[MD] Bitterness over Betterness

MarshaV valkyr at att.net
Tue Apr 26 18:16:07 PDT 2011 

On Apr 26, 2011, at 8:07 PM, X Acto wrote:

> marsha:
> I think the same approach can be taken towards freedom.  First, there's the 
> ineffable, Ultimate freedom of following DQ.  I believe this is what Dan is 
> pointing to when he presents RMP's quote "To the extent that one's behavior is 
> controlled by static patterns of quality is without choice.  But to the extent 
> that one follows Dynamic Quality, which is undefinable, one's behavior is 
> free."  Second, there is the static, ego-based freedom that thinks itself 
> chooses between this or that.  -  Personally, I think that an event has multiple 
> interconnected causes and conditions which in turn have multiple interconnected 
> causes and conditions, &etc., &etc., &etc.  It may be correct to think that an 
> individual participates within the  'multiple causes and conditions', but to say 
> WE CHOOSE is totally self-centered; it's illusion and not very useful.    
> 
> 
> 
> Ron:
> All static quality is an illusion, all dynamic quality is chaos. Is chaos 
> freedom?

Marsha:
I do not think of DQ as chaos, if for no other reason than 'chaos' is an 
analogy with a negative connotation; it's a static pattern of value.  I 
think of DQ as 'nonduality.'  It's a different static pattern, but one with a 
neutral connotation.  It holds no knowledge, division or definition 
within it.  





> If all static patterns migrate toward chaos, what are we saying?
> 
> If all static patterns are a migration toward freedom, what are we saying?
> 
> which consequences are better and more consistant?
> 
> to say that they migrate or evolve toward betterness has more meaning, more 
> explanitory
> power
> than they evolve toward chaos.
> 
> don't you think?
> 
> thnx Marsha
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Apr 26, 2011, at 3:38 AM, MarshaV wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Greetings Ham,
>> 
>> The 'unknowable, undefinable undividable Goodness' that I spoke of in outside 
>> of the language's ability to explain it, because language seeks to divide, 
>> describe and define.  With language the subject and object are created.  I 
>> suggest you might say there seem to be two types of goodness/betterness.  There 
>> is the static, measurable, judgmental type which is associated with a subject 
>> (ego/individual), and there is an ineffable 
>> Goodness(interconnectedness/nonduality).  
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Marsha 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Apr 26, 2011, at 2:58 AM, Ham Priday wrote:
>> 
>>> Marsha, Ron, Dan, and All --
>>> 
>>> 
>>> "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 is '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."  [LILA, p 161]
>>> 
>>> [Marsha to Ron]:
>>>> I see the world being composed of conventional meaning,
>>>> AND unknowable, undefinable & undividable Goodness.
>>> 
>>> [Ron to Marsha]:
>>>> Here's the difference Marsha,
>>>> I see the world as being composed of nothing but meaning
>>>> while you see it as having no meaning at all.
>>>> and that is a huge difference in our world outlooks
>>>> so we are going to disagree about stuff like that.
>>> 
>>> [Ron to Dan]:
>>>> Dynamic Quality is best understood as "betterness"
>>> 
>>> [Dan]:
>>>> Ron? You are saying that DQ is "an elementary unit of ethics
>>>> upon which all right and wrong can be based"?
>>>> I got from the quote that betterness is not DQ but an initial
>>>> response to DQ.  Isn't that different?
>>> 
>>> It is obvious to anyone reviewing the recent posts (re: the story of "me" and 
>>> Free Will) that Goodness, Quality, and Betterness have led to confusion and 
>>> rancor in interpreting the MoQ.  The author himself was contradictory when he 
>>> introduced Quality in ZMM.  "You know what it is, yet you don't know what it 
>>> is," he said.
>>> 
>>> His logic went downhill from there:
>>> 
>>> "Some things are better than others, that is, they have more quality.  But when 
>>> you try to say what the quality is, apart from the things that have it, it all 
>>> goes poof! There's nothing to talk about.  But if you can't say what Quality is, 
>>> how do you know what it is, or how do you know that it even exists?  If no one 
>>> knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it really does exist. What 
>>> else are the grades based on?  Why else would people pay fortunes for some 
>>> things and throw others in the trash pile?"
>>> 
>>> But what is missing in this analysis, as I think Dan recognizes, is the 
>>> observing subject without which there would be no Goodness to experience, no 
>>> Quality to grade, and no Betterness to aspire to.  For none of these aesthetic 
>>> attributes exists outside the realm of conscious sensibility.  All goodness is 
>>> subjective, that is, relative to the cognizant self who measures it.  To say 
>>> that the universe is good and going on better means that things are going well 
>>> for YOU, not that the universe is "made of" Quality.
>>> 
>>> Of course, reducing the individual to "interrelated quality patterns", as 
>>> Pirsig does, makes it difficult to understand how we have the capability to 
>>> realize goodness in our relational world.  Nor does it help matters to insist 
>>> that we are "composed of value", which isn't true either.  We are sensible of, 
>>> drawn to, the value of otherness.
>>> But the beauty of a melody cannot be realized by a tone-deaf person, nor can 
>>> the quality of a painting be appreciated by a blind man.
>>> 
>>> Unfortunately, by doing away with subjects and objects, Pirsig had no choice 
>>> but to posit Quality as an undefined entity unto itself.  This not only runs 
>>> counter to epistemology, it renders the MoQ incomprehensible to anyone with a 
>>> logical mind.
>>> 
>>> With sincere apologies to all Pirsig loyalists,
>>> --Ham
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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