[MD] The first division of the MOQ. - dynamic or Dynamic Quality?

[Ham Priday]

Hey, David --

On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 7:55 AM, "David Harding" <davidjharding at gmail.com> 
wrote:

> Does a Pirsig quote trump an Anthony McWatt one?
>
> "Unfortunately 'static' and 'Dynamic' have a meaning in physics
> that refers to space and time and motion and this can be confused
> with the static and Dynamic of the MOQ" - Lila's Child.

[Ham]:
>> The ancients weren't talking about "quality"; they were describing
>> an immutable deity.  Since empirical reality is "defined", perhaps
>> "undefined" would be a more suitable label for what Pirsig
>> confusingly calls "Dynamic Quality".

> I think you may have an argument here but I'm yet to be sold.

Well, then, let me try to sell it to you. ...

The transitional world we live in is differentiated into solids, liquids and 
gases; animals, vegetables and minerals; and a multiplicity of objects, all 
of which can be defined and described.  We call this our "reality" and Mr. 
Pirsig calls it a "subject-object metaphysics".  But, to borrow from Hegel, 
it's really a world of "appearances".  Underlying these appearances is a 
fundamental Reality that is uncreated, undifferentiated, and unchanging.

Those who do not acknowledge fundamental Reality consider it "nothingness". 
Those who view it as the cause of experiential reality are either 
pantheists, subjectivists, or mystics.  I would put Pirsig in this category. 
He defines everything--including the conscious self--as a "pattern of 
quality", but because he can't define the fundamental source of this 
quality, he names it Dynamic Quality.  By patternizing the experiential 
world the MoQ does away with subjects and objects, but not the space/time 
dimensionality of the physical universe.

Why not simply call the two modes of reality "defined" and "undefined"?

You quote the author as saying "the term dynamic in 'Dynamic Quality' can be 
confused with 'movement' but that is not what Dynamic Quality is.  Dynamic 
Quality isn't anything at all, including movement."  I understand that 
Dynamic Quality isn't an entity or "thing" in the experiential sense. 
However, the word  dynamic relates to "dynamics" which is an active process, 
or (as Webster's Dictionary states), "marked by continuous, usually 
productive activity or change."  Thus, I submit that Pirsig positied his 
"fundamental Quality" as Dynamic to allow for its supposed evolution to 
"betterness".

But why must the fundamental Reality be a "process"?  Religion didn't 
conceive God as a process, nor did the theologists of Greek philosophy.  If 
the nature of the Creator is Oneness, it logically transcends all 
conditional attributes, including movement and change.

This is why I subscribe to the ontogeny of an "undefined absolute".  I have 
named it 'Essence' because it is "essential" for anything to be, and because 
Essence means "the permanent as contrasted with the accidental element of 
being - the real or ultimate nature of a thing as opposed to its existence."

Cusa posited 'not-other' as the coincidence of all otherness, including 
nothingness and contrariety.  He reasoned that if actuality did not exist, 
then nothing could actually be.  But "things appear"; therefore actuality 
exists.  Possibility and actuality are co-dependent in existence but 
coincide in the non-contradictory Source -ultimate reality in which 
opposites like 'positive/negative' and 'being/nothing' are equivalent.  If 
the possibility of contradictory otherness is always present in Essence and 
becomes actualized when there is an awareness to experience it, then it is 
this actualization that we call existence.

How does the aesthetic property called Quality, whether static or dynamic, 
create existence?  Or does Mr. Pirsig consider ontogeny inexplicable?

Thanks for this opportunity to present my argument, David.

Essentially yours,
Ham