't get any better because it is undefined betterness itself. If >> that's the case - is Dynamic Quality then stagnation? Of course it >> isn't. This is my point. >> >> >> David H: >> My point is that the way we get better is through mastery of some such >> a static quality. Once this static quality is mastered, there is >> nothing left but an unfolding of doing. Of course, over time, some >> such a static quality will reveal its head once again and this static >> quality will be there to be mastered, and so this process goes on and >> on.. life. >> >> Dan: >> Perhaps we are saying the same thing only in different ways. > > I think we certainly see things very similarly. But I think there is great > value in saying that enlightenment exists and that it can be achieved through > the mastery of static quality. The MOQ shows beautifully metaphysically how > static quality and Dynamic Quality can live harmoniously together.. Dan: There is also great value in assuming that light exists and can be measured independently of the observer. But there may be a higher quality assumption that contradicts it. If a person finds value in saying enlightenment exists, that is a high quality assumption. But there may be a higher quality assumption that contradicts it. > > >> Dan: >> I would say static quality is never gone. If we seek after >> enlightenment we will only draw farther away from the path even as we >> walk upon it. When we see 'it' for what it is we no longer waste our >> time. > > If static quality is never gone, what then is Dynamic Quality? Do you know? > Even by static quality - logical terms you cannot argue that you know what > Dynamic Quality is if there is always static quality. Dan: In the MOQ Dynamic Quality is seen as synonymous with experience. We define 'it' all the time. It is right here! But when it is defined we lose 'it.' We are left with static quality definitions. Intellect demands definitions. We can't help it. But those intellectual patterns of quality take us away from experience. They do not bring us closer. There are different ways of knowing in the MOQ. Logic resides in intellectual patterns, not Dynamic understanding. Logic comes later. Still, without static quality we cease to exist. We need both to survive and thrive. > > > Seems like, even though I think we both agree that we see things very similar > when it comes to the MOQ - I think there are important differences that I'm > enjoying discussing with you.. Dan: It is my pleasure. Thank you, David. Dan http://www.danglover.com 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
