Platt Holden (pholden@worldnet.att.net)
Thu, 29 Jan 1998 18:39:40 +0100
Hi Diana and Squad,
Diana wrote:
> For what it's worth my solution to the hot stove example was to say that
> it's not that he perceives the hot stove as low quality, it's that he
> perceives that getting off the stove is high quality. In other words the
> urge to get off the stove is the Dynamic Quality. But I backtracked on
> that because Pirsig also says that Dynamic Quality can be negative.
>
> I need to take a little more time to go over your solution. I
> sidestepped the hi-lo problem the first time I noticed it and now it's
> come back with a vengeance.
>
> My first impression is that your solution says two different things. One
> is that both Dynamic and static quality have hi and lo divisions within
> them. But that can't be right. Dynamic Quality shouldn't have any
> divisions. And this doesn't account for hi-quality combinations of DQ
> and SQ.
>
> The other is that there is a hi-lo split in the universe that is
> completely separate from the Dynamic-static split.That may be so, but it
> creates all kinds of problems. The thing that makes the Dynamic-static
> split more moral than the subject-object split is that the
> Dynamic-static split contains the subject-object split within it (as a
> static pattern). If the Dynamic-static split is to be better than the
> hi-lo one then it should encompass it too. But it doesn't. The very fact
> that we've said "The *best* way to split Quality" implies that we've
> made the hi-lo split first and put the D-S split inside it. On the other
> hand the MoQ is an intellectual pattern so our "best" means the highest
> quality intellectual pattern.
>
> As you can see I'm not clear about this at all. >:|
The way I see it Pirsig has presented us with a wave-particle example
whereby a contradiction in SOM terms disappears in MoQ terms.
You know, maybe that's why I suspect the MoQ is the next level. We've all
been able to point out contradictions in the MoQ, yet we're happy to live
with them. Similarly, the verbal description of the quantum world appears
illogical, yet scientists gladly embrace it.
Could this be the key to the next level wherein intellect transcends
rationality by seeing paradox and contradiction not as stumbling blocks to
understanding but as revelations?
Maybe in our struggle to achieve coherence in the MoQ we've accidentally
stumbled on a breakthrough insight -- an insight Doug has been telling us
about all along. Or are these thoughts a case of my rationalistic
tendencies run amok?
As you can tell, I'm not clear about this either. But with all the
brilliant minds on the Squad, there's hope:-)
Platt
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