[MD] Words and Metaphysical Mysticism.

[David Harding]

Hi Mark,

> David:
> 
> sq comes from DQ.
> 
> Mark: You can say this, but what do you mean?  Can you elaborate on
> this?  Depending
> on how you present it, I may be in agreement.

Dynaimc Quality is the source of all things.  All *things* are by definitions static quality.

> David:
> 
> Yes, post Lila we can say that Quality is DQ + SQ.
> 
> Mark:
> 
> No, technically it would be post 2005, not post Lila, which was published
> long before that.  Please see the date on the quote you provide.  I can
> easily find DQ and SQ in ZAMM.  Besides this type of clarification is not
> necessary if one understands Quality.  It is only necessary for those who
> interpret Quality through a literal translation of the words Pirsig is
> using.  Pirsig could have used any number of words and examples.  A
> metaphysics based on Quality is not ONLY what was written.  No metaphysics
> is.  Existentialism is a manner of seeing the world outside what is written.
> 
> Again, please remember that Pirsig's clarification is meant for those who
> are confused about Quality.  It does not change his idea of Quality as
> awareness.  This is the big picture.

Where does he say that Quality is awareness Mark?

> 
> David:
> 
> Here is the complete Pirsig quote:
> 
> "When ZMM was written there was no division between Dynamic Quality and
> static quality and the term Quality then meant what is now meant by Dynamic
> Quality.  Today I tend to think of Quality as covering both Dynamic and
> static quality.  So far no problems have arisen with this confusion of
> terms but if they do arise I would guess that they could be eliminated by
> refraining from using the term Quality alone." [Pirsig to Turner, November
> 2005]
> 
> Mark:
> 
> I am not sure what you are trying to prove with this quote, it still does
> not give me any idea what your understanding of Quality is.  You are simply
> playing a word replacement game.  I am not confused.  I know what Quality
> is.
> 

Which Quality is it that you 'know' what it is? DQ or sq?

> 
> "Experience is something we create in response to that outside" -   If by
> 'outside' you mean DQ, then I agree. Pure experience is DQ.  If I
> communicate to you what I mean by it then I will be defining DQ and by
> definition this is not something you can do..  All 'definitions' of DQ are
> sq. In Lila Pirsig uses a few analogies of DQ such as being whacked on the
> head and feeling 'born again' or jumping off a hot stove and then realising
> the stove was hot..  But these things are not DQ..
> 
> Mark:
> 
> Let me try to explain this in a different way.  Experience is what is
> created at the interface of us and "outside" (or “other”).  This interface
> is like a shoreline which in turn is dependent on the water and the land.
> The shoreline does not exist in and of itself, but only as interface.  Pure
> experience is that interface prior to the development of SQ.  DQ does not
> exist outside of us, we cannot separate ourselves from DQ in that fashion.
> There cannot be experience without it being an integral part of us.  Otherwise
> it would not be called experience; it would be called “force” or something.
> SQ is something we create, as you say, but it based on something.  As such,
> definitions are simply representations of that something. If we are to take
> your temporal relationship between DQ and SQ, this would be similar to the
> creation of a painting of a landscape.  The landscape comes first and then
> the painting.**
> 
> * *
> 
> The point is, that this interface exists in real time, not “before”.  Every
> time a sodium atom enters a nerve cell, this interface is present.  Therefore,
> our creation of thoughts is this interface.  Therefore DQ is part of our
> thoughts.  I am not sure how better to explain this, but I can try if this
> does not work for you.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, of course the descriptions are not DQ!!  A book about the French
> Revolution is not the French Revolution.  That is all you are saying, there
> is nothing special about DQ in this sense.   I am not sure why you would be
> worried about writing a book about the French Revolution.  I am not sure
> why you are worried about providing descriptions of DQ.  We all know they
> are descriptions.

*All* descriptions of Dynamic Quality are not it for descriptions of DQ are static quality.  This is confirmed by Pirsig.  If you disagree with this then you disagree with the MOQ..

"Dynamic Quality is defined constantly by everyone. Consciousness can be described is a process of defining Dynamic Quality. But once the definitions emerge, they are static patterns and no longer apply to Dynamic Quality. So one can say correctly that Dynamic Quality is both infinitely definable and undefinable because definition never exhausts it." - Pirsig in Lila's Child.

> David:
> 
> I agree.. What I mean to say is that Pirsig replaces truth with quality in
> the metaphysical structure of things.  Quality first, truth second..
> 
> 
> 
> Mark
> 
> Yes, Quality creates a Truth which is a subset of Quality.  This is not the
> same Truth in which Quality is created as a subset of Truth.  Apples and
> Oranges.  Quality and Truth are two perspectives.  People can have
> different perspectives and not be first or second…

Disagree Mark.  Truth is not ever before quality. This is the mistake of SOM.  Truth is *always* a subset of Quality.

> David:
> 
> That's right. We cannot help but ruin the undefined source of all things by
> chattering about and existing statically.
> 
> 
> 
> Mark:
> 
> There is no ruining going on; there is only Creation, so far as I can tell.
> How can we ruin your undefined source?  It is only ruined for the person
> who thinks definitions mean more than they do.  This may be you, and if so,
> you have not read Lila correctly.  Let’s stop being so paranoid about
> definitions, they cannot harm anything; they are simply used to be able to
> converse.  Surely you do not think that a conversation is on the road to
> ruin.  If so, we are all sinners and need to atone.

We are all purity ruining sinners Mark.  I keep giving you this Lila quote Mark but you refuse to acknowledge or listen:

"The central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phaedrus had called 'Quality' in his first book, is not a metaphysical chess piece. Quality doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without definition, ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions.
Quality is indivisible, undefinable and unknowable in the sense that there is a knower and a known, but a metaphysics can be none of these things. A metaphysics must be divisible, definable and knowable, or there isn't any metaphysics. Since a metaphysics is essentially a kind of dialectical definition and since Quality is essentially outside definition, this means that a 'Metaphysics of Quality' is essentially a contradiction in terms, a logical absurdity.. Degeneracy, he guessed. Writing a metaphysics is, in the strictest mystic sense, a degenerate activity.

But the answer to all this, he thought, was that a ruthless, doctrinaire avoidance of degeneracy is a degeneracy of another sort. That's the degeneracy fanatics are made of. Purity, identified, ceases to be purity. Objections to pollution are a form of pollution. The only person who doesn't pollute the mystic reality of the world with fixed metaphysical meanings is a person who hasn't yet been born — and to whose birth no thought has been given. The rest of us have to settle for being something less pure. Getting drunk and picking up bar-ladies and writing metaphysics is a part of life."

>> With SQ (some thing) coming after DQ (no thing), you are saying that
>> something comes from nothing.  I am fine with this and ask you, how do you
>> propose this happens?
> 
> David: If something did not come from nothing then new things would never
> be created.  Nothing has to be the starting point or else you haven't found
> the starting point..
> 
> 
> Mark:
> 
> What I was pointing out was the confusion that results from you trying to
> apply Western cause and effect analogies to DQ and SQ.  It ends up in the
> many paradoxes which you create.  DQ and SQ cannot simply be inserted into
> a cause effect paradigm.  To do so is completely misleading.  SQ can affect
> DQ.

SQ cannot affect DQ! DQ isn't anything. How can it be affected by static quality(something defined) if it is completely undefinable? From Lila:

"A third puzzle illuminated by the Metaphysics of Quality is the ancient 'Free Will vs. Determinism' controversy. Determinism is the philosophic doctrine that man, like all other objects in the universe, follows fixed scientific laws, and does so without exception.. In the Metaphysics of Quality this dilemma doesn't come up. 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."


> "Since experience is the starting point, it doesn’t arise from a lower
> level of no experience. Logically speaking, a starting point that arises
> from something else is no longer a starting point." - Lila's Child.
> 
> 
> 
> Mark:
> Experience is something we co-create.  As such, we create this starting
> point.  It does not exist outside of us, or else it would not be called
> experience, right?  If DQ, for you, is the place in which experience is
> created (which I have no problem with), then this experience is being
> created at every instance of every moment.  It does not exist before,
> after, above, below, none of those things.  To say so, just does not make
> sense in terms of Quality, in my opinion.

Your mistake is that you think I'm saying that DQ is a 'place' where experience is created.  DQ is not a 'place'.  DQ isn't anything including some separate 'place'.  DQ isn't you.  But it's not, not you either… DQ isn't anything including things separate from or a part of you..  

>> More on your thoughtful responses, tomorrow.
> 
> David:
> I look forward to it.
> 
> Still getting to the rest…  So many posts, so little time…

Okay..

-David.