[MD] Chance

[Arlo Bensinger]

[DM]
How would you describe more static responses.

[Arlo]
I'd say what we see as a "static pattern" is the amalgamation of 
many, many responses to Dynamic Quality. Hence in my understanding, 
there is no such thing as a "static response", there is only (from a 
larger vantage point) highly probable Dynamic responses.

[DM]
To some extent jumping off the hot stove is a habitual/patterned form 
of behaviour and so is SQ. I thinks all experiences and processes 
have a DQ/SQ mix.

[Arlo]
I think the "pattern of behavior" we see is a highly probable 
response to DQ. But I would also say that the probability of that 
response derives from the static patterns that make up the respondent 
pattern in question. This is partly what I meant, and Pirsig touches 
on, when I said that "how" something responds is DQ is both enabled 
and constrained by the totality of responses in its particular 
repertoire. Humans (and cats) "jump off the hot stove" because they 
are made up of biological patterns that have a high probability to 
find that situation "low-quality".

Consider this. A person with a nerve "disorder" that can't feel a 
thing, has no sense of touch, will still suffer biological 
deterioration when sitting on a hot stove, even if no signal ever 
reaches the brain to signal a "jump"). The cells, muscles, bones, 
etc. in this individual still respond to this low-quality situation 
in highly probable ways, but the "higher response" of "jumping off" 
(made possible by the possession of a central nervous system) will 
not occur. That is, on the lower-level of biological complexity, the 
cells still respond to Dynamic Quality, but in this case responses 
from a higher level repertoire are not available. Assuming no social 
mitigation (a friend yelling "you're sitting on a hot stove!", only 
when the biological damage becomes severe enough to register in the 
brain from other channels (loss of blood, e.g.) will higher-level 
responses become available.

So to this end, yes I agree, all experience is a mix of DQ/SQ, 
although I would say that all experience of DQ is constrained (and 
enabled) by SQ. A "cat" repertoire of responses is both made possible 
and constrained by the static patterns of which it is formed. The 
same goes for "man". The same goes for an amoeba. The same goes for an atom.

This is why I do not see the cosmos as "dead", either in the sense 
that it needs "man" to observe it or in the sense that evolution for 
all things but "man" has ceased. How sad that Platt's view seems to 
be one that should all "men" disappear, that would be the end of DQ, 
nothing would ever evolve, the cosmos would practically "die". "Cats 
would still be cats", he says. Having "lost" their ability to respond 
to DQ, as have all other things, a cosmos without man becomes "dead" 
or "eternally stagnant".

On the other hand, a cosmos where DQ is pervasive, where on every 
level responses to DQ continue to happen, new evolution is always 
possible, as much today as a thousand years ago, or ten thousand 
years ago. Should "man" disappear, Dynamic Quality will continue to 
push the force of evolution to greater and greater ends.