[MD] Sneddon Thesis

[Ant McWatt]

Platt Holden stated December 8th:


Hi Ant,

Thanks for making available Part I of Sneddon’s MA thesis. In it he
describes Quality and Dynamic Quality variously as:

-- a stimulus which our environment puts upon us
-- a stimulus upon nature as a whole
-- a stimulus to change
-- the feeling that drives upwards
-- an upward urge
-- the present moment responds only to a feeling
-- forward, upward urge of evolution

This is new descriptive vocabulary to me. It suggests the existence of
an undefined, undifferentiated, omnipresent force or energy in the
universe that we humans recognize by an emotional response.

Does this accurately reflect your understanding of the MOQ? Do
Sneddon’s words -- stimulus, urge, feeling -- ring true to you?


Ant McWatt comments:

Yes, on the whole, as many of the terms in these descriptions of Quality and 
Dynamic Quality (that you highlight from Part One of Sneddon’s thesis) are 
also to be found in ZMM and LILA.  Or, at least, strongly implied.  For 
instance:

-- a stimulus which our environment puts upon us
-- a stimulus upon nature as a whole

“That which causes us to invent the analogues is Quality.  Quality is the 
continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create the world 
in which we live. All of it. Every last bit of it.” (ZMM, Chapter 20)

-- a stimulus to change

“But in addition there’s a Dynamic good that is outside of any culture, that 
cannot be contained by any system of precepts, but has to be continually 
rediscovered as a culture evolves.  Good and evil are not entirely a matter 
of tribal custom.  If they were, no tribal change would be possible, since 
custom cannot change custom.  There has to be another source of good and 
evil outside the tribal customs that produces the tribal change.”  (LILA, 
Chapter 9)

“In the past Phædrus’ own radical bias caused him to think of Dynamic 
Quality alone and neglect static patterns of quality.  Until now he had 
always felt that these static patterns were dead.  They have no love.  They 
offer no promise of anything.  To succumb to them is to succumb to death, 
since that which does not change cannot live…  The strongest moral argument 
against capital punishment is that it weakens a society’s Dynamic 
capability-its capability for change and evolution.  It’s not the ‘nice’ 
guys who bring about real social change.  ‘Nice’ guys look nice because 
they’re conforming.  It’s the ‘bad’ guys, who only look nice a hundred years 
later, that are the real Dynamic force in social evolution.  That was the 
real moral lesson of the brujo in Zuñi.  If those priests had killed him 
they would have done great harm to their society’s ability to grow and 
change.” (LILA, Chapter 13)

-- the feeling that drives upwards
-- the present moment responds only to a feeling

“Poincaré then hypothesized that this selection is made by what he called 
the
‘subliminal self,’ an entity that corresponds exactly with what Phædrus 
called
preintellectual awareness. The subliminal self, Poincaré said, looks at a 
large
number of solutions to a problem, but only the interesting ones break into 
the
domain of consciousness. Mathematical solutions are selected by the 
subliminal
self on the basis of ‘mathematical beauty,’ of the harmony of numbers and
forms, of geometric elegance. ‘This is a true esthetic feeling which all
mathematicians know,’ Poincaré said, ‘but of which the profane are so 
ignorant
as often to be tempted to smile.’ But it is this harmony, this beauty, that 
is
at the center of it all.”  (ZMM, Chapter 22)

-- an upward urge
-- forward, upward urge of evolution

“Not subject and object but static and Dynamic is the basic division of 
reality.  When A. N. Whitehead wrote that ‘mankind is driven forward by dim 
apprehensions of things too obscure for its existing language,’ he was 
writing about Dynamic Quality.  Dynamic Quality… was the moral force that 
had motivated the brujo in Zuñi.  It contains no pattern of fixed rewards 
and punishments. Its only perceived good is freedom and its only perceived 
evil is static quality itself-any pattern of one-sided fixed values that 
tries to contain and kill the ongoing free force of life.”  (LILA, Chapter 
9)

“A metaphysics of substance makes us think that all evolution stops with the
highest evolved substance, the physical body of man…  Absurd.  If it’s 
possible to imagine two red blood cells sitting side by side asking, ‘Will 
there ever be a higher form of evolution than us?’  and looking around and 
seeing nothing, deciding there isn’t, then you can imagine the 
ridiculousness of two people walking down a street of Manhattan asking if 
there will ever be any form of evolution higher than ‘man,’ meaning 
biological man.  Biological man doesn’t invent cities or societies any more 
than pigs and chickens invent the farmer that feeds them.  The force of 
evolutionary creation isn’t contained by substance. Substance is just one 
kind of static pattern left behind by the creative force.”  (LILA, Chapter 
17)

[From Sneddon's Thesis, note that Whitehead also uses an expanded (i.e. 
beyond human) use of the term ‘creativity’].

“According to the Metaphysics of Quality these ‘human rights’ have not just 
a sentimental basis, but a rational, metaphysical basis.  They are essential 
to the evolution of a higher level of life from a lower level of life.  They 
are for real.”
(LILA, Chapter 24)

--------------------------

However, having pointed out the above, I think Pirsig’s Dynamic-static 
terminology is preferable to Whitehead’s reliance on traditional SOM terms 
especially when referring to ‘subjects’.  For instance, if you examine the 
first section of Sneddon’s thesis it’s not immediately apparent that 
Whitehead is not just referring to human beings in relation to the universe 
when discussing subjects.  It’s only when Part One is read in context that 
it becomes apparent that by the term ‘subject’, Whitehead is referring to 
any entity that acts as a unit in some way (whether that’s a quantum 
particle, a cat or a computer).  This limitation of SOM terminology is, of 
course, summarised by Pirsig in ‘Subjects, Objects, Data, Values’:

‘The Metaphysics of Quality provides a larger framework in which to 
integrate subjectivity and objectivity. Subjectivity and objectivity are not 
separate universes that have no connection to each other. They are instead 
separate stages of a single evolutionary process called value. I can find no 
place where the words subjective and objective are used where they cannot be 
replaced by one of the [four static value levels]. When we get rid of the 
words ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ completely often there is a great 
increase in the clarity of what is said.’

A similar point concerning clarity can be made with the term ‘God’ which 
again would be better replaced in Whitehead’s philosophy with Pirsig’s term 
‘Dynamic Quality’.

Best wishes,

Anthony


P.S. Since uploading Part One of Sneddon’s thesis I’ve recently corrected a 
number of errors that initially came to light with the html version.


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