Diana and squad,
Diana, your recent posts have helped to clarify my thinking tremendously
and have allowed me to progress a little further along the Quality path. If
I can get my thoughts down in a coherent manner I would appreciate it if
you would let me know if my thinking does violence to any of your ideas.
In my view what Pirsig is saying is that Quality is the bedrock parameter
on which the universe operates. Dynamic and static Quality are just two
sides of the same coin. I think that if the human mind did not intervene
then there would be no conflict between the two concepts. The problem is
that we are sitting here as sentient creatures and cannot conceive of
ourselves as being just another manifestation of the overall Quality.
Somehow the universe must conform to our needs and desires. We should keep
in mind that static quality applies to all things universal, organic and
inorganic, and not just to us sentient humans.
Pirsig says that Quality,RTA, Value, and dharma are all the same thing
and that they are what gives structure and purpose to the universe. Quality
came before everything and it is the moral order of the universe. When we
speak of Quality, value, RTA, or dharma we can only speak of the universe
as a whole. If we apply these terms to just humanity then we are
misinterpreting their meaning and application. They are the force which
drives the energy of the uiniverse and this force is what results in the
moral order of the universe. This is the only mystical feature of the
universe and I am unable to say where they came from or why. I do suspect
that they result from the initial store of energy in the universe and that
they are present because the universe must take the path toward the least
entropy. In this view we (humans) are just a part of that process and are
essentially without the means to affect the ultimate outcome. I also think
that we are living in an essentially free universe because of the great
complexity that has developed, and will continue to develop, as the
universe grows older.
I think that the reason we consider the atomic bomb and the other things
we do immoral is because we are thinking just in terms of the human race. I
also think that we can do nothing in universal terms that is immoral
because we can do nothing to deflect the normal course of entropy in the
universe. We can only harm ourselves with our tinkering with the physical
universe.The universe is, and is going to continue to, build its own atomic
bombs in the form of supernovas because that is required in the process of
entropy and complexity.
Diana says:
And so the Dynamic-static split starts out really easy, but once you insist
that value has a reality you're scraping at the foundations of our entire
twentieth century mentality. If such ideas take hold then causation, the
self, dualism, space-time, substance, free will, consciousness are all
going
to have to be turned upside down. Not only is that scary, it's stupid.
Causation is a useful theory. Understanding it and using it to make
tractors
and microscopes and houses seems a very good thing to do. And it works - we
have improved our food supplies, health and shelters as a result of
understanding causation. To turn around and say, events don't have causes
and effects, the world just migrates backwards and forwards from
"something-like-auspiciousness", doesn't look very constructive.
Ken:
I don't see that these cause a problem because we have just seen that
they all result from the initial Quality. Causation, the self, dualism,
space time, substance, free will and consciousness are perfectly explained
and understandable if we accept Quality as the value force of the universe.
True, if one considers human Qulaity as being different from universal
Quality then there is a problem. But the problem is just in the way that we
look at humanity.
Diana says:
Dynamic Quality, they discovered, is what takes us forward. It gives us
energy. Seeing what it is and grasping it in small doses is easy enough.
But
when you take this beyond a single artistic pursuit and apply it to a
person's life or a community, the problems start to unfold.
True, we all agree that Dynamic Quality exists, but we do not agree on the
objects in which it inheres. For a society to pursue Dynamic Quality is far
more difficult than an individual. No wonder the history of human society
is
a bloody battlefield of death and destruction.
Ken says:
If one takes my interpretation of Quality we do not have to struggle to
see Dynamic Qulaity. One simply accepts that the universe is under the
direction of Quality and that everything that happens under Quality is
auspicious and has value. I think that this looks very constructive. If we
turn loose of the idea that the human race is somehow special and demands a
different brand of Quality from the rest of the universe then all falls
into place without a wrinkle. One of the good features of Pirsig's MoQ is
that once we understand what he is saying we can just relax and enjoy the
freedom from struggling with our place in the universe. Quality inheres in
everything that happens and once we accept that the universe is under the
guidance of Quality or value or RTA or dharma and that because of this
everything that happens is good and has value in universal terms then our
philosophical squirmings are not necessary. I think that this is one of the
reasons that LS members tend to relapse into quiet after they reach
sufficient understanding. Of course, there are many people who enjoy
pursuing the details of the particular effects of Quality on themselves but
Pirsig has made this unnecessary.
If we look at the course of the evolution of the universe, and in
particular the history of humanity then it is easy to see the slow but
steady progress that has been made without a break. After sentience we can
attribute this to the increasing wisdom of the human race but it is also
easy to see this same progress during the inorganic phase.
In my mind I divide the MoQ up into the Quality level, the non-sentient
level, the sentient level, and the intellectual level. This seems to me to
be more in keeping with the actual progress of the MoQ. The universe and
the world HAS been steadily getting more moral through time. I can think of
no time when the universe has gone backward. We can see immoral times in
terms of humanity but even here the thrust has been toward higher morality.
Got to get a shower and go to the Elks Lodge for supper.
Ken
MOQ Online - http://www.moq.org
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