[MD] SOLAQI, Kant's TITs, chaos, and the S/I distinction

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Marsha]
To think that either the 'emerging' or 'stuff' is somehow dependent on
'balance',  'coherence' or 'sweet spot'  is a mistake.  

[SA]
Could you please explain why this is a mistake. I know where your coming from
with 'balance'.  The cultural language would mislead people if balance is used.
 What about coherence and sweet spot?  thanks.

[Arlo]
Its clearly NOT a mistake, as I think can be shown by envisioning a world of ALL
DQ or ALL SQ. 

"In the past Phaedrus' 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. But now he was beginning to see that this radical bias
weakened his own case. Life can't exist on Dynamic Quality alone. It has no
staying power. To cling to Dynamic Quality alone apart from any static patterns
is to cling to chaos."

Or as Dewey put it (quoted in Granger), "Because the actual world, that in which
we live, is a combination of movement and culmination, of breaks and re-unions,
the experience of a living creature is capable of esthetic quality."

I think you may be right, SA. "Balance" may have misleading cultural
connotations here (such as "equal portions"), but no matter what you call it
(dynamic equilibrium, harmony, sweet spot, coherence, etc.) I think we are all
pointing to same thing.

"Static quality patterns are dead when they are exclusive, when they demand
blind obedience and suppress Dynamic change. But static patterns, nevertheless,
provide a necessary stabilizing force to protect Dynamic progress from
degeneration. Although Dynamic Quality, the Quality of freedom, creates this
world in which we live, these patterns of static quality, the quality of order,
preserve our world. Neither static nor Dynamic Quality can survive without the
other." (LILA)

"Without Dynamic Quality the organism cannot grow. Without static quality the
organism cannot last. Both are needed." (LILA) 

"That's the whole thing: to obtain static and Dynamic Quality simultaneously. If
you don't have the static patterns of scientific knowledge to build upon you're
back with the cave man. But if you don't have the freedom to change those
patterns you're blocked from any further growth." (LILA)

And that "point" where you have obtained DQ and SQ simultaneously, that is the
"point" of balance, of harmony, of equilibrium, of coherence (if I understand
correctly), it is the "sweet spot". 

PS: The only thing I'd point out in addition here is in Pirsig's statement "If
you don't have the static patterns of scientific knowledge to build upon you're
back with the cave man." What he should have said, to be more accurate is, "If
you don't have the INTELLECTUAL static patterns of scientific knowledge to
build upon you're back with the cave man." I take it Pirsig acknowledges that
said cavemen (friends of Case's Great-x-2364 Grandpapy Uga, perhaps) are the
result of some social patterns of value. If we remove SOCIAL static patterns
from the mix, then those "cavemen" become nothing but individual biological
patterns. And... if we don't have the biological static patterns of value,
those individual biological patterns would be back to atoms, and without
inorganic static patterns of value... well, then you'd have your world of Pure
DQ.