[MD] Chance v. Dynamic Quality

[MarshaV]

Arlo,

In spite disliking all the statistical jargon, this is a great post.


Marsha



At 10:29 AM 3/19/2009, you wrote:
>[Andre]
>Can I summarise the discussion as centering around the question: when is an
>experience Dynamic and when is an experience a 'normal' reaction to something?
>
>[Arlo]
>Here's the point. ALL experiences, as they occur, contain an amount of
>probability that something "unexpected" will occur. But, most familiar
>experiences contain a high degree of probability that a certain response will
>repeat. It is those repetitions that we later call "static patterns".
>
>There are NO "dynamic experiences" or "static experiences". There is ONLY
>"experience". And this experience is ALWAYS the organism responding to DQ.
>However, repeated circumstances leads us to see highly probable responses as
>"static", so likely to occur they seem "guaranteed" to do so.
>
>I don't have LILA in front of me here at home, but I'll cite (since it makes
>Platt forget that his agreement with you reverses his position entirely) the
>passage therein where Pirsig talks about "causation". To paraphrase, he says
>that particles "prefer" to do what they do (this drives Krimel bonkers, so I
>say this with some risk there), and that what we see as static patterns are
>merely highly probable preferences. But in that same passage he 
>stands outright
>against the idea of "absolute certainty". There is ALWAYS a CHANCE a 
>particular
>pattern will NOT respond in a predictable way, as ALL experience
>at-the-moment-of-experience is a response to DQ.
>
>Or rather, DQ IS the response to experience. Just because we can "predict"
>something does NOT mean its a "static response" (every time Platt says this an
>angel loses its wings). What it means is that it is a response to DQ that is
>highly probable.
>
>You are correct, the more unusual the experience, the greater the chance for
>unexpected behavior. But if that experience was repeated, if you 
>found yourself
>in a hurricane every Tuesday afternoon, your initial responses may 
>end up being
>"preferred" responses, and we'd start to see them as a "static pattern", a
>pattern of probable responses.
>
>To bring in some other lingo, we are "habituated beings". We are creatures of
>habit through and through. We develop "analogues" (as Pirsig calls 
>them) and we
>strive to apply these analogues to our experiences. Sometimes we run into
>situations where we have no applicable analogues. And in those cases, yes, I
>would fully expect the probability of something "off-the-wall" occurring is
>fairly high.
>
>[Andre]
>I suppose what I am getting at is that a DQ event is one whereby one is
>'confronted' with the un-likely within the likely...
>
>[Arlo]
>I'm nitpicking, to be sure, but I would say there is no such thing as a "DQ
>event". This implies there are non-DQ events. All experiences contain, as I've
>been saying, some "chance" that the response will be "new", or not following
>some probable path. Even in the most mundane of moments, the most routine of
>habits, the most usual of everyday moments, there is a CHANCE that 
>the response
>will be "off the wall", something new, something unforseen and 
>creatively wild.
>One does not need to be in a hurricane for this to occur. It can happen on yet
>another drive to work, or sitting on one's porch for the umpteenth 
>evening in a
>row staring at the same trees one has seen since one was a child.
>
>This is what makes Quality such a powerful idea. And why Pirsig's first book
>was devoted to "clues" or "ques" one can leverage that may help someone see
>something new in the same old things they've been seeing for a while.
>
>And, when seen this way, Quality does not become an "external" manipulator or
>external "force" which acts intermittently on some things but not 
>others (where
>Platt's view leads).
>
>When Pirsig said "Quality IS the response of the organism to its environment",
>right there he says what I feel is the single most important aspect 
>of the MOQ.
>By saying "the DQ event" or "static biological responses", one makes DQ
>external to experience (applicable to some, but not others). It is not.
>
>"Quality IS the response of the organism to its environment". And in that are
>the seeds that such a response will be unpredictable (the dynamic 
>aspect of all
>experience), and also that certain responses are highly probable 
>(what we later
>end up calling "static patterns").
>
>At any rate, again, I think we are 99% in accord here. As with 
>chance, maybe we
>use some terminology differently.
>
>[Andre]
>I think that when Pirsig says that "These patterns can't by 
>themselves perceive
>or adjust to Dynamic Quality. Only a living being can do that' (Lila, p165) he
>suggest the degree to which a living pattern can perceive or adjust depends
>upon the level of freedom achieved. An amoeba can't pack its bags and migrate
>to the Bahamas/or China. Other animals can only run and hope the fire stops
>somewhere, or that there is food somewhere else. Man can fight the 
>fire/ or the
>flood/ or take measures to reduce the impact of an earth quake. Man 
>grows food,
>learns, and has developed a variety of ways to adapt 
>(biologically,socially and
>intellectually) to many different environments and conditions.
>
>[Arlo]
>I kept your entire passage here intact, because I think its spot on. I've long
>argued that this Pirsig quote is simply Pirsig misspeaking, as everything he
>says elsewhere would dispute it. You wisely went back to ZMM to 
>reform the idea
>he was getting at, and I think that is exactly what I've been saying.
>
>ALL "things" respond to DQ, but do so within the "probability field" their
>particular repertoire of responses allow. Yes, as one moves up the MOQ levels,
>greater and greater repertoires of possibility open up. It is NOT that man
>responds to DQ but the amoeba responds to "static biological 
>quality" (as Platt
>suggests), that's outrageous. BOTH respond to DQ but man has a much, 
>much, much
>greater repertoire.
>
>But even the phrase "respond to DQ" annoys me as it too implies an DQ as some
>external-to-experience "force" or "entity". To really be precise, 
>I'd say, both
>amoebas and man experience and respond, which IS Dynamic Quality, and their
>responses to their environment are shaped by their level of complexity, and
>their responses as they attain certain levels of probability become seen to us
>(after the fact) as "static patterns" (patterns of preferred responses).
>
>I guess what I am belaboring here is that the power of the MOQ is in keeping
>Quality AS experience, not as some outside force or whatever acts on us, or
>manipulates us, or orders us, or that we can respond to... and certainly NOT a
>force that acts on some things but not others. Quality IS the everyday lived
>experience, and ALL those experiences are at the moment Dynamic, all contain
>seeds of improbable responses, it is our preferred responses that later get
>conceptualized as "static".
>
>As I said, I think we are mostly in agreement here.
>
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