To:Struan and Fred and All
From:Roger
I started with:
The term "selection" introduces Quality firmly into evolution. Quality
determines selection, and selection determines Quality. When we say "all is
good" we are supported by the last few billion years of genetic and memetic
evolution. The patterns that survive, replicate and that surround and create
us are patterns of quality. Our current experience is the cumulative product
of countless past quality selection events. (In SOM terms). This helps me to
see the magic of calling everything "Quality" rather than the Pure Experience
approach of Radical Empiricism and Zen.
Struan asked:
If I might just interject a related question from another continuing thread.
Are you saying that
survival = quality = good, or even that evolution = quality = good
I try now to respond:
The topics here get very convoluted, because I am discussing EVOLUTION, which
is an intellectual pattern, and comparing it to the MoQ, which as Fred just
clarified nicely is both mystical and metaphysical. The topics are
intertwined and self referential, and we are using limited language to
describe it all.
But to answer your question...... I was giving an example of how quality or
the good drives the intellectual pattern known as evolution. In ZMM, Pirsig
references the cutting edge of the train as Quality, later redefined as DQ,
and the collective memories of the boxcars as sq, but he also references the
track.... this seems to me to be the evolutionary track. Anthony's forum
post makes a similar comparison of Quality being a cart, and the cart being
pulled by evolution. All just analogies though.
So to recap, as a mystic, if all is good, then evolution is good too.
As an intellectual, evolution and the patterns of value are DERIVED FROM
Quality, with Quality being referenced as direct experience.
So, the answer is yes on a mystical level and no on an intellectual level.
Sorry if this answer seems evasive or confused. Your insights and
clarifications are appreciated.
Roger
"His Quality was a metaphysical entity, not a mystical one. Or was it? What
was the difference? He answered himself that the difference was one of
definition. Metaphysical entities are defined. Mystical ones are not. That
made Quality mystical, no it was really both."
PS - Am I the only one that sees the political/economic/racial discussions as
people talking past each other and nobody listening? Oh well...... I suppose
just talking does us good too. Today I think I will reject a static pattern
that I identify with myself and seek something new....... wish me well.
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