"Lila is composed of static patterns of value and these patterns are evolving
toward a Dynamic Quality. ...She's on her way somewhere like everybody else.
And you can't say where that somewhere is. ...'All life is a migration of
static patterns of quality toward Dynamic Quality." (Lila 139)
"Without DQ the organism cannot grow. Without static quality the organism
cannot last. Both are needed." (Lila 147)
"If you compare the levels of static patterns that compose a human being to the
ecology of a forest, and if you see the different patterns sometimes in
competition with each other, sometimes in symbiotic support of each other, but
always in a kind of tension that will shift one way or the other, depending on
evolving circumstances, then you can also see that evolution doesn't take place
only within societies, it takes place within individuals too. It's possible to
see Lila as something much greater than a customary sociological or
anthropological description would have her be. Lila then becomes a complex
ecology of patterns moving toward Dynamic Quality. Lila individually, herself,
is in an evolutionary battle against the static patterns of her own life."
(Lila 360)
"The MOQ, as I understand it, denies any existence of a “self” that is
independent of inorganic, biological, social or intellectual patterns. There is
no “self” that contains these patterns. These patterns contain the self."
(Pirsig in Lila's Child)
dmb says:
As I read it, the MOQ does not simply reject the existence of the self but it
does reject the traditional conception of the independent or autonomous self,
the self as a starting point in reality, as its own ontological category. And
yet individuals, like Lila and everybody else, are involved in an evolutionary
struggle. The static patterns of which we are composed exist in a hierarchy of
values and so this evolutionary struggle toward DQ is fundamentally about moral
growth. Betterness drives this game and betterness is relational because one (a
person or a nation) can only improve (or degenerate) in relation to the present
status. To claim that there simply is no such thing as self is to evacuate the
MOQ of all its moral content, which is pretty much the whole thing.
> Horse had said:
>
> Wouldn't it be better to define self, as distinct from other, from within
> different frameworks?
> In a subject/object framework you have definitions based upon either a
> subjective or objective point of view and from within a MoQ framework you
> have static patterns emerging in response to Dynamic Quality.
> Neither is 'correct' as they are dependent upon the overall framework
> currently employed. Trying to shoe-horn one set of patterns into the other
> framework results in confusion.
> The beauty of the MoQ lies in the dispensing of subjects and objects, in
> favour of an emergent self as a response to Dynamic Quality. Reflection upon
> 'Self' becomes an Intellectual pattern. The intellectual pattern of self
> responds to Dynamic Quality which creates a new intellectual pattern -
> distinct from, but related to, the prior pattern.
>
> Ron replies:
> I think that is well put. The point being made is that if one is defining a
> "self" then it stands to reason that
> THAT self exists in some capacity, thus allowing for the capacity to
> critically reflect apon our actions
> and concepts that drive those acts.
> The concept of "no-self" or to stand on the statement that the "truth" of the
> matter is that there is no
> "self" has far reaching philosophical consequences much in the same way as
> the position of asserting
> that there is no truth or truth does not exist.
> In RMP's Lila, the Richard Rigel "sermon" is just that type of reactionary
> response that Pirsig was
> attempting to address. Rigel was accusing the captain of promoting relativism
> and Pirsig needed to
> clarify his position, not only in response to the accusation but also those
> who took him as promoting
> relativism and championing him for it.
>
> The irony is that those who typically champion RMP as a relativist and
> Pyrrhonist were also championing
> critical thinking without seeing the difficulty of pairing those two ideas as
> highly incompatable with the
> act of critical thinking.
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