> [Arlo previously] > Well, creation builds off existing patterns, the impetus to create, the > pre-intellectual source of the creation, is Dynamic Quality, but the forms > that emerge in its wake are made possible by the existing static patterns. It > would not have been possible, for example, for a caveman to write ZMM. > Phaedrus' insights, inspired by Dynamic Quality, built upon the existing > strata of patterns of his experience. > > [djh previously] > Right, that is how it appears on reflection. But that is not how things > actually are... > > [Arlo] > "Our scientific description of nature is always culturally derived. Nature > tells us only what our culture predisposes us to hear. The selection of which > inorganic patterns to observe and which to ignore is made on the basis of > social patterns of value, or when it is not, on the basis of biological > patterns of value." (LILA) > > "How things actually are" is such an objectivist statement. I think the MOQ's > ability to explain why ZMM could not have been written by a cavemen is part > of its overall explanatory strength. "How things really are", well, good luck > with that.
[djh] Two apologies Arlo. Firstly, apologies for not responding sooner - I've been flat out with other things and your writing demands a certain level of care which I wouldn't have been able to provide. Secondly apologies for the 'how things actually are' phrase.. It isn't the best considering SOM connotations.. I should be more clear. Anyway.. When I say 'how things actually are' I'm pointing to the fact that there isn't one fundamental perspective or 'context' of the MOQ. There are two. One of those 'perspectives' or 'contexts' gives rise to the other So yes, speaking statically, you're right. But from the other perspective there is no constraint whatsoever. It's not even really a 'perspective'. > [djh previously] > If you think enlightenment will make you a better person then you will never > be enlightened.. > > [Arlo] > If the purpose to Zen mediation is simply to go to sleep, then I'm not > impressed as I do that every night. [djh] Who ever said Zen meditation was sleeping? Zen meditation isn't sleeping, it's waking up! > [djh previously] > Better patterns *are* created as a result of killing of patterns. That is > how they're created. When patterns are killed there is nowhere left to go > but towards *undefined* betterness. > > [Arlo] > No, but static quality constrains the forms DQ is able to produce. That's > what "evolutionary" means, and its why we have the inorganic-> biological-> > social-> intellectual levels. > > [Arlo also said along the same lines] > Absolutely no! As we just talked about with the Hippies and Lila, there can > be devolution as well as evolution. There can be destruction without > creation. There can be killing without rebirth. This is why your focus is so > one-sided, so out of balance. You seem to think that simply "going to sleep" > is the end-all of end-alls. Why you see the killing but not the creation. Its > so out of whack, I just don't know how we can proceed. > > As I said, David, no one is stopping you or anyone else from killing your > social and intellectual patterns. No one. Go meditate them away, do all the > tea ceremonies it takes to free your mind. Go do all that. Be free. [djh] I think you're conflating my words when I'm talking about two different perspectives. I think creation is important. When we are interested in looking at 'the comparative quality of the patterns' or in your words - 'attending to the static patterns' then what is created is indeed very important. >From this perspective, as you mention, the balance between rejecting current static patterns and adhering to them is important. Too far one way is chaos, too far the other and things are too conservative and stale. But we only ever make such judgements on reflection. So when we are not interested in the comparative quality of the patterns but in rejecting all patterns through mastery of them, then in this regard the killing or in Marsha's words 'cessation' of those patterns is what is important. Yes, after the cessation of patterns new patterns are inevitably created but from this 'Zen' perspective the comparative static quality of what is created is not important. > [djh previously] > I don't deny that the monks may well be 'better' before they were monks but > this is not their goal. We can only say this after the fact. Before the > fact enlightenment is some kind of death experience because it requires > killing patterns which we identify as 'us'. The focus is not ego boosting > 'better' but a death of the ego. After a death of the ego through mastery, a > new Dynamic insight can be found. > > [Arlo] > No one tied "better" to "ego", David, that's just your hangup. That "new > Dynamic insight" is the betterness that the experience is for. If Point B is > not better in any way at all from Point A, if you are no better at fixing > your motorcycle afterwards, then just go to sleep, same thing. [djh] Your focus seems to be only the static quality result. *Experience is for* more than just the [static quality] Dynamic insight which is created as a result of experiencing DQ. There is also the actual experience of DQ which is just as important as the result. So while I also think it is good to be interested in the 'comparative quality of the patterns' or in your words 'attend to the patterns'. There is a whole other perspective to the MOQ(which in order to reveal those Dynamic insights) must kill the current patterns to reveal the DQ which is there all along. > [djh previously] > But you can kill patterns doing intellectual things such as Motorcycle > Maintenance and Philosophical discussion.. > > [Arlo] > This really demonstrates a grave misunderstanding. The ritualized activity of > the tea ceremony (your example) was to make them so habitualized they were > performed without the need of thought. What activity do you propose we > 'ritualize' away in a philosophy discussion? What behaviors do you propose we > habitualize so that we don't need to attend to them at all any longer? > Memorize the text of LILA to the point where no longer need to cite it? How > can this be achieved in a group where people of various levels of familiarity > flow in and out of the discussion? The tea ceremony only works because ALL > the monks have the ceremony ritualized. [djh] Habitualisation doesn't just work on the collective. We habitualise things that we do all the time. We even 'habitualise' our thinking about things. In fact, we are doing that right now in this discussion. The more we explain one another, the more we understand or 'habitualise' our understanding of that persons thinking, and so our discussion can move forward because we don't have to keep going over the same things again and again. > [djh previously] > "The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a > digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top > of a mountain or in the petals of a flower." > > [Arlo] > Which is, of course, an argument for why 'killing' those patterns is ipso > facto the only thing we should be doing. There is a time to kill, to free, to > open oneself, and a time to come down off the mountaintop, to build, to > create, to paint, to fix motorcycles and write philosophies. [djh] Yes, they're not separate things. Creation is important. But it is important from a static quality 'comparative quality' perspective. The act of creating though, that can work as a result of the killing of patterns through mastery and perfection.. "There, beside arete, was a treasure room of other derived 'rt' words: 'arithmetic,' 'aristocrat,' 'art,' 'rhetoric,' 'worth,' 'rite,' 'ritual,' 'wright,' 'right (handed)' and 'right (correct).' All of these words except arithmetic seemed to have a vague thesaurus-like similarity to Quality.. There was just one thing wrong with this Proto-Indo-European discovery, something Phaadrus had tried to sweep under the carpet at first, but which kept creeping out again.. Rt meant 'quality' all right but the quality it meant was static, not Dynamic. He had wanted it to come out the other way, but it looked as though it wasn't going to do it. Ritual.. The physical order of the universe is also the moral order of the universe, Rta is both. This was exactly what the Metaphysics of Quality was claiming. It was not a new idea. It was the oldest idea known to man." "This identification of rta and areté was enormously valuable, Phasdrus thought, because it provided a huge historical panorama in which the fundamental conflict between static and Dynamic Quality had been worked out. It answered the question of why areté meant ritual. Rta also meant ritual. But unlike the Greeks, the Hindus in their many thousands of years of cultural evolution had paid enormous attention to the conflict between ritual and freedom. Their resolution of this conflict in the Buddhist and Vedantist philosophies is one of the profound achievements of the human mind." > [djh previously] > I disagree. I think that in order to build we must kill patterns.. > > [Arlo] > Never said otherwise. As Pirsig has said, identifying stuckness and moving > forward is the key thing that recognizing Quality enables. [djh] Agreement. > > [djh previously] > We are here to kill intellectual patterns. > > [Arlo] > Again, David, this is so profoundly wrong, I just don't know how to respond. > If you come to a philosophy forum to kill your intellectual patterns, then > you need to really stop and sit and figure out what killing and philosophy > are. [djh] Or perhaps, we just need to look at what I mean when I say that we are here to 'kill' intellectual patterns. What I mean is that we are here to master them and put them to sleep. We go over our thinking about things so that certain thoughts no longer appear because we have brought harmony where there previously was none. I mean why do we think about things? What is that voice inside our heads there for? As Pirsig writes: "It seems loudest when new things are happening that need explanation." So we think about things when our current understanding of things is lacking in harmony. That voice shouts at us 'you need to care about these patterns!' And so we ask ourselves a question like 'why is there low quality here?'. And by doing so we open up these static intellectual patterns to respond to Dynamic Quality. And by going over and over such questions like 'Does Lila have quality?' our thinking on them becomes better and better until harmony is restored and you wonder why you ever asked the question to begin with.. Alternatively - if RMP didn't master the Koan of 'Does Lila have quality?' if RMP didn't continually think about this question.. Then his thinking would be chaotic - constantly comparing this static quality with that static quality - not really freeing himself from anything. > [djh previously] > That is, we are here to master them which such proficiency that they are > gone. There in the most monotonous boredom of going over and over these > questions the DQ and resulting new insights can be found.. > > [Arlo] > I'd say the new insights found here are not the result of "monotonous > boredom", but of people opening their minds 'out there' and then coming here > with the insights they gain. Life is much larger than 'here', we all have > full lives (I hope) that evidence a wide oscillation between moments of > meditation and moments of creation. Attributing insights created here to just > the monotonizing of repeating quotes or repeating arguments over and over is > probably too anemic to merit much consideration. > > So, I think this dialogue has probably ran its course. Unless you think we > have something further to discuss, I think we're only going to begin > repeating ourselves, and that's not a tea ceremony for me. Of course insights created here aren't just the result of monotonous repeating of quotes over and over. Nothing good was ever created without caring and your example lacks the important element of caring for what the other person is saying. It is this care which is at the heart of all quality discussions. Harmony was never created by someone who doesn't care wholeheartedly for what they are doing and these discussions are no exception. But sadly, if you feel that this discussion has ran its course then so be it but I have found it very rewarding. I enjoy the challenge of explaining myself and I can't say enough how much I've appreciated your openness towards what I've been saying. 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
