Marsah V wrote to Dave Buchanan February 20th 2013:
Along with some similarities between the MoQ and W. James' Pragmatism, RMP has
pointed to similarities between the MoQ and Buddhism, and RMP is considered a
Process philosopher, along with Charles Peirce and Alfred North Whitehead.
Look up the word 'process'.
Ant McWatt comments:
Well, these kind of comparisons of the MOQ with process philosophy, Buddhism,
pragmatism etc is all very useful for talking to academic philosophologists
but, on reflection, I wouldn't push these comparisons too far. The MOQ is it's
own thing. These type of comparisons put limits to it which, to borrow a
phrase of Wittgenstein's, are ladders that should be thrown away once the MOQ
is understood (or at least just used/perceived as the "rough" maps/pointers
that they are). I'm quite aware of what Pirsig wrote in LILA about the MOQ and
pragmatism and the statement near the beginning of my PhD of the MOQ being some
sort of Western form of Buddhism.
This is coming back to a recent Discuss post where Ham Priday complains that
Dynamic Quality is left undefined. Now, one of the reasons that it's important
to do this is so DQ/the "indeterminate aesthetic continuum"/God?/the "Tao" is
kept out of the cultural context of any given era. People always want to label
things, put a handle them, understand them in terms of their own everyday life.
Firstly, such definitions - by their own nature - warp and leave out certain
aspects of DQ. Secondly, as Pirsig notes in LILA, the reason that traditional
religion has become less relevant and useful, is that its relatively static
social traditions and institutions are strangling the Dynamic Quality which
initially guided and established them. The dogma and ceremonies are analogous
to the dirt and pollution which hide and slowly destroy statues on the outside
of a cathedral.
On February 20th 2013, David Buchanan wrote:
> Here is Marsha's (incorrect and incoherent) definition/explanation of static
> patterns of value:
>
>
> Static patterns of value are repetitive processes, conditionally
> co-dependent, impermanent and ever-changing...
Ant McWatt comments:
No, not in LILA they're don't. In the MOQ of LILA, static patterns don't
change.
This "world of Buddhas" (AND THE PHRASE ENDS with an "s" Marsha and Dan!!!)
viewpoint was largely introduced in the PhD largely for the benefit of the
philosophologists. For practical purposes, for maintaining your motorcycle,
for improving your writing or whatever, I don't think it's of much use. It
certainly has confused things round here. This is why I said at the beginning
of the thread, that its use should be qualified. If you look at how Pirsig's
uses this viewpoint (certainly with my correspondence) it's relatively rare use
is always qualified. Things are kept clear by Pirsig (which, is so important
with understanding a whole new metaphysics).
Getting back to the correspondence, Pirsig suggested (I think it was in May
1997 - either way, this is in the Letters PDF) that the term "patterned" and
"unpatterned" would work nearly just as well as the "static-Dynamic" split of
the MOQ that Pirsig finally decided to use. As we can see by reading Pirsig's
original letter he makes reference to Dainin Kategiri Roshi (the Zen master at
Minneapolis Zen Center during the 1970s) and the latter's saying that "in
nothingness [i.e. DQ], there is a great working". In other words,
"Unpatterned" implies nothing is going on while, in fact, the whole universe is
being generated and regenerated every moment!
To be put it in other words, no term is going to be perfect. The word "static"
has these Newtonian connotations; the word "unpatterned" implies nothing is
going on. (It's analogous to the labelling of light as wave-particles; it's
not a perfect description but it such a description lends a clue to the dual
nature of light's behaviour).
Best wishes,
Ant
.
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