[MD] British Emergentism

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Platt]
(Lila, 11 -- caps added to highlight "action verbs.")

[Arlo]
You can cite Holy Writ all you want, Platt. The point is, if you take 
these metaphors "literally", you completely eliminate "freedom" from the MOQ.

Again, here's a passage from LILA that captures the MOQ much better.

"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-is an elementary unit of ethics..." (LILA)

Here we see a much more accurate description. The "act" is done the 
by "inorganic patterns of reality" in RESPONSE TO Dynamic Quality.

I appreciate, and understand, why you can't respond to any 
substantive point I make, preferring only to cite as Writ those 
passages that appear to present Quality as a Grand Designer, but it 
is just not so.

I provided this before, but its worth repeating. In Guidebook to ZMM, 
DiSanto writes:

"The parallel concerns the dynamics of creation-more specifically, 
the fact that the created world comes into being through the 
interaction of a polarity, a complementary twosome.

In the Taoist scheme of things, the Tao, the unnameable One, gives 
rise to the myriad nameable things by way of the Two, yin and yang. 
The Tao is neither yin nor yang but is the ground of both and 
permeates both. Yin and yang produce by their interaction all that 
can be named and defined. In Phaedrus' parallel scheme, as I 
understand it, Quality, the unnameable One, gives rise to the myriad 
nameable things by way of the Two, subject and object. Quality is 
neither subject nor object but is the ground of both and permeates 
both." (Guidebook to ZMM)

Quality is the "ground". It is the foundation. It is a "source" to be 
sure, but creation is the polaric response of a pattern to its 
experience. DiSanto understand what you continue to bury your head in 
the sand about.

Like last time, I doubt you'll answer this, but if "DQ invents 
thing", what about, say, Edison? Did he not "invent" in response TO Quality?

Finally, you once again pay only lipservice to freedom, preferring 
instead to demand a Grand Agent whose purposeful orchestrations 
bestow meaning to your existence. I am sorry you need that, but that 
may explain why you are trying to turn Quality into Qualigod.

"The easiest intellectual analogue of pure Quality that people in our 
environment can understand is that 'Quality is the response of an 
organism to its environment'". Which is, I'm sorry to tell Pirsig, 
not so easy, since you continue to completely and entirely miss it.

More.

"We invent earth and heavens, trees, stones and oceans, gods, music, 
arts, language, philosophy, engineering, civilization and science. We 
call these analogues reality. And they are reality. We mesmerize our 
children in the name of truth into knowing that they are reality. We 
throw anyone who does not accept these analogues into an insane 
asylum. But that which causes us to invent the analogues is Quality. 
Quality is the continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us 
to create the world in which we live. All of it. Every last bit of it/"

There. Read that last sentence again.

"Quality is the continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon 
us to create the world in which we live." (ZMM)

Maybe once you understand this, you'll start to see this more clearly.

 From LILA: "They do not just change valuelessly. They change in ways 
that evade, override and circumvent these laws. The patterns of life 
are constantly evolving IN RESPONSE TO something "better" than that 
which these laws have to offer." (LILA)

Since you prefer Writ. Here's but one more.

"By contrast the Metaphysics of Quality, also going back to square 
one, says that man is composed of static levels of patterns of 
evolution with a capability of response to Dynamic Quality." (LILA)

The freedom here is that DQ does not order, orchestrate, plan, 
control, manipulate or do any of these things. The freedom here is in 
MAN to ACT in RESPONSE to Quality.

As it is on ALL the MOQs levels.

Again. Quality does not "act", Quality simply "is".