Krimel said:
Find me somewhere where Pirsig talks about the downside of DQ. Not just the,
"oh my, we need a little SQ to retain some balance." I mean find an instance
where he shows an appreciation for how devastating the flip side of DQ is.
OR
Show me something, anything, a single instance of something that is SQless or
DQless.
OR
If SQ and DQ are incommensurables how is it, that in experience they are so
entwined? How is one to distinguish them?
Arlo replied to Krimel's first question (about the downside of DQ):
I think there is a misunderstand here. My guess is you're talking about things
like hurricanes, and meteors, and cancer, and ice ages, and wars, and famine,
and the 'fact' that one the entire cosmos will collapse back into a singularity
and all these static patterns will be 'erased', and and stuff like this? Or,
if I am wrong, can you list out some examples of what you consider to be
evidence or illustrative of the "downside of DQ"?
dmb says:
Yea, I don't know what Krimel is asking or why he's asking it. Is the "downside
of DQ" relevant to the MOQ's rejection of SOM? Or what? If DQ is pre-conceptual
experience, in what sense could it be "devastating" on the flip side? I
honestly don't know what you're talking about here, Krimel.
I also don't understand the second question, Krimel, wherein you demand an
example of perfect purity. Why? Who ever said that either side could be or
should be so pure. Are you taking this from James's term for DQ, from his "pure
experience"? If so, that is an excessively literalistic misreading of James.
His term simply refers to experience prior to conceptualization, it is pure in
the sense of being as yet undivided and unsorted into words and concepts. As I
understand it, these two elements are always intimately related. DQ is the
source and substance of the sq and the sq is good only insofar as it functions
in relation to the DQ. As I keep saying, the distinction between these terms is
conceptual. It's the first and most basic distinction so you wanna get it
right. In that sense, DQ is not sq and sq is not DQ. Period. But this does not
entail any claims about how these elements can't interact or relate to each
other or that they exist in pure states in isolation from each
other, or whatever it is you're imagining.
In other words, you'e demanding an example that proves an assertion that nobody
made. That's what "straw man" means.
Krimel said:
If SQ and DQ are incommensurables how is it, that in experience they are so
entwined?
Arlo replied:
Yikes. You're using the terminology, but you're completely in a different
ballpark than Pirsig. [snip]...same words but completely different discourse.
For Pirsig, of course, "SQ and DQ" are NOT "entwined" in experience. Experience
IS DQ. SQ is what emerges or derives FROM experience. ("Static quality...
emerges in the wake of Dynamic Quality." (LILA))[snip]... You are using the
terminology so differently, I think it actually hinders rather than enhances
your conversations here.
That said, I also think you're using "incommensurable" wrong as well. I take it
to mean, anyway, "impossible to compare", and certainly Pirsig spends a great
deal of time in LILA "comparing" Dynamic Quality with static quality. And if
you are meaning "impossible to measure", that's kind of way off too, since of
course we measure static quality all the time, in fact I'd say one could
reasonable argue that within the MOQ static quality IS a measurement. But, no,
we can't really 'measure' Dynamic Quality, since that would be to 'define' it,
and DQ is indefinable.
dmb says:
Yea, that's one of the reasons it's so important to get clear about the meaning
of the key terms. Without that, you just can NOT have an intelligible
conversation. Without that, you have a foolproof recipe for confusion and
frustration. All you're ever gonna get is tall glass of nonsense. This need for
basic definitions is not even a philosophical point. It's just common sense. If
we each have our own definition of the central terms, moq discuss will continue
to be a tower babel.
That is no small problem. It totally undermines the whole point and purpose of
this forum.
It's kinda heart-breaking.
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