[MD] Creative Freedom in Jazz

[david buchanan]

dmb said:
... Pirsig himself talks in terms of "negative" freedom and opposes it to Dynamic freedom.


Dan:
Sorry, Dave, but I ran a search for negative freedom in Lila and came up empty. He does talk about negative quality but it would seem a stretch to say it is the same as negative freedom.


dmb says:
But, but, but Dan, -- the only thing you had to search was my post. My claim was simply that Pirsig talks in terms of "negative" freedom and opposes it to Dynamic freedom and here is the quote I already posted along with that claim: "When they call it freedom, that's not right. "Freedom" doesn't mean anything. Freedom's just an escape from something negative. The real reason it's so hallowed is that when people talk about it they mean Dynamic Quality." This, Pirsig says, is "what neither the socialists NOR the capitalist ever got figured out". I mean, he's talking about freedom as an escape from something "negative" and he's doing so in a political context. I think it's a stretch to call this a stretch.

BUT I'm not really talking about politics here. That distinction is just a way to illustrate what I am talking about, namely "Dynamic freedom". Again, I want to apply this distinction to intellectual values, to the way we think and do philosophy, to Pirsig's root expansion of rationality and his pragmatic theory of truth. I'm saying that static intellectual quality is a crucial ingredient in the recipe for Dynamic freedom.


Dan said:
That is a bit of a stretch as well, especially since Robert Pirsig unequivocally states thought will not bring us closer to reality. It takes us farther away. Don't take this as anti-intellectualism, for I agree that the MOQ is an expansion of rationality, but still, we cannot throw out the baby with the bathwater. Remember, metaphysics is a menu, not the food.

dmb says:
Yea, I know the quote wherein Pirsig says that - and the context in which he says it. This is given as the objection raised against metaphysics by philosophical mystics. I do NOT disagree. I think it's a valid objection BUT it is not an objection to my claim. If I had said that static intellectual quality is a crucial ingredient in getting us closer to reality (or, more properly, in getting us in touch with the mystic reality), then the quote would make sense as evidence against my claims. But that's really just not what I'm saying at all. I'm talking about the root expansion of rationality wherein the handling of the Dynamic is built right into our ways of thinking. This is not about mysticism or any attempts to fit the mystic reality into an intellectual description. It's about creative freedom, particularly intellectual creativity. That's what the following quote are all about. I'll add some emphasis this time so you can see where I'm getting this claim....

 "SCIENTIFIC TRUTH always contained an overwhelming difference from theological truth: it is PROVISIONAL," Pirsig says, and "it's science's unique organization for the HANDLING OF THE DYNAMIC that gives it its superiority". (Lila 222)

"That's the whole thing: to obtain static AND Dynamic Quality SIMULTANEOUSLY. If you don't have the static patterns of scientific knowledge to build upon you're back with the cave man. But if you don't have the freedom to change those patterns you're blocked from any further growth." (Lila 222)

Pirsig applies this basic principle in every example that I can think of AND purpose is to explain the centrality and importance of this principle.  Static patterns are a crucial ingredient in Dynamic freedom. Or, to put it negatively, Dynamic freedom cannot be had without static patterns. As Pirsig says, the whole trick is to "create a stable static situation where Dynamic Quality can flourish". More than a hundred pages later, he repeats this same idea about the Dynamic within science.

The MOQ "says that Dynamic Quality [is] the value-force that chooses an elegant mathematical solution to a laborious one, or a brilliant experiment over a confusing, inconclusive one" and "Dynamic value is an integral part of science. It is the cutting edge of science itself."  (Lila 366)


Dan said:
... but if we are going to use positive freedom as an analogy to Dynamic Quality I think we are going in the wrong direction. Dynamic Quality cannot be pigeon-holed like that. So by saying there is positive and negative freedom we are throwing out the analogy of freedom and Dynamic Quality. That seems wrong. I don't like it. Not even a little bit.



dmb says:
Huh? DQ cannot be Pigeon-holed like what? Again, I'm talking about the role of static patterns in creative freedom, in creative thinking. Pirsig says DQ is the quality of freedom and static quality is the quality order. And I'm trying to show how the recipe calls for both kinds of quality. What seems wrong? What don't you like? It's not just that I don't understand the objection, although that's true too, I'm not even sure if you and I are discussing the same topic.