[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[MarshaV]

Greetings Krimel,

Aren't yang/yin equivalent to active and passive.  That sounds like 
more a description of static patterns.  I think the Buddhist Emptiness/form 
much closer to DQ/sq.  Maybe you can explain a little more about yin/yang.   


Marsha





On Jun 4, 2010, at 10:13 AM, Krimel wrote:

> [Krimel]
>> First of all I think DQ and SQ correspond exactly to Yang and Yin. The
>> point you seem to miss is that dividing the world is not mandatory. 
> 
> [Bo]
> I think both dividing and the DQ/SQ division is mandatory (feel free to 
> insert Lao Tsu and Yang/Yin). 
> 
> [Krimel]
> I appreciate the effort to stay focused on the central issues. Clearly this
> is one of them. You are not just saying that division is necessary but that
> a particular kind of division is necessary. Maybe it is a translation
> problem. Why do you think this is "required"? 
> 
> If you mean that humans, in virtue of their very nature, are required to
> make divisions; I probably agree. But that would seem to put the recognition
> of division squarely in the biological level. Again, I would agree with
> that.
> 
> [Bo]
> Look. Pirsig had the insight that Quality = Reality, but this meant 
> nothing so he soon started on a dualism based on Quality. 
> 
> [Krimel]
> The problem I see with this is that you have misunderstood not JUST what
> Pirsig has said but something very fundamental about the nature of "saying".
> The statement "Quality=Reality" means that these particular shapes on a page
> and the sounds associated with then can be used interchangeably and that
> when you produce one you might as well be producing the other. 
> 
> A further meaning of the statement "Quality=Reality" is that these symbols
> point to a set of experiences I have had and I associate with them and that
> I believe my experiences are of such a similar nature to yours that you can
> make this association as well. Assuming that this actually is the case, that
> our experiences are similar enough for this to work, is iffy at best. The
> term I would use for it is "lossy" it is a computer term and means that
> something is always lost in translation. The issue is how much is lost in
> translation and how much does it matter? Have you ever attended a lecture or
> meeting and recorded it? While you are there in person that sound of the
> spoken words seems crystal clear and intelligible yet when you listen to the
> recording you hear air conditioners, street sounds, whispered conversations,
> rattling papers etc. In person you don't notice this because you are focused
> on the "signal" or what is being said and you ignore the "noise", or all
> those distracting background sounds. The recording device does not make this
> distinction and listening to the playback is sometimes difficult. In
> communication "signal" and "noise" come in a wide variety of forms
> especially when we attempt to communicate about abstract ideas.
> 
> The genius of the Greeks was to try to use symbols that were as free of
> noise and as precise as possible. They tried to created an ideal world of
> pure signal and very little noise. Pirsig points to this when he speaks
> about mathematics, you probably know where he does this better than I, but
> he says something about mathematics being a set of symbols without
> ambiguity.
> 
> This is the real chore of the intellectual level; reducing ambiguity or the
> signal to noise ratio. I could go on about noise as entropy or signal as SQ
> but I hope the point is sufficiently clear.
> 
> I find James' distinction between perception and conception extremely
> helpful here. James maintains that perception is continuous. It is not
> composed of individual elements. It flows like a "stream of consciousness".
> In Ant's recent video it was absolutely hysterical to hear dmb expounding on
> Pirsig's metaphor of "the cutting edge of reality" being the front end of a
> train rolling down a track only moments after talking about the very essay
> in which James explictly condemns the use of this metaphor, but that's
> another story. 
> 
> Concepts according to James are the discrete units that we use to cut up our
> continuous experience into manageable units, words, ideas, communicable
> patterns of thought. This distinction between discrete and continuous I
> would say is a metaphysical cut of the sort that Pirsig talks about in Lila.
> It has some correspondence with Yin/Yang and SQ/DQ and I think it could be
> argued that it has played at least as important a role in the development of
> western civilization as the S/O, mind/matter spilt.
> 
> If you look backwards in time you see all those ancient civilizations. Our
> evidence of them is not in what they said but in what they did. They built
> things and by their ruins we know them. In order to build something that
> lasts thousands of years you need architecture. Architecture depends on the
> ability to carve continuous space into discrete units of measurement. What
> unit you select to use is entirely arbitrary but as long as long as it is
> unambiguous, replicable and transmittable to other workers you can construct
> the marvels of the ancient world.
> 
> One of the next great advances in civilization comes from our ability to
> carve the continuous flow of time into discrete units. Galileo was able to
> work out some of the laws of motion using only his pulse as a measure of
> discrete units of time. Without the ability to standardize units of time
> navigation an mechanization were problematic.
> 
> What we see in present time is refinements in our ability to carve
> continuous space and time into discrete units of such precision that we
> build not only skyscrapers of nanobots. We can measure not just the cosmos
> and land on Mars but we can reaching into the molecules of life and recode
> DNA. All of this is the result of our increasing ability to amplify the
> signal and reduce the noise. Or as one might say in MoQ terms to convert
> dynamic quality into static quality.
> 
> This is all very useful, very pragmatic but it is not mandatory or even
> required for communication. When Pirsig presents us with Plato's question:
> 
> And what is good, Phædrus,
> And what is not good...
> Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?
> 
> The answer is clearly, "No."
> 
> When I experience something of positive value, let's say sex because I am
> 2000 miles away from my wife right now and have been for a number of weeks
> but that too is another story. But when we have a positive experience our
> pleasure centers are stimulated and we have physiological response;
> increased heart rate, changes in the electrical conductivity of our skin,
> activation of small and large muscle groups. Converse responses occur when
> we have negative experiences that stimulate our pain centers. Not only do
> the changes occur in us automatically but we are able without conception to
> recognize them in others. These are emotional responses. They are
> biologically encoded and biologically decoded or biological communication.
> This is a characteristic of mammals and in most species the signal to noise
> ratio is pretty small. Ours may be the only species capable of altering this
> ratio. We can lie and lying is a skill acquired by our best and brightest at
> a fairly early age.
> 
> [Bo]
> He posits Quality at the top of a "box" diagram that splits into Dynamic 
> and Static. This leads to the false impression that there remains an 
> unscathed Quality atop the DQ/SQ dichotomy, and made the latter-day 
> Pirsig (in the Summary of 2005) say that the MOQ is the "static" part of 
> a still greater Quality/MOQ meta-metaphysics. This is horribly wrong IT 
> IS QUALITY WHICH IS DIVIDED!. Must be. To say that reality is 
> something is useless. There were no metaphysics that said that reality 
> was NOT Quality, it was just SOM that said that qualities were 
> subjective.  
> 
> [Krimel]
> Thus far I have tried to show that while conception is not mandatory; it is
> useful and it becomes increasing useful as we become more precise in carving
> things up. Again, you mistake the way we elect to carve things up for the
> thing being carved. We have to carve to communicate. But it is error to
> confuse conception with perception or the discrete with the continuous.
> Pirsig's statement about the MoQ are static entities and he has elected to
> do precisous little to elaborate on them. Your ideas about the MoQ and your
> expression of them are constructed of static units. Quality is continuous.
> "Quality" is discrete. Pirsig makes this pretty clear when he talks about
> mystics being concerned with Quality and having distain for the
> metaphysicians concern with "Quality".
> 
> Back to my earlier concern with lack of sex. If the experience of sex is all
> that concerns you, you might as well masturbate. But if you want to have sex
> with someone else, you are going to need to learn to communicate. How well
> you communicate will play a major role in how successful you are. You are
> confusing having sex with which words you would use to convince someone else
> to join you. But at least you aren't proclaiming the virtue of flying solo.
> 
> [Bo]
> Please apply your intelligence on this  ... 
> 
> [Krimel]
> As a recent lurker I can say with confidence I would not have made it to
> this point in so lengthy a post but please try and do the same.
> 
> p.s. I probably should proof read this a couple of times but I hear a baby
> crying so alas, I regret whatever noise my shoddy typing has introduced into
> the intended signal.
> 
> 
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> 
>> It is just useful. Making distinctions and creating concepts is what
>> sets us apart from other animals but how we do it is entirely up to us. 
> 
>> [Bo]
>> I accept every word, but you said that DQ/SQ corresponds to the 
>> Yang/Yin and I agree. There can't be any Tao without the Yang/Yin
>> arrangement and no Quality without the DQ/SQ. If the mere act of
>> saying so is the sin, how do you avoid language? 
>> 
>> [Krimel]
>> You have this backwards the Tao is the Tao regardless of how we elect
>> to describe it. As I said, Lao Tsu does not use the terms. What he
>> says is this:
>> 
>> Even the finest teaching is not the Tao itself. 
>> Even the finest name is insufficient to define it. 
>> Without words, the Tao can be experienced,
>> and without a name, it can be known.
>> 
>> You can avoid language by not speaking but if you want to communicate
>> you have to have concepts. You have to divide continuous experience
>> into discrete units. How we choose to do that is what we are talking
>> about here. This is where Pirsig is wielding his analytical knife to
>> reslice Lao Tsu's pie. The task of metaphysics is to decide on the
>> most fundamental units of this division. One way to do this would be
>> mind/matter another static/dynamic. You could pick good/evil or
>> natural/supernatural. Many ancient people chose earth, air, fire and
>> water; or the three states of matter and the power that transforms
>> them.
>> 
>> [Bo]
>> But for Goodness' sake the MOQ "argues" that DQ is and will remain
>> undefined. Again muster your resources and try to come to grips with
>> this issue.
>> 
>> [Krimel]
>> Quality is undefined. 
>> 
>> DQ and SQ are concepts we use to talk about it. They are definitions
>> and they are both definable and specifiable. In fact the biggest
>> problem I have with the AWGIs is their insistence that DQ is
>> "betterness". DQ, change, can be disastrous. In fact disaster is a
>> form of DQ. Even the Jews got this point. In Isaiah it is written: "I
>> form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil,
>> saith the Lord.
>> 
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