[MD] Julian Baggini Interview with Pirsig

[Matt Kundert]

David,

Matt said:
But if their only point is that ontic reality is open, that it can expand, 
that it is forever metaphysically incomplete, then I think their point could 
be expressed as I did above--that reaction is internal to the ontic and that 
creativity sometimes arises from those reactions.

David said:
I hope I have expressed why I think there is an external aspect to openness, 
in that what is possible is external in the sense that it can only become 
internal by becoming actual. The possible is too rich for the actual to 
contain.

Matt said:
If there is something mysterious about "creativity sometimes arises," 
something that makes one react, "Yeah, but _when_ does it arise?", I would 
suggest that the desire to answer that question (for instance, with "it 
arises when beings react to Being" or "it arises when static patterns react 
to Dynamic Quality") is the exact desire to close off the openness that you 
were to trying leave there--it is the resurgent (bad) metaphysical impulse 
that Heidegger (and Pirsig) was desperately trying to still (when 
metaphysics is understood as Heidegger understood it--as Platonism).

David said:
Is not DQ the boundary of the actual. The leading edge as Pirsig says. That 
on which we properly remain silent. But surely as profound silence. That 
edge is not a closure, it is the horizon, the wild west, the frontier.

Matt:
Seeing your response, I'm not sure if we do have an interesting difference 
on this count.  It's either too subtle for me to see or simply verbal 
differences.  As far as I can see, saying "there is an external aspect to 
openness" is the same thing as me saying that reactions are internal, and 
those are the same as saying that DQ is "the boundary of the actual," "not a 
closure," but a "horizon."  The only thing I want to warn against is 
thinking that there are interactions occuring across this boundary between 
the actual and the possible, static patterns and DQ.  The actual, static 
patterns, simply push back the boundaries, unfold into the possible's space. 
  But there is no interaction between them.  I would think that to be an 
ontotheological impulse, the desire for closure that Heidegger and Pirsig 
want to guard against.  And if you're not inclined to think there are 
interactions, then I'm not sure we're saying much different.

Matt

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