[MD] Sympathy for the Devil

[ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR]

[Ant to DMB]
Anyway, yes, a phrase/"definition" such as "ever-changing static patterns" could be quite confusing to anyone not familiar with Pirsig's work but, as Northrop points out in the "Logic of Sciences and Humanities" this type of error is something we all have to be aware of.

[Arlo interjects]
To be sure, we need to make sure we are not talking about collapsing into S/O metaphysical primacy (and I doubt that DMB is making this error). But, as I said, we also need to ensure we don't collapse Pirsig's ideas into a revamped Heraclitian flux philosophy. Rather than a DQ/SQ metaphysical split, we run the risk of making it DQ, with an annoying fly of sq buzzing around and mucking things up. Or collapsing sq into DQ entirely as to make the distinction meaningless. There is an inherent redundancy in saying this, but the value of static quality is, well, 'static'. The less 'static' a pattern of value is, the less value it has, until it disappears into chaos (no pattern at all). I mean, "pattern" itself implies stability or permanence (*not in the S/O sense, for those stuck there). So "static pattern" is itself a redundant term, but I think the emphasis in its construction is important. 

Does the 'value' of my motorcycle come from it being 'ever-changing' or from it having a stable permanence? Sure, the iron rusts over time, and the gas is burning, and the atoms themselves undergo change, but its 'value', what gives it meaning, is precisely its stability over time. And you can see this by imagining the 'ever-changing' aspect accelerated, lets say 1000x, or 10,000x, or even 1mx. With each increase, the value, the 'motorcycleness' becomes less and less to the point where if they atoms had no patternedness at all there would be no motorcycle in the first place. 

As I see it, if this is a "value" metaphysics, then emphasizing 'ever-changing' is not just confusing but emphases the very thing that runs inversely to value. I could see, maybe, "stable patterns of ever-changing value", I think that makes sense, because the value of the pattern is the stability. It is a pattern BECAUSE it is stable/static. If it were not stable/static it would not be a pattern, i.e. it would have no value, it would NOT EXIST. 

So, yes, mountains erode, the sun is burning itself out, my body is composed of entirely different cells than it was a decade ago, my motorcycle is slowing deteriorating, and one day the entire universe will implode into a dimensionless singularity. Yes, there is no 'permanence' is the S/O sense. But no one here thinks this. But when we look at static patterns of value (and we can look at them ONLY because of their stability), the value we are seeing is NOT 'ever-changing', the value we are seeing is "staticness" (which is why they are both 'static' and 'patterns', which say the same thing). 

Conversely, of course, the 'value' of Dynamic Quality IS that it is the source or catalyst or instigator or whatever of change, of evolution, of newness, of creation, of destruction, of rebirth, of renewal, of birth, of death, of 'ever-changing'. 

And if we are so intent on bleeding the distinction between Dynamic and static quality into one, saying "ever-changing static patterns" should be paired with "stable Dynamic value", because, of course, if "static patterns" must include "ever-changing" to recognize their evolutionary component, then "Dynamic Quality" should include "stable" to recognize its patterned component... 

... because, of course, we wouldn't want people to be confused by the term "Dynamic Quality" into thinking that everything is chaos.