dmb,
On Sep 22, 2013, at 12:47 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote: > Marsha said to dmb: > > Instead of focusing on the aspect of my definition (isolate) that is > ever-changing, you could focus on the aspect of my definition (isolate) that > states that static quality tends to persist and change within a stable and > predictable pattern. > > > dmb says: > Okay, let's put the "ever-changing" part of this definition to the side and > focus on the other parts for a change. > > The first claim says that static patterns are processes (events). That's > confusing and wrong because that's what Pirsig says about DQ, that it is not > a thing but an event. You've already gone wrong in the first part of the > first sentence. Let's see how RMP describes the MoQ's first and most important distinction: In the Pirsig-McWatt Letters 1993-98 PDF, you will see that Pirsig suggests (in a 1997 letter) that "patterned" and "unpatterned" were terms he could have used instead of "static" and "Dynamic". So, I have DQ as unpatterned: not divisible, not definable and not knowable; undifferentiated - nondualistic, "not this, not that", "neti, neti" (the Vedic terminology) RMP: "... my statement that Dynamic Quality is always affirmative was not a wise statement, since it constitutes a limitation or partial definition of Dynamic Quality. Whenever one talks about Dynamic Quality someone else can take whatever is said and make a static pattern out of it and then dialectically oppose that pattern. The best answer to the question, “What is Dynamic Quality?” is the ancient Vedic one——“Not this, not that.”" - RMP > Skipping over the "ever-changing" part, you then say tend to persist and > change. That's like saying they tend to persist and not persist or like > saying they tend to change and they tend to not change. That is > contradictory. You probably want to say that they tend to persist but are > capable of change. That's a trivial truism but at least then the claim would > not violate the most basic rules of making sense. No, 'change' and 'persist' are not antonyms. The tides persist, but change; that's why they publish tide tables. > The "morally categorized" part is a bit clumsy and grammatically incorrect > but otherwise it's not too bad. (Morally categorized would mean that the > categorization act was conducted morally but you probably mean to say that > the levels are moral categories.) No, I am sticking with: Within the MoQ patterns are morally categorized into a four-level, evolutionary, hierarchical structure: inorganic, biological, social and intellectual. > Then you say static quality exists in stable patterns. That's redundant, > which would be okay if you were just being emphatic but it seems to be > redundant because you imagine that "static" means something other than > "stable". Static has many synonyms and I thought to reinforce my meanig. > In the same sentence, you then go on to say that static patterns depend on > conceptual designation. That's wrong because static patterns ARE conceptual > designations. Your claim would be like saying that water depends on H2O. Like > the equation with events, this comment exposes the fact that you don't > understand what static patterns are. The statement was "patterns ... depend upon nominal (name) and conceptual designation (denotation)." I think I'll leave it as it is. > The line about static patterns being dependent rather than independent is a > paraphrasing of a perfectly good Buddhist idea but you have misapplied it to > concepts rather than reality. I have applied it to static (conventional) quality. Do you think concepts, or patterns, are independent? > And the final claim is extremely objectionable too. Patterns don't exist > relative to an individual's life history. That claim is just silly > solipsistic subjectivism. Static pattens are socially constructed over the > course of a culture's history and development. An individual's life history > will affect their ability to perceive the static patterns within the mythos > but those patterns exist regardless of whether or not any particular > individual is capable of seeing them or not. There is nothing solipsistically subjective in this statement. "Solipsistic subjectivism" is a label that you have applied, but never explained. For understanding, there is a dependency on the individuals static pattern life history. "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance left one enormous metaphysical problem unanswered that became the central driving reason for the expansion of the Metaphysics of Quality into a second book called Lila. This problem was: if Quality is a constant, why does it seem so variable? Why do people have different opinions about it? The answer became: The quality that was referred to in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance can be subdivided into Dynamic Quality and static quality. Dynamic Quality is a stream of quality events going on and on forever, always at the cutting edge of the present. But in the wake of this cutting edge are static patterns of value. These are memories, customs and patterns of nature. The reason there is a difference between individual evaluations of quality is that although Dynamic Quality is a constant, these static patterns are different for everyone because each person has a different static pattern of life history. Both the Dynamic Quality and the static patterns influence his final judgment. That is why there is some uniformity among individual value judgments but not complete uniformity." Marsha ___ 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
