[MD] Free Will

[X Acto]

3.Dynamic Quality is best understood as "betterness"

to which Andre responded:
I really think a Zen Buddhist will laugh at this...and perhaps Pirsig as well.

Ron in response:
Perhaps Andre perhaps, But I believe the master as well as Bob would agree. For 
arguements sake, lets see what the consequences are to take Quality as each were 
to be true.

Andre now:
Hi Ron and apologies for the late reply. Since Dan (by quoting Pirsig) has 
already commented on 1 and 2 (needless to say I agree with Dan) I'll respond to 
3.
I am reluctant to 'understand' DQ as 'betterness'. For me, DQ simply is. 
Contextualised however within the framework of the MOQ we can see that Pirsig 
develops the notion of DQ as (unconceptualised) freedom and sq as 
(conceptualised) order. Cosmological evolution appears to be the result of DQ to 
move away from, to escape 'the bondage of matter and gain freedom in an 
increasingly coherent cosmos'. This leads Anthony to observe that DQ 'can be 
perceived as continually attracting the static patterns... 'towards a further 
and greater ordered coherence...though this is not pre-ordained and this freedom 
remains undefined'. (from Anthony's PhD, p 75).

If DQ 'furthers' static notions of freedom, coherence, harmony then indeed, from 
a static point of view it can be regarded as 'betterness'. But I remain 
reluctant to then 'understand DQ AS betterness. I mean, some evolutionary 
processes are better than others... .(Pirsig, AHP tapes)

Am I making sense Ron or am I making it unnecessarily difficult for you (and 
myself)?


Ron:
First, if we are pragmatists, then indeed all experience rests on a static point 
of view and that
leads the conversation to "meaning". I argue that DQ must have meaning to be 
useful.
Second, that is exactly what I'm saying "some things are better than others"
and not I'm not sure how this is a support to that statement that DQ is 
unconceptualized
and must remain unconceptualized within the framework of the MoQ.

"So what Phaedrus was saying was that not just life, but everything, 
is an ethical activity. It is nothing else. 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 upon which all right and wrong can be based.
In general, given a choice of two courses to follow and all other 
things being equal, that choice which is more Dynamic, that is, at a 
higher level of evolution, is more moral."
-Lila

Pragmatically Andre, DQ being understood as undefined betterness is more
useful than insisting that it remain unconceptualized.

It has meaning, and that meaning is linked to the concept of moral order.

that is why it is important to develop our reasons for our values

it is better to do so

the unconceptualized is then using a term to convey nothing, and that is an 
abstraction,
but experience, is constant taste. It is emersed in the now. 

how does the unconceptualized square with experience? I am composed of layers of
value systems, feelings, temperature, hunger, sleepy, ect. 

RMP:
"The purpose of mystic meditation is not to remove oneself from experience but 
to bring 

one's self closer to it by eliminating stale, confusing, static, intellectual 
attachments
 of the past."
-Lila

Clinging to certain notions of betterness. Like some of us who cling to the idea 
that it is
better to interpret DQ as having no meaning.