[MD] DQ: to define or undefine

[Krimel]

Krimel said: 
... What that means is that DQ is NOT undefinable. DQ is just the opposite
of SQ. SQ is patterns that don't change and DQ is patterns that do change.

dmb says:
I think it's a mistake to distinguish DQ and sq as the difference between
change and changelessness. First of all, there is no such thing as
changelessness. Static patterns are relatively stable, but even stars are
born and die and the big bang was a very big change. These are the inorganic
level of patterns, the most stable of all, and still the whole story is a
drama of unfolding and collapse. 

[Krimel]
So Static Quality is undefinable as well?

[dmb]
Secondly, DQ can't be rightly thought of as patterns that do change because
DQ is not patterned at all. It's likened to a stream, a flux, to the cutting
edge of an ongoing event, etc.. 

[Krimel]
So DQ is "...likened to a stream, a flux, to the cutting edge of an ongoing
event, etc.."; but it is not like change?

Krimel quoted Pirsig's reply to Paul Turner:
"When ZMM was written there was no division between Dynamic Quality and
static quality and the term Quality then meant what is now meant by Dynamic
Quality.  Today I tend to think of Quality as covering both Dynamic and
static quality.  So far no problems have arisen with this confusion of terms
but if they do arise I would guess that they could be eliminated by
refraining from using the term Quality alone."

dmb says:
No he didn't and there is nothing about the quote that should outrage
anyone. I think it's all quite clear and even pretty obvious. You find it
confusing only because you are confused about the meaning of "static" and
"dynamic", as shown above. 

[Krimel]
I invite you to dispel the confusion.

Krimel said:
Pirsig does more or less create the problem in Lila by failing to
distinguish between Quality and Dynamic Quality. He uses them
interchangeably and as a result often incorrectly. I don't think it is hard
to read past these errors and to forgive him for his enthusiastic
applications of the ideas represented but a literal reading without this
filter produces weird effects.  ... Please, someone tell me why DQ can't be
defined.

dmb says:
No, I think the problem is created by reading Lila badly. I mean, how can
you read Lila and still wonder why DQ can't be defined? It's the exact same
reason "Quality" can't be defined in ZAMM. That's one of the most important
clues that tell us the "Quality" of ZAMM is equal to the DQ of Lila.

[Krimel]
What is the point of the modifier in Lila?

[dmb]
In both cases, it can't be defined because it is pre-intellectual experience
and definitions are intellectual. It is undifferentiated experience and
definitions ARE differentiations. Definitions are static patterns and DQ is
neither static nor patterned. I mean, he explains it about fifteen different
ways. As I see it, all you've done here is blame Pirsig for your
shortcomings as a reader and thinker. One of which, follows...

[Krimel]
I read talk of DQ and SQ as talk about two aspects or ways of apprehending
Quality. In the example you give that would be intellectually and
pre-intellectually.

Krimel said:
... We can and do make statements about DQ all the time. While driving we
look to measurements of velocity and guess at the distances between the
other cars around us. We alter the position of the steering wheel to keep
our distance from other drivers we speed up and slow down these are all DQ
response to DQ change in the flow of traffic. There is no reason we can't
define and even quantify those changes if it suits our purposes. ...

dmb says:
Drivers respond to DQ change in the flow of traffic? Hmmm. One could make
such a case with lots and lots of qualifications. In the case of a highly
intense auto race where the driver is an expert with many years of
experience, SHE could rely on the unconscious evaluation processes in such a
way that we could call it DQ. But normally, driving a car is more likely to
be totally static and deliberate. 

[Krimel]
The only difference between a race car driver and a commuter is velocity or
rate of change. For both drivers, the act of driving has become habitual
through practice. Whenever we learn a skill we apply conscious effort to the
task of making the skill automatic. Intellectual functioning is slow and
deliberate, requiring conscious effort. Automatic functioning becomes
effortless. We no longer have to think about our relationship to other cars
are the rate of flow of the stream of traffic. That is what makes commuting
seem boring. There is nothing to think about.

[dmb]
The great funeral procession to work, for example, is a very good example of
static behavior. The living dead are in motion every weekday morning,
zombie-like, drone-like, off to their cubicles to make square deals with
square people. This shows that motion and velocity doesn't really have
anything to do with DQ. 

[Krimel]
To the extent driving has become a pre-intellectual response to the dynamic
conditions around us I suppose it is dreary. But I don't see commuters as
zombie-like drones. I see people lost in thought. Listening to music.
Talking to passengers. Looking for novel changes in their environments.
Searching for DQ, if you will.

[dmb]
I guess you're trying to image the distinction in terms of physical
realities. But the difference is between two kinds of experience, two ways
of "knowing", two ways of taking in the "world". That's why I keep putting
it in terms of conceptual and pre-conceptual or intellectual and
pre-intellectual. DQ and sq are phases or elements within experience. We
isolate them for the purpose of discussion but they are constantly
interacting with each other and together constitute our experience. 

[Krimel]
intellectual - pre-intellectual
conceptual - pre-conceptual (perceptual)
conscious - unconscious
verbal - non-verbal
logic - emotion
fixed - changing
static - dynamic 
passive - active
yin - yang

Put them together and what do you get?
I don't know but I call it Tao.
Some call it Quality.

[dmb]
What Pirsig and James are saying is that we have ignored one of these
elements and that this ignorance causes personal, cultural and philosophical
problems. 

[Krimel]
Which is why in ZMM the split is characterized as romantic - classic. The
romantic style prefers to be guided by the passions. The classic style
prefers to be guided by reason. Jung called these two styles intuitive and
intellectual. 

Tao te Ching means, the book of the way of virtue. It talks about Tao as The
Way to "te" or virtue. Its chief assertion is that virtue is achieved
through harmonious balancing of opposites.

[dmb]
As McGilchrist would put it, the emissary (our conceptualizations) thinks
he's in charge of the Master (DQ). As Pirsig would put it, the truth
(intellectual static patterns) thinks it's in charge of the Good (DQ).
McGilchrist even agrees with Pirsig that this shift took place around the
4th century B.C.. and he puts it in terms of the domination by the left
hemisphere of the briain, the one Jill Bolte-Taylor lost during her stroke. 

[Krimel]
The Hopi call this koyaanisqatsi or life out of balance. 

Sustaining balance is a dynamic process for achieving a static harmony.

With respect to human beings traveling The Way, "Harmony - te - virtue"
cannot be achieved when reason overpowers emotion anymore than it can be
achieved with emotion overpowers reason.