[MD] Quantum Enigma

[MarshaV]

On Sep 21, 2010, at 1:33 PM, david buchanan wrote:

> 
> Marsha said:
> Reality is whatever you think it is, there's no way you can lie about it, and if you change your understanding of reality, then reality changes too.  First with your question you create a world (or self) in time and space, and then you are bound to search and create answers containing particular causes, conditions and components to populate, explain and define it.  Those causes, conditions and components (bits and pieces of pattern) that work best in your present become reality.
> 
> 
> 
> dmb says:
> 
> That view is beyond relativism. It is solipsism. The MOQ is neither of those things. 

Marsha:
This was not my interpretation of the MoQ point-of-view.  This is my personal view.  Although I bet before you read ZMM and LILA, you had one interpretation of reality, and after reading ZMM and LILA you had quite another view of reality.   


> Lila, the character, is intellectually nowhere. Socially, she's pretty far down the scale. She's a former prostitute whose heart is full of grief and shame and whose sanity is slipping away. As far as static quality goes, she's got some only in terms of biology and that's fading too. She needs to go through her insanity if there is going to be any hope of a real recovery. She needs to come out better than cured on the other side. But she probably won't get the kind of space and freedom that she needs. Instead, she'll probably join a 12-step program and get religion. It's more likely that she'll become what Rigel thinks she should be. 

Marsha:
Extending the story to suit you is fine.  


> You see this sorry configuration in the way she treats the captain. Biologically speaking, she couldn't be nicer to him. But socially speaking, she's a rude user, an ungracious guest whose willing to betray her host at the drop of hat. And intellectually, forget about it. She refuses to answer the captain's questions on the premise that he's only asking in order to destroy her. She's way too neurotic and paranoid to have any kind of intellectual conversation, or even a pleasant conversation. 

Marsha:
To me Lila's soliloquy demonstrates a unique insight.  The story may play differently for you.  I have no problem with how you understand the story.  


> 
> Does Lila have Quality? Well, yes and no. The question is not supposed to have one clear and simple answer. The book asks us to think about her in terms of DQ and the levels of static quality and from the various perspectives. Her former pimp sees her one way. Rigel's judgmental eyes see her another way and then there is the captain's view. As I read it, these perspectives correlate with the biological, social and intellectual levels respectively. This reading fits with the assessment that she's presently a train wreck in terms of static quality but Dynamically something big is happening. She's going through a psychological version of death and she's going to be destroyed by it or she'll be re-born. We can hope that she won't be cast in Rigel's mold but if we're going to have realistic speculations about fictional characters, we have to admit that is the most likely outcome. Somebody like Rigel will turn her into a social level, paint-by-numbers conformist. That's the Hollywood ending. If it were an independent film, she'd die in a shoot out at Jamie's place in Manhattan. But let's say the happiest ending is the one where she gets to go through the psychosis at her own pace and comes out on the other side better than cured. Let's say this experience hits the big re-set button on her life and she get's to start over. 

Marsha:
Again this is your interpretation.  


> Not too many people know that this character was based on an actual person and a true story. Her real name: Martha Stewart.  
> 
> Just kidding.

Poor Martha Stewart.   

 
___