[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Platt]
DQ is at the front edge of Quality. So is static quality. Only human beings 
can respond to DQ. Animals and below respond automatically, statically to 
the front edge by instinct.

[Arlo]
And where o' where is this found in Lila? That both Dynamic and static 
quality is at the front-edge of experience? It is quite clear in Lila that 
Dynamic Quality is the "front-edge of experience", and static quality comes 
later.

Since you ignore Pirsig in this regard, it's worth repeating.

"An amoeba, placed on a plate of water with a drip of dilute sulfuric acid 
placed nearby, will pull away from the acid (I think). If it could speak 
the amoeba, without knowing anything about sulfuric acid, could say, 'This 
environment has poor quality.' [FRONT EDGE OF EXPERIENCE] If it had a 
nervous system it would act in a much more complex way to overcome the poor 
quality of the environment. It would seek analogues, that is, images and 
symbols from its previous experience [STATIC PATTERNS], to define the 
unpleasant nature of its new environment and thus 'understand' it.

This is not "statically responding" (whatever that means). It is responding 
to "front-edge experience". Dynamic Quality. This one sentence, "Animals 
and below respond automatically,
statically to the front edge by instinct" is so convoluted of Pirsig I'm 
not even sure what you mean.

[Arlo previously]
"The negative esthetic quality of the hot stove in the earlier example was 
now given some added meaning by a static-Dynamic division of Quality. When 
the person who sits on the stove first discovers his low-Quality situation, 
the front edge of his experience is Dynamic [FIRST RESPONSE TO SITTING ON A 
HOT STOVE IS DYNAMIC]. He does not think, "This stove is hot," and then 
make a rational decision to get off. A "dim perception of he knows not 
what" gets him off Dynamically. Later he generates static patterns of 
thought to explain the situation [AFTERWARDS COMES STATIC]."

"And they are completely different from the biological pattern that can 
cause the most skeptical of intellectuals to leap from a hot stove [IT IS 
BIOLOGICAL PATTERN RESPONSE TO HOT STOVE THAT IS DYNAMIC]."

Let that sink in. The response is (1) on the biological level, and (2) Dynamic.

[Platt]
It's "dynamic" in the sense that it happens quickly. But it's static in 
that it's an instinctive, automatic response If you want a good description 
of DQ, here's the word direct from Pirsig:

[Arlo]
It's Dynamic because it happens quickly? Can you cite any source for this 
one? I see nothing in the above segment that indicates Pirsig has shifted 
his meaning of Dynamic to mean "quickly".

Here it is step by step.

1. "When the person who sits on the stove first discovers his low-Quality 
situation, the front edge of his experience is Dynamic" [FIRST RESPONSE TO 
SITTING ON A HOT STOVE IS DYNAMIC].

2. "A "dim perception of he knows not what" gets him off Dynamically. Later 
he generates static patterns of thought to explain the situation" 
[AFTERWARDS COMES STATIC]."

3. "And they [THE STATIC PATTERNS] are completely different from the 
biological pattern [DYNAMIC RESPONSE] that can cause the most skeptical of 
intellectuals to leap from a hot stove [IT IS BIOLOGICAL PATTERN RESPONSE 
TO HOT STOVE THAT IS DYNAMIC]."

[Platt]
Let that sink in. A human being responding to something "Fantastically 
good." Or from the brujo story, "A vague sense of betterness."  That's DQ.

[Arlo]
What kind of an "A Ha!" moment do you think that is? I never said humans 
didn't respond to DQ. Of course they do. But so does everything that senses 
"it's better here", or as you call it "a vague sense of betterness".

[Platt]
The front edge of experience is Quality. At the front edge is both Dynamic 
and static Quality. After hearing the song many times, the  hearing of the 
song at the front edge of experience becomes static. "Static quality is 
what you normally expect" at the front edge of experience.

[Arlo]
Static quality is not at the front edge of experience. "the front edge of 
his experience is Dynamic. Later he generates static patterns of thought to 
explain the situation."

"Dynamic Quality is the pre-intellectual cutting edge of reality, the 
source of all things, completely simple and always new."

Can you find me any Pirsig reference at all that says "static quality is at 
the front-edge of experience"?

[Arlo previously]
The cells have gotten to their advanced state of evolution through all this 
fucking and farting and pissing and shitting. That's quality! Particularly 
the sexual functions. From the cells' point of view sex is pure Dynamic 
Quality [NOT PAST TENSE, PRESENT], the highest Good of all."

[Platt]
have gotten" past tense.

[Arlo]
"is" present tense. Of course the cells responded to DQ in the past, just 
as they continue to do today.

[Arlo previously]
When mutation was the only means of genetic change, life sat around for 
three billion years, doing almost no changing at all. It was sexual 
selection that shot it forward into the animals and plants we have today. A 
bacterium gets no choice in what its progeny are going to be, but a queen 
bee gets to select from thousands of drones. That selection is Dynamic [A 
QUEEN BEE SELECTING A SEX PARTNER IS RESPONDING TO DYNAMIC QUALITY].

[Platt]
"It was" past tense.

[Arlo]
"is" present tense. Of course the bees responded to DQ in the past, just as 
they continue to do today.

[Arlo previously]
In all sexual selection, Lila chooses, Dynamically, the individual she 
wants to project into the future [JUST LIKE THE BEE]. If he excites her 
sense of Quality she joins him to perpetuate him into another generation, 
and he lives on. But if he's unable to convince her of his Quality-if he's 
sick or deformed or unable to satisfy her in some way-she refuses to join 
him and his deformity is not carried on."

[Platt]
I find the analogy of human sex with a bee's sex absurd....

[Arlo]
Take that up with Pirsig.

[Platt]
... After having sex with the queen bee, the male bee dies. And the 
selection or choice that takes place is preprogrammed and instinctive, thus 
basically an automatic, static response brought about by hormones. Same 
with humans as anyone knows who has been, or observed, a teenager.

[Arlo]
The selection of a sex partner is preprogrammed and instinctive?! Holy 
moly, Platt,  this explains a lot about you. When I was a teenager, I chose 
to be with people I preferred. Sorry to hear that wasn't your experience. 
(Or, is this just rationalization for why the Homecoming Queen choose 
someone else?)

Luckily, Pirsig believes the choice to be Dynamic. I agree.

[Arlo previously]
Natural selection is Dynamic Quality at work." [GUESS YOU'LL PROPOSE THAT 
NATURAL SELECTION HAS CEASED IN THE NON-HUMAN WORLD]

[Platt]
Yes, evolution has ceased in the non-human world. Unless you can provide 
evidence to the contrary. And I don't mean a new species of mosquito or a 
different beak on a bird..

[Arlo]
Herds are thinned every day by predators. That's natural selection. That's 
Dynamic Quality at work.

[Arlo previously]
"So what Phaedrus was saying was that not just life, but everything, is an 
ethical activity. It is nothing else. When inorganic patterns of reality 
create life the Metaphysics of Quality postulates that they've done so 
because it's "better" and that this definition of "betterness" -this 
beginning response to Dynamic Quality [AGAIN, NOT PAST TENSE, PRESENT]-is 
an elementary unit of ethics upon which all right and wrong can be based."

[Platt]
"have done so" past tense.  But yes --  betterness, goodness. I think you 
are on the right track at last.

[Arlo]
The sentence, as you should know, is a present-past construct. "When Arlo 
kisses a girl, he has done so because she's moved his heart.", does not 
imply in any way that Arlo no longer kisses girls. It is a description of 
present activity.

As for betterness, I know I am on the right track. Even your cat knows 
"it's better here". Dynamic Quality. A sense of betterness.

Later comes the analogues. The static quality. Here is where you and your 
cat differ. Not in ability to respond to DQ, but in the analogues you are 
able to build in reaction to that response.

[Platt]
Atoms are capable of experience? You'll have a hard time convincing anyone 
of that. If the MOQ rests on that premise, it hasn't got a chance. Further, 
it's directly contradicted by Pirsig's "only a living being" can respond to DQ.

[Arlo]
Ham said to Platt, "Is there value experience in a molecule 100 miles below 
the earth's surface? The MOQ says there is. No MOQist experiences that, 
though, so it is unempirical assumption."

To which Platt replied, "...What the MOQ says is that the intellectual 
pattern, "molecules have value experiences" is  high quality based on the 
harmony of the entire structure of the MOQ. In other words, it sings if you 
know the musical score."

So, here's a question...

Before humans, could animals respond to DQ? If so, did the appearance of 
humans in Africa so many tens of thousands of years ago cause animals 
living on the North American plains at the time to suddenly lose their 
ability to respond to DQ instantly? Or did they lose it when the first 
human stepped onto the North American continent?


Arlo