THE STATIC VALUE OF LOGIC AND THE DYNAMIC VALUE OF IDEAS
Hi Guys,
Ok, ok I'm finally reading the book! I haven't covered the whole thing yet,
but I've been reading chapter by chapter beginning with the middle and
working forward and back as questions arise. I find it easier this way. As
a "recovering" manic/depressive who is now under the influence of evil drugs
<grin> (without which, I might say life could be very SHORT), I find that
some aspects of Lila's personality strike far too close to home. Well,
anyway, as is my want, I've been taking NOTES. First I'll recap Pirsig's
own statements about the intellectual lever ("lever" is actually a great
word for it!).
All quotes from Chapter 12:
1) The intellectual level is a static pattern of value.
2) "There is no intellectual requirement that any one level dominate the
other three."
3) "[The levels] are not continuous. They are discrete."
4) "These patterns have nothing in common except the historic evolutionary
process that created all of them. But that process is a process of value
evolution. Therefore the name 'static pattern of values' applies to all."
>From Chapter 11:
5) "All life is a migration of static patterns of quality toward Dynamic
Quality."
6) "A dynamic advance is meaningless unless it can find some static pattern
with which to protect itself from degeneration back to the conditions that
existed before the advance was made."
7) "The increase in versatility is directed toward Dynamic Quality. The
increase in power to control hostile forces is directed toward static
quality. Without Dynamic Quality the organism cannot grow. Without static
quality the organism cannot last."
Instead of a 3 and 1 or 2 and 2 split I would go with a 1 and 3; the
inorganic level being the only one that is actually "matter". I mean isn't
the biological level merely an elaboration on inorganic "matter"?
The big idea here for me is what Pirsig calls Value Evolution (Chapter 11).
Combine this with his idea that a dynamic advance MUST find a static latch
for stability. When looked at this way I see that all 4 levels really are
static! Logic is a STATIC LATCH!
We generate ideas all the time. But if those ideas can't withstand the
scrutiny of logic (or meet a need at one of the other lower levels even
though they may be illogical) then that idea will FAIL as a dynamic advance.
That idea will be unable to find a static latch to "protect itself from
degeneration". That idea will not result in a ratcheting up to the next
level of Value Evolution. That's how Value Evolution works! It is a
progressive ratcheting up from one static latch to the next; and logic or
mind or intellect (these words are synonymous) is the mechanism that
statically determines if that idea will push us to the next level or not.
Now mind you that next level is STILL a static level, but the ability to
generate ideas is the Dynamic Quality propelling that forward momentum.
Help me here! I feel like I'm preaching to the choir! Is this apparent to
anyone else? Am I completely off the wall with this one?
Questions I have:
Pirsig also talks about a driving force or desire at the sub-atomic level to
snub the "natural" laws; i.e. thermodynamics, gravity, etc. He even states
that you could determine the level of Value Evolution by the degree to which
that item disobeyed these laws. So he is saying that life has attained a
higher evolutionary value than inorganic matter because it is able to stand
up and walk around. Ok, this leads me to think that the ability to generate
ideas is the driving DYNAMIC force at the intellectual level.
What did Pirsig mean when he said in Chapter 12, "Mind is contained in
static inorganic patterns. Matter is contained in static intellectual
patterns"? Was this a typo? Am I missing something important here?
"Mental patterns do not originate out of inorganic nature. They originate
out of society, which originates out of biology, which originates out of
inorganic nature." This says to me that logic (a mental pattern) originated
out of society. A biological pattern cannot form the logic necessary to
evaluate its ideas. It can only react to them. It takes the intellectual
level of logic to be able to work with an idea - find a static latch for
that idea. Could it be that ideas have been here all along but we couldn't
evaluate them from anything other than a biological or social context until
we had the logic (intellectual static level) necessary to do so? Do you
think inorganic matter has an Idea when it uses the carbon chain to subvert
the law of gravity? (Chapter 11).
"Our intellectual description of nature is always culturally derived."
First we used some logic to statically latch the idea of a society or
culture; and only then were we able to take the next step and use that same
static logic pattern to begin to describe nature for ourselves?
Pirsig postulates the "Myth of Independence". "The intellectual level of
patterns, in the historic process of freeing itself from its parent social
level, namely the church, has tended to invent a myth of independence from
the social level for its own benefit. Science and reason, this myth goes,
come only from the objective world, never from the social world. The world
of objects imposes itself upon the mind with no social mediation whatsoever.
...it isn't so." No question here. We needed that social level to exist
before we could become capable of using logic to evaluate the natural world.
Wow! If I weren't on drugs I would think I was manic.
Wishing you happiness,
Mary Wittler
mwittler@geocities.com
ICQ# 19168557
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/8087/index.html
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