From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Thu May 06 2004 - 17:04:04 BST
Hi All,
I want to try to give a better idea of what I mean by a pattern which I
think is also what Pirsig may mean by a pattern.
First of all, I see two perspectives that need to be understood and
reconciled in explaining the MOQ. The primary one which is empirical
is the perspective represented by the equation Quality = Experience.
The second perspective is represented by Quality = Reality. The
equating of Quality and Reality is not empirical to the extent that we
don't simply mean "Experience" when we say "Reality," but rather
Quality = Reality is an evolutionary theory. (In the MOQ Experience
also equals Reality but this is a postulate used to understand reality
rather than empirically based.) The difference between the two
perspectives is experiencing a value pattern such as gravity directly
as a pulling down on one's body (Quality = Experience) versus
experiencing gravity as the pattern of experience or inference where we
recognize that all things around us are pulled to the ground, too
(Quality = Reality). Here I intend to focus on the evolutionary
perspective of understanding Reality in terms of Quality.
I'll begin by putting Quality aside for now to focus on what a pattern
is. I think that understanding reality in terms of patterns rather
than in terms of substance and mind is an idea that one can use
regardless of whether or not one accepts Pirsig's Reality = Quality
postulate. I think that there are philosophers out there who consider
themselves "patternists" though I couldn't name any. At any rate, I'd
like to show what I mean by viewing reality (sq) in terms of patterns
and then show how Quality explains patterns to give a more complete
picture of Reality. In other words, a patterns view does not require a
metaphysical grounding but certainly benefits from a grounding in
Quality.
The clearest example that I might come up with for what I mean by a
pattern is a river. If we try to define a river in terms of substance,
"you can't step into the same river twice," but as a pattern, a river
has a fairly stable existence with a recognizable structure. It's
flowing "changingness" is even part of that structure, so it is without
contradiction that we can call a river a "static pattern" even though a
river flows. A river is not as stable as the patterns of molecules
that we call rocks in some ways since we can move a rock to another
location and all it's recognized properties will be maintained, but a
river is more stable than a rock in other ways since forces that can
break a rock into pebbles may only temporarily disrupt a river or
divert its course. The rock better fits the concept of substance and
is more real than a river in a substance-based metaphysics, but it is
not more real than the rock in a pattern-based metaphysics. Using a
patterns approach to reality, we might say that the rock is more stable
but the river is more versatile, though relative to higher level
patterns both are very stable and not very versatile.
Patterns can have far weaker correlations with substance than a river
does. We can think of gravity as a pattern though gravity has
virtually no properties associated with substance. There are different
ways in which we can do so. As a pattern of behavior of physical
objects (which are themselves inorganic patterns), gravity is an
inorganic pattern. As a symbol standing for this inorganic pattern in
thought and communication, "gravity" is a social structure which is
used in structures of thought. Structures of thought which we call
ideas are recognized in the MOQ as intellectual patterns. So, a
pattern-based metaphysics has no difficulty containing the forces
described by physics nor the patterns of thought which are not
influenced in the least by those forces.
Platt didn't like the idea of thinking of a person as a pattern, but
physically a person's atoms are exchanged with other atoms constantly
while the pattern of arrangement of his cells is fairly stable. In
Heraclitus' view, we never interact with the same person twice. But the
pattern of a given person persists despite the ongoing exchanging of
atoms and despite changes associated with the biological patterns of
growing or aging and despite changes in the patterns of behavior
identifiable as participation in social roles and despite changing
patterns of thought. Despite all these changes, there is a structure
called a person that persists as the river persists in spite of its
flowing nature or changes in it's course. And like the river, our
concept of a person includes the changes I've described above. Lack of
change in the pattern of a person means death.
(When Pirsig uses the phrase "static pattern" I don't think that he
means to exclude change or to associate change with Dynamic Quality. I
think the word static is used simply to distinguish static and Dynamic
Quality and to associate static Quality with patterns, but "static
patterns" may be redundant since I see patterns as static only in the
sense that they are patterns. They represent structures or
relationships that can include change as a river is constantly flowing,
yet these structures are static in the sense that the patterns of flow
persist over time.)
Up to this point I've talked about patterns with minimal reference to
Quality in part to point out that an introduction to the MOQ can begin
with an explanation of the four types of patterns rather than the
metaphysical postulate of Quality. (I would also recommend that in
trying to explain the MOQ to someone who has not read Pirsig that
patterns may be the best place to start.) But once one does postulate
that Quality = Reality, the types of static patterns become even more
powerful in explaining reality because one can then understand how
values and much of mind can also be understood in terms of patterns and
how types of patterns can be examined in light of knowledge of the
direction of the evolutionary arrow to identify moral and immoral human
behavior. This is because all the structures I've discussed can be
understood as value relationships.
As Pirsig demonstrated, a cause and effect relationship like A causes B
can be just as sensibly reworded as B values precondition A. The
pattern of gravity for example can be thought of as a preference that
is extremely reliable like the pattern of me ordering General Tso's
Chicken whenever he goes out to a Chinese restaurant (i.e. the pattern
of preference for chicken is part of the collection of patterns that
constitute me). So patterns are maintained as valuations. Thus, all
patterns are really patterns of value.
I don't know whether what I have said will be controversial or seem too
obvious to have been said. I'm interested in your thoughts.
"If you compare the levels of static patterns that compose a human
being to
the ecology of a forest, and if you see the different patterns
sometimes in
competition with each other, sometimes in symbiotic support of each
other,
but always in a kind of tension that will shift one way or the other,
depending on evolving circumstances, then you can also see that
evolution
doesn't take place only within societies, it takes place within
individuals
too. It's possible to see Lila as something much greater than a
customary
sociological or anthropological description would have her be. Lila then
becomes a complex ecology of patterns moving toward Dynamic
Quality. Lila
individually, herself, is in an evolutionary battle against the static
patterns of her own life....And Lila's battle is everybody's battle,
you know?"
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