clark (clark@netsites.net)
Sat, 18 Jul 1998 04:58:18 +0100
Lila Squad,
Just finished reading through the 150 or so messages I found waiting
for me when I got back from the other aspect of vacation and such a
wholesale gulp has strengthened my impression that the problem we are
having is that most of us are misinterpreting Pirsig. We are trying to
interpret his "Good, Better, Morality, etc from the human viewpoint
whereas I think these ideas should be viewed from the viewpoint of the
physical universe. He does not use this term but I think a more
descriptive phrase for Dynamic Quality would be "The force for greater
information content".
My entry for a definition of the DQ/SQ split would be:
DQ = Possibility
SQ = Realized possibility.
As entropy marches on in the universe more termporary hang-ups (Static
Quality) occur in the progression toward randomness which increases the
range of possibilities of Dynamic Quality which, in turn, increases the
range of possibilities available to Static Quality all of which
increases the "Fuzzification" of the process. What started as a purely
deterministic process has become more and more non-deterministic due to
complexity. We now have an effectively non-deterministic universe as far
as we humans are concerned.
Pirsig's Morality was originally the Morality of the physical
operation of the universe and is still so except that now Humanity has
appeared and is attempting to define Morality in terms of perceived
human needs and desires. This is,of course, impossible and has resulted
in the "Many Truths" idea which states that Value and Morality are
different for each human individual.
Humanity, which has been around for some two or three million years is
attempting to claim possession of the universe and make the universe
conform to our desires even though the universe has been around for some
fifteen billion years, was doing nicely before we came along and will
continue to do nicely after we are gone or have morphed into something
else.
I think it is fun and exciting to view our situation in the universe
in this way. I can just slope along and not have to worry about making
the universe fit my expectations.
Keith has written a good presentation which I mostly disagree with but
I think it provides a good platform for discussion.
Trailering is a good way to travel, you can take all your stuff with
you and feel like you are at home. Glad to be back, Ken Clark
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