[MD] Keep on Duckin'

[Dan Glover]

Hello everyone

On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 1:11 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> dmb says:
> Well, I suppose it's futile to try to talk sense with a person with thinks static patterns of quality are both ever-changing AND a kind of prison. It's a cage made of clouds, apparently. It's like trying to discuss water with someone who thinks ice is hot and steamy. Even Sarah Palin would blush at this level of incoherence.
>
> In the MOQ, static patterns are not a prison. They are the world as we know it, arranged in an evolutionary moral hierarchy. They are static patterns of VALUE, of QUALITY.
> Marsha had said:I not only agree with Mark that language is a kind of prison, but I also think patterns are a kind of prison."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}

Dan:
I don't think it's right to say patterns are a kind of prison, or
language for that matter. Language and patterns are useful for
rationally sharing our sense of experience. I think the above quote is
being taken out of context.

>
> dmb says:
> Yea, but in the very next line, Pirsig says, "The MOQ has much much more to say about ethics, however, than simple resolution of the Free Will vs. Determinism controversy. The MOQ says ..VALUE IS THE FUNDAMENTAL GROUND STUFF OF THE WORLD..." (LILA 156)
> He is saying "that not just life, but EVERYTHING, IS AN ETHICAL ACTIVITY" (LILA 157) "What the evolutionary structure of the MOQ shows is that there is not just one moral system. There are many." (LILA 158) "But in the MOQ all these sets of morals, plus another Dynamic morality, are not only real, they are the whole thing." (LILA 159) "A human being is a collection of ideas, and these ideas take moral precedence over a society. Ideas are patterns of value. They are at a higher level of evolution than social patterns of value." (LILA 160) "...: societies and thoughts and principles themselves are no more than sets of static patterns. ...Does Lila have Quality? ...Evolutionary morality just splits that whole question open like a watermelon." (LILA 161)
> Pirsig goes well beyond the free will thing and wholly rejects the SOM view that morals are "just subjective. He puts traditional morals in perspective, in a larger context, saying that it is a relatively narrow brand of morality and largely represents the conflict between biological values and social values. This expanded framework is used to answer the question of Lila's Quality. It's used to describe the MOQ's conception of the self as a complex ecology of static patterns, the constitution of which defines the limits of one's ability to respond to DQ. And I think you can see by the continuous page numbers that Pirsig is continuously expanding this ethical picture to explain what he means by saying these sets of morals are not only real, they are, along with DQ, the whole thing.

Dan:

Yes, exactly. Does Lila have Quality, or not? is a play on Joshu's
question: does a dog have Buddha nature, or not? The question is
raised to investigate the nature of reality which leads to the
development of virtue. It is important to note however that not all
investigations into the nature of reality lead to insight, as
portrayed by Lila's and Rigel's characters.

dmb:
> And that's what Mark and Marsha condemn as a kind of prison? That's a rather ghastly reversal. What could be more starkly different than the MOQ's assertion that life and everything else is an ethical activity? Static patterns of quality are the bars of cage? Static patterns of value are worthless? A species of the good is a kind of evil?

Dan:
Yes, it is important not to take specific quotes out of context
without regard to the rest of the text. Even though the MOQ states
that being controlled by static quality patterns constrains our
behavior, it doesn't follow that this imprisons us. Rather, ethical
activity liberates us from suffering and lends insight that leads to
the pursuit of happiness.

dmb:
Yea, well I guess that goes along with saying static patterns are
ever-changing and ice is defined by its liquidity. But it's not just
that it makes a huge mess of things conceptually. It's not just
incorrect or nonsensical, like saying two plus two equals blew. It's
also a moral nightmare. In the MOQ, anti-intellectualism is a
rejection of the highest level of static quality. It is a condemnation
of the most evolved set of moral patterns. It's wrong both technically
and ethically.

Dan:

Taken outright, yes. But there is a case to be made that
intellectualism leads us further away from Dynamic Quality, and not
closer. But that isn't really what we're discussing here as far as I
can see.

dmb:
> He finishes the chapter explaining that the whole 20th century has been a "struggle between social and intellectual patterns". He's talking about politics and war, religion and science, and the conventional realities right here on earth. Many chapters are devoted to this kind of socio-political discussions. It seems very hard to believe that Pirsig would spend all that time developing a moral hierarchy and an ethical analysis just to condemn it all. His root expansion of rationality was aimed at increasing the square footage of his prison cell? Not likely.

Dan:

Yes, I tend to agree with you on this, Dave. Even though reality is
ethical activity, it is clear that there are many levels of such
activity. What is traditionally thought of as morals is just this kind
of socio-political discussion that takes place in LILA.

dmb:
> No, this evolutionary morality is supposed to split the book's central question open "like a watermelon". Lila does and does not have Quality. Biologically, she does, but she's intellectually nowhere and pretty far down the scale socially, Pirsig says. She's got the Dynamic thing going on, but in a dangerous, unZen sort of way. Rigel is the social level prig and the the captain is the intellectual. Rigel and the captain don't bomb each other's cities, but we can see a personal version of the social-intellectual conflict in their relationship, or lack thereof.

Dan:

Right, these characters are used to explicate the way  biological,
social, and intellectual levels operate and how  they tend to oppose
one another even while lending one another support. All these
characters share certain fundamental virtues and goals that constitute
the "good" life, yet they approach their goals in disparate ways that
are constituted of the context of their own evolutionary histories.

dmb:
> Is this not what the book is about? Lila gives us a full-blown set of ideas. It's still built around the undefined DQ but it's also full of nuts and bolts. It has a coherent structure and a point a purpose. It's hardly ever appropriate to invoke "not this, not that" when we're talking metaphysics or discussing a published text. Those things ARE intellectually knowable and they are not supposed to be ineffable.

Dan:

Yes, as long as we are discussing metaphysics and RMP's published
works, it doesn't really pay to invoke "not this, not that." The only
time we should resort to that is when someone wishes to define Dynamic
Quality in some fashion, turning "it" into a static quality pattern.
Which it is, of course, any time we talk about it. We use the term
Dynamic Quality in an intellectual fashion to describe that which is
both undefined and infinitely definable.

Thank you,

Dan