[MD] [Bulk] Re: Keep on Truckin'

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Marsha]
Statically increased, as Dan reminded us:  "To the extent that one's 
behavior is controlled by static patterns of quality it is without 
choice.  But to the extent that one follows Dynamic Quality, which is 
undefinable, one's behavior is free." [LILA}

[Arlo]
No, not just "statically increased", these greater static patterns 
enabled far greater ranges of possibility and action (to pursue DQ). 
Static biological patterns brought with them far greater possibility 
in the way these patterns can respond to DQ than inorganic patterns. 
Each level brings greater and greater possibilities and ranges of action.

[Marsha]
The MoQ is goodness.

[Arlo]
The MOQ is an intellectual pattern.

[Marsha]
I don't have a television, so you'll have to tell me about all the 
"greatly valuable" and pragmatic everyday happenings.

[Arlo]
Well the list I had given had nothing to do with television. 
"Supermarkets, farming, poetry, global travel, plumbing, heating, 
motorcycles, games, books, etc etc"... How about "participating in an 
online forum"? Isn't that a valuable, pragmatic experience? To me it is.

[Marsha]
You must have trouble with language, it's not "nothing." it's 
"empty," empty of independent existence: no-thing, not a thing-in-itself.

[Arlo]
And while such ephemeral bemoanings are valuable, so to is the 
experiential reality of riding a motorcycle, grilling kabobs, and 
enjoying an ale. While all those things may be "empty" or "no-things" 
in an existential way, they nonetheless are very real, very valuable 
experiential realities.

[Marsha]
We have static patterns of value.  Duh...  In the form of language, 
patterns have lead us astray...

[Arlo]
And yet at the same time they have delivered us to a far richer field 
of possibility than we had before. But structure (and agency) 
co-evolve, and that is what Pirsig's ideas are doing to the present 
constraints that have become problematic.

[Marsha]
Bo and Platt leave and everybody forgets that SOM has a major flaw.

[Arlo]
That's just nonsense.

[Marsha]
Have you lost sight of our language being all about the a subject and 
a verb acting on a direct or indirect object?

[Arlo]
Language is the symbolic encoding of experience, the mutual sharing 
of experience. The specific structures it takes of course reveal 
constraints, but it has also greatly enriched human agency.

[Marsha]
I have not spoken of becoming brain dead, just not elevating language 
when it is much of the problem.

[Arlo]
I am not "elevating" it either, as I said it is not about glorifying 
or condemn language (or any "structure"), but to see that you can't 
have the expanded potential structure brings without constraints. 
These are not opposed forces, language enriches and constrains, and 
the durability of language historically demonstrates quite clearly 
that the value it brings outweighs the constraints it places upon us.