[MD] desires

[david buchanan]

John said to Dan:
I agree that there is nothing about absolute staticity.  So we must mean "relatively static" whenever we use the term, for we understand that there is no such thing as any static thing. ... So I guess I'm glad the subject came up, as I'm sincerely confused about the definition of 'Static".  You wouldn't think that would be such a problem,..


dmb says:
I'm just amazed that the definition of "static" should be a problem. And I'm even more amazed that people who have supposedly read Pirsig's books would define "static" to mean "permanently fixed and eternal". We all know that describes Plato's notion of the Good and that notion is Pirsig's central target in ZAMM. Those terms are more than just available to him and if he meant to say quality patterns were so rigid he would have called them "eternal patterns of quality" or "fixed patterns" or "permanent configurations" or something else like that. But he didn't. They're called static patterns and he describes them as a stabilizing force existing in relation to a larger an evolutionary framework. 

Just the other day I posted James and Pirsig describing the relations between "static" and "dynamic". I posted those quotes along with the dictionary definitions of those same terms. I don't honestly don't understand how or why anyone could fail to comprehend the basic meaning of these terms. It's almost impossible not to take a condescending attitude toward this or loose patience completely. It's hard to believe that anyone could be so incapable of learning the simplest things. Talking to people who don't know how to use words is very frustrating in any situation and such people have no business hanging out in philosophical discussion group.

Mary, for example, thinks I need to explain how the phrase "everything gets known by something" could possibly be related to the word "noetic". Really? If we put that phrase next to the standard dictionary definition, then I would have thought the meaning would be obvious to anyone.
noetic - adjective: of or relating to mental activity or the intellect. ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from Greek noētikos, from noētos 'intellectual,' from noein 'perceive.'

The word just refers to "perception" to "knowing" to "knowledge" and the phrase in question was "everything gets KNOWN by something". How could anyone fail to see the connection? Even if you have to look up the word and learn it for the first time. How long could that take? Less than a minute, for sure. I have no patience for that sort of thing. Who can't think their way through that little problem? Be serious!