[MD] Evolution

[david buchanan]

Dan said:

I like this quote:
 
> "Lila is composed of static patterns of value and these patterns are
> evolving toward a Dynamic Quality. That's the theory, anyway. She's on
> her way somewhere, just like everybody else. And you can't say where
> that somewhere is." [LILA Chapter 11]


 To paraphrase: The universe is evolving towards Dynamic Quality. It is on its way somewhere but we cannot say where that somewhere is. How can choices be made when there is no way of knowing where evolution is taking us?

dmb says:

Good question. Pirsig and James both give the same answer and it's a pretty good one, I think. "We live as it were upon the front edge of an advancing wave-crest, and our sense of determinate direction in falling forward is all we cover of the future of our path," James says, "life is in the transitions". (449-50 in Richardson's biography of James) This reminds me of Pirsig's train analogy, wherein he says, "The leading edge is where absolutely all the action is. The leading edge contains all the infinite possibilities of the future. It contains all the history of the past. Where else could they be contained?" (ZAMM 283) "Reality is always the moment of vision BEFORE the intellectualization takes place. THERE IS NO OTHER REALITY. This pre-intellectual reality is what Phaedrus felt he had properly identified as Quality." (ZAMM 247) It also reminds me of Pirsig invocation of Whitehead saying that we are led forward by a dim apprehension of we know not what. 


I think the idea is that DQ can only exert a push or a pull in a certain direction, toward betterness, but you can never say in advance where this will lead. There is no program controlling it, no end plan, no specific goal toward which we are headed. And yet the present moment, as the cutting edge of experience, grows out of the past and leans into the future, it's the Dynamic transitional moment between our static memories and static plans. Consciousness itself is just a name for a series of experiences all knit together by this transitional cutting edge in a seamless stream of experience. 
Think about what that conceptualization would mean in terms of art, in the context of painting a picture or fixing a motorcycle. When Pirsig says that following Quality is what gets you unstuck or, more positively, when Quality leads you through that project, I think he is talking about riding the wave life a surfer or riding the wind like a sailor. It's way too rich and complex to formulate any set of procedures or to be taught through verbal instructions. Riding this edge is more like a combination of skill and sensitivity, a matter of active engagement in the moment. It also helps to have good wax for your surfboard, good brushes for your paint and the quality of our verbal and conceptual tools is important when you're trying to hang on to the dynamic leading edge of thought itself.