From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Apr 22 2003 - 17:54:47 BST
Hello Wim,
>I agree with you (21 Apr 2003 19:57:26 +0000) that it is not necessary 'to
>imply that the lower levels are just like chains, locking things up and
>impinging on freedom'. Pirsig did that (ch.12 of 'Lila': 'A primary
>occupation of every level of evolution seems to be offering freedom to
>lower
>levels of evolution.') to clarify the difference between the levels. Your
>way to differentiate between them (each level founding the next) also seems
>a valid way to me however.
Thanks Wim, "it's not necessary" is a bigger concession than I got from
Platt. I feel it is not only unnecessary, but immoral. Do you agree that
Platt is imprudently maligning the groundstuff of his absolutes when he
maligns SQ? I guess he feels so sure about his absolutes being absolutes
that he thinks they'd still be there if all SQ were blown to bits and
scattered and reshuffled into something completely different?
>You wrote further 21 April:
>'Someone asked recently how you can discern evolution from degeneracy, good
>change from bad. Someone else offered an answer that it is by looking to
>see if a "good" static pattern is left in its wake. (I think it was Wim
>and
>Sam?). I agree with that, but you can tell in advance too: you can look
>at
>existing static patterns (what else is there to look at?) and predict what
>would be a good change. We take a pattern we like and try to make it
>stronger. Sometimes a change is made without predicting what will happen,
>just applying one pattern to another pattern to see what happens, and we
>don't see if it is better or worse until afterwards, but I think most of
>the
>time we push in the direction that static patterns suggest to us is
>"forward". We may not be right all the time, often we will decide that
>what
>we thought was going to be good was actually bad, but most of the time we
>can tell.'
>
>It was Sam and me. Sam asked 3 Mar 2003 12:02:32 -0000 whether 'new' was
>equivalent to 'quality' for me. I replied 16 Mar 2003 00:09:55 +0100 that
>only 'Dynamic Quality' can be recognized by it 'newness'.
>Sam then asked 26 Mar 2003 15:16:50 -0000:
>'How do you distinguish between randomly new and new which is DQ?'
>And I replied 19 Apr 2003 23:36:13 +0200:
>'DQ leaves static quality (patterns) in its wake. Coincidence (random
>change) doesn't.'
>Sam 20 Apr 2003 18:00:47 +0100 thought it strange for me so write such a
>thing -which he agrees with- (because he thinks I value DQ higher than sq):
>'This makes the discernment of DQ dependent on SQ. I don't disagree with
>that, but I am surprised that it is an argument you would make. Have I
>understood you correctly?'
>
>I don't expect you (Johnny), being an avowed supporter of the value of sq
>against the value of DQ, to disagree that discernment of DQ depends on new
>static patterns of value emerging?!
>For it is the 'newness' of these emerging static patterns of value that
>identifies Dynamic Quality, however. It is the value of change that can NOT
>be predicted on the basis of static patterns of value that constitutes
>Dynamic Change. Strengthening existing static patterns of value constitutes
>static quality.
Yes, 'newness' identifies DQ, but that is because DQ is conventionally
defined as 'newness'. It is the 'good changes' that happened or are desired
to happen. Existing SQ is what creates the desire for a change, and what
decides if a change is good or not, and therefore defines what is DQ. If
SQ were weakened to the point of impotence, if there were no static quality,
there would be no desire for change or defintion of good to identify any
change as DQ, if there were any changes at all. If there were zero static
patterns, there could be no dynamic changes, good or bad. And as SQ is
maligned and denigrated, it loses its strength, and DQ is therefore also
weakened and made more 'anything goes' and meaningless.
>With friendly greetings,
>
>Wim
thank you, and friendly greetings to you too
Johnny
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