[MD] Chance

[David M]

Hi Arlo

I think the below is spot on. And shows how the DQ concept can join
up the behviour of systems/processes across the inanimate/
animate divide, such that the sort of conscious life had
by human beings can be seen as just the our level
of constraint(impossible)/opportunity(possible) but
this emergence of form with new possibilities is a
continuous one since time=0.

Thanks
David M


> [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.
>
>
>
> Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
>