diana@asiantravel.com
Mon, 27 Jul 1998 16:05:12 +0100
Keith and squad
> ON NAMING AND PATTERNS
>
> One note on the Pattern/Not-pattern definition of Static/Dynamic you
> drew from my essay. While that is a pretty accurate representation of a
> portion of my thought (and certainly a lot more accessible than the 3K
> of text I wrote!), I think it's a bit misleading. If we are going to
> talk about Static and Dynamic Quality in terms of patterns, I would
> characterize it more as:
>
> Static Quality = Pattern
> Dynamic Quality = Pattern & Not Pattern
Reading through your essay again I can see that I did rather miss the
point of it. However I've read it more carefully again and can make the
following comments.
Regarding the multiple explanations of any situation, yes, I would agree
that any moment affords an infinite number of explanations, and that
none of these explanations can be taken as the correct picture of the
world. But I don't understand what you mean by saying that dynamic
quality is a placeholder. It seems that you are suggesting that it
doesn't exist. Or perhaps that Dynamic Quality is the true experience
which we can never put into words. Or, going by your definitions above,
perhaps that Dynamic Quality is all the static patterns plus something
else - the 'real' experience or the as yet undiscovered static patterns.
You also say that Dynamic Quality is the whole of reality, but Pirsig
says that Quality is the whole of reality. Why depart from that?
And then in a later post you said:
> That's why I argued that Dynamic Quality is just a placeholder. I've
> come to think of it as a metaphysical "zero" to remind us that these
> static ideas we have about reality are incomplete. This is necessary
> because we do *so well* naming parts of experience that we forget that
> there's more to reality than what we think. In the words of Alfred
> Korzybski, "The map is not the territory."
But there are lots of example in LILA of the direct experience of
dynamic quality. Listening to a song on the radio, the conviction that
makes you campaign for change in society, feeling good in a storm. These
don't sound like anything that could be described as a metaphysical
zero.
> What does that witticism mean? I understand it like this: We have this
> thing called Reality that we know through Experience. In our attempt to
> understand Reality, we analyze and synthesize the data of Experience
> into intellectual explanations which identify Static Quality. The funny
> thing is we can come up with an infinite number of explanations of this
> Static Quality, an infinite number of maps using different coordinate
> systems, that help us navigate Reality. So the Static Quality itself is
> something beyond our ideas of it. The map is not the territory.
>
> What is that "something else"? Dynamic Quality. But it's not really
> something else, or else we'd have a Static name and explanation for it
> already. Since each pattern of Static Quality, each thing, is really
> beyond our limited understanding of it (see my bit on every experience
> being nonrational in my last post), then each "thing" is really Dynamic
> Quality.
Again here it sounds like you are trying to say that Dynamic Quality is
the correct picture of the world, even though we can never explain it.
But it isn't. DQ is no more the real objective reality than static is.
> I feel here like I'm talking in circles, like I've rehashed the same
> point twenty times. Each time I say what I'm trying to say, I seem to be
> moving further away from it. I think Sojourner's analogy to the serpent
> biting its tail is perfect. That circular, "Möbius strip" feeling is
> exactly the feeling I'm getting writing this because that's what the
> relationship between Dynamic Quality and Static Quality is like. We
> divide Reality into Static Quality or "things" based on patterns. But
> our conception of these "things" is limited, and Reality is really
> beyond our words, it's Dynamic Quality. But we go ahead and divide it up
> into Static Quality ...
>
> So perhaps to clarify my naming "definition" of last time and avoid the
> problems pointed out with identifying Static Quality with Pattern, I'd
> amend my Lao Tzu-inspired interpretation of Static/Dynamic to read:
>
> Static Quality is that which can be named
> Dynamic Quality is that which can and cannot be named
>
> ON MORALITY
> I interpret Pirsig's message to Anthony McWatt as meaning that we are
> put in touch with Dynamic Quality--Reality--every time experience
> teaches us something we didn't know before. We go along in life with our
> fixed intellectual representations of reality and the valuations that go
> along with them, but suddenly discover through some experience that
> something in our ideas wasn't quite right and intuit that something is
> missing. Eventually, we'll be able to put our finger on the problem and
> express that new Dynamic insight in static terms.
Okay, so I guess you do concede that DQ can be experienced.
> I don't know that this necessarily implies that Dynamic Quality is
> "better" than Static Quality. I agree with much of Sojourner's reply on
> this matter. I think that our *sense* of "betterness" comes from our
> Experience of Dynamic Quality (Reality). Since we have no previously
> existing understanding (Static understanding of Quality) of this
> betterness, we can only identify it as Dynamic Quality. Just as easily,
> however, I think we could experience undefined "worseness" that's just
> as much an experience of Dynamic Quality as undefined "betterness". (See
> the canonical hot stove example in *Lila* on this situation.
Well Pirsig says Dynamic quality is experienced as a sense of
betterness. He says it is the highest moral value of all. It's what the
Indians call "manito": manifestations of skill, fortune, belssing, luck
or any wondrous occurence. And as for the hot stove example, the 'dim
perception of you know not what' *gets you off* the stove, it's not the
experience of sitting on it. From the position of sitting on a hot
stove, getting off is definitely better!
> As to the question of how Morality fits into this, you're quite right
> that I didn't really address that in my post other than to cite Pirsig's
> ontological assertion in *Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance*
> that Reality is Value (aka Quality or Morality). I didn't say more
> because I haven't yet come up with a satisfactory understanding of this
> relationship myself. I asked this question at the end of March in my
> "Conceptions of Dynamic Quality" thread. My current thinking on this
> topic is still muddled.
I'm also muddled and I'm sorry if I've misinterpreted you again and that
I've ignored large chunks of what you've said, but I feel I have to
respond somehow to keep the conversation moving. If I wait until I'm
sure of what I'm saying it could be months not just a week between
posts.
Diana
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