[MD] The Quality of Free Will

[MarshaV]

dmb,

I do not consider DQ to be change. I see it as indeterminate, as unknowable, undefinable, and undividable, or as unpatterned.  


Marsha 




On Jul 18, 2011, at 8:02 PM, david buchanan wrote:

> 
> Dave T. asked dmb:
> A cloud is ever changing but it is stable enough a pattern for most sane people to acknowledge they're there. Let's try a tree. Even though it is pretty still, the leaves and branches on one I'm looking at now are gently moving.  Would you please name for me just one of these so called "static patterns" that does not physically change position moment to moment over time?
> 
> dmb says:
> Your question assumes that static patterns are not static when they involve physical movement. But physical motion and Dynamic Quality are not the same thing. Pirsig pointed that out in response to a question at least once, I'm sure of it. And it only stands to reason. The earth's rotation and orbit are both static patterns. Stability does not mean a lack of movement. For biological creatures, a lack of movement means death. The MOQ is, among other things, a kind of process philosophy and this is perfectly compatible with static patterns and stable structures because that's exactly what exists AS a process. Mountains rise and are worn away. Stars are born and eventually die. But they will still appear as symbols of solid ground and eternal promise in our poetry. And rightly so. Millions or billions of years of existence is enough stability for any human purpose.
> 
> 
> Dave T asked:
> How is it that "ever-changing" is a such a problem? Oh I know Pirsig attributes all change to Dynamic Quality: Could it be that he was/is wrong? Not if you fancy yourself to be a MoQ priest.
> 
> 
> dmb says:
> Well, yea. That's the problem. Ever-changing is a great term if you're talking about DQ, but Marsha is using it to describe the opposite term.
> I'd guess she means to say that static patterns are "changeable" or "mutable", not EVER-changing. I'd guess she really just wants to deny that static patterns are fixed or eternal, that they are subject to change, that they can evolve and that sort of thing. But this is described as static latching. It's a step by step, clicking sort of analogy because novel improvements are built on previous improvements. We need the quality of order and stability to continue ratcheting up. That's what Pirsig means when he says you can't live on DQ alone. Without the stability of static patterns, you don't get freedom. You just get chaos and degeneration.
> And Marsha''s definition is not only contradictory, it also turns the stable half of the MOQ into the ever-changing half. You get DQ on one side and ever-changing impermanence on the other. And the result is pure chaos. It's vacuous nihilism.
> 
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