From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Mon Dec 06 2004 - 22:59:45 GMT
Hi Scott, all,
On Nov 27, 2004, at 9:40 AM, Scott Roberts wrote:
> Steve,
>
> [Scott prev:] > > One can apply the same logic to DQ and SQ, but if one
> does, one gets
>>> something different from the treatment of these as given in the MOQ.
>>> The MOQ tends to idolize DQ at the expense of SQ, for example by
> assuming
>>> that the mystical goal is to experience pure DQ by putting all SQ to
> sleep.
>>> But the logic of contradictory identity will see that as going off
>>> the
>>> Middle Way. DQ and SQ are contradictory identities, so it makes no
> sense to
>>> speak of "pure [DQ] experience" which is then SQ-ized by intellect.
> Rather,
>>> DQ/SQ interaction is what makes experience happen.
>>>
>>
> [Steve:]> I'm not sure that what you are saying about the logic of
> contradictory
>> identity is inconsistent with the MOQ. I think it is a mistake to say
>> that the MOQ speaks of '"pure [DQ] experience" which is then SQ-ized
>> by
>> intellect.' Such a role for intellect in creating SQ sounds like
>> Scott
>> Robert's MOQ rather than Pirsig's. I think the MOQ says that Quality
>> is
>> pure experience which can be analyzed with a DQ/SQ distinction that
>> serves better than an objective/subjective one. DQ is not pure
>> experience but rather the leading edge of experience.
>
> [Scott:] There seems to be some confusion here between Pirsig's view,
> my
> charcterization of Pirsig's view, and my view.
I can't claim to fully understand any of those, but I can try to
explain my view of Pirsig's view.
> When I said: " "pure [DQ]
> experience" which is then SQ-ized by intellect", I meant to be
> characterizing Pirsig's view, as in:
>
In my view, when you use the verb SQ-ized you are talking about DQ.
SQ-izing is what DQ is. It is Quality, not DQ, that gets SQ-ized, since
SQ-izing is DQ. This is Creation. DQ is aka the ground of being.
> "A "dim apprehension of he knows not what" gets him off the stove
> Dynamically. Later he generates static patterns of thought to explain
> the
> situation." [Ch. 9]
I think this relates back to Quality as pre-intellectual awareness from
ZAMM. ZAMM's Quality is sometimes Quality and sometimes DQ, so it gets
confusing.
I don't particularly like this explanation of DQ. I think he says this
before getting into the types of patterns? It seems to me that getting
off of hot stoves is a biological pattern. It is pre-intellectual,
though. There are no subjects and objects (as Mark Maxwell would say,
such aesthetic creations of the intellect) in the hot stove getting
off. Pirsig may be illustrating that Quality precedes subjects and
objects to show that these are human creations, patterns not required
by the physical and biological universe.
However, Quality is not just pre-intellectual awareness, but pre-'any
kind of pattern' awareness. Undivided Quality is unpatterned awareness
which gets DQed into perceptual structures of four types. Quality is
the ocean, static quality is the waves. DQ is making waves.
BTW, can you tell me what a pattern is? I've been looking for a good
definition.
>
> "..James had condensed this description to a single sentence: "There
> must
> always be a discrepancy between concepts and reality, because the
> former
> are static and discontinuous while the latter is dynamic and flowing."
> Here
> James had chosen exactly the same words Phaedrus had used for the basic
> subdivision of the [MOQ]." [Ch. 29]
>
I don't think we can assume that Pirsig's reality does not include
static patterns because he supports James' "dynamic and flowing
reality." I'm not sure what your point is with this one.
> and when I characterized Pirsig's view with "the mystical goal is to
> experience pure DQ by putting all SQ to sleep." I was referring to:
>
> "The [MOQ] suggests...there is another [solution to insanity]. This
> solution is to dissolve *all* static patterns, both sane and insane,
> and
> find the base of reality, Dynamic Quality, that is independent of all
> of
> them." [Ch. 30]
I don't think that this can be taken too literally. How could one exist
without participating in biological patterns?
The answer to one of the central questions of ZAMM, why do people
differ in their views of what has quality while there is often a lot of
agreement is that undivided Quality and DQ, the patterning which
creates perceptual structures, is the same for everyone, while sq, the
set of patterns that people's awareness creates and the context in
which they are created, differs from person to person.
>
> My impression is that Pirsig thinks of both "pure experience" and "the
> leading edge of experience" as DQ. If I'm wrong on this, let me know
> where
> he distinguishes them.
I think that Pirsig is a little loose in his use of the term DQ, which
makes it hard to discern a coherent view of DQ. I've found that people
in this group are still far more liberal in their use of DQ and cloud
the issue.
I think in ZAMM's description of Phaedrus' going insane, Pirsig talked
about having built a wall around Quality which he had wanted to leave
undefined with all of his talk about it. It was part of what drove him
to the nut house.
>
> My view, which differs from the MOQ,
will keep thinking about that...
> is that DQ is never independent of SQ.
I agree.
> Rather, DQ and SQ always exist only insofar as they oppose each other
> as
> they constitute each other, that is, they follow the form of
> contrdictory
> identities.
I don't think I disagree, but I'm not sure. Can you point it out if I
said anything above which contradicts this view?
> And so I reject the concept of "pure experience".
Pure experience is Quality? DQ? As I've described these terms, which
one is pure experience?
> All
> experience is always a DQ/SQ opposition,
I think the mystic is able to dissolve this opposition and
identification with sq and firstly, identify DQ, then identify himself
with DQ ("dissolve *all* static patterns, both sane and insane"), and
ultimately experience sq as DQ. Or so I've heard, I'm no mystic. I bet
that would cure Lila, anyway. :-&
For Pirsig good may be a noun, but I think DQ must then be a verb. I
sometimes think of DQ as a verb, anyway -- DQ-ing, patterning. It is
the ongoing creation that is actually everything. It is Being. From a
certain perspective DQ is Quality itself and not just the slicing of
Quality.
Then there is the personal awareness perspective that imagines itself
in the womb with a brand new brain to record it's first structures of
perception, and build new ones on top of existing ones on and on out of
the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum of existence in a soup of womb
juice.
Then there is the even more solipsistic MOQ where Awareness = Quality
and my awareness is the creation of static patterns Now, and all that
exists is my Now, and the idea of being in a womb at some time is just
an idea, an intellectual pattern that is useful for explaining Now.
Everything including you is subjects and objects created by my
awareness and so am I.
And then there is the evolutionary perspective where Reality = Quality
and some big bang of DQ started it all, and continues to create
patterns that constitute us and that we participate in.
Sooooooo, anyway, sq and DQ and Quality are just words with all the
limitations that words have in describing experience.
I'm not sure I get any of this.
Regards,
Steve
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