[MD] The MOQ difference

[Andre Broersen]

  Dave to DMB:

There is no such thing as a static pattern. Another case of RMP privileging
rhetoric. Stable patterns, sure, but static in the sense of never changing,
fixed, eternal there are none. Frankly you keep getting all over Marsha for
using "ever changing" in regard to static patterns when I for the life of me
cannot think of one static pattern that does not change.

Andre:
Correct Dave and this 'difficulty with Pirsig's terminology that should be noted
( as Anthony observes in his PhD)is the ambiguity of the term 'static' due to its
connotations with the movement of physical objects even though this isn't the sense
in which Pirsig (1994) understands the term.

'According to the Metaphysics of Quality all objects, whether they move or not, are
physical patterns of value and are therefore static patterns of quality. Static and
Dynamic Quality patterns are not properties of objects. Objects are a property of
static quality'.

'A proposed modification therefore is the term 'stable' which avoids this ambiguity but
retains the essential meaning of 'static' that the MOQ requires'. (p76)

There is stability in the patterns as they denote repeated arrangements. Marsha, by using
the 'ever changing' rhetoric makes a 'stable' discussion impossible by arguing for a
relativism based on this 'ever changing'. This makes any discussion, any walk down the
street, any talk of a tree ridiculous as from the first moment to the next the discussion,
the walk (my body, my shoes), the street, the tree has changed.

The 'properties' may change but the value is 'stable'.

To reduce everything to 'ever changing' stuff,and ,by implication, TOTALLY different, to the
point of not being able to say anything meaningful about it is to reduce our 'conventional world'
to a nonsense. It is nihilism, a cul-de-sac a dead end street.

It is to fundamentally misunderstand the DQ/sq relationship.

PS, I thought it was you Dave, who referred to Austin's 'Zen and the Brain'. I am chewing on it.
Thank you for attending me to it.