[MD] Static Patterns Rock!

[david buchanan]

dmb quoted Pirsig:
“If the baby ignores this force of Dynamic Quality [the flux of experience] it can be speculated that he will become mentally retarded, but if he is normally attentive to Dynamic Quality he will soon begin to notice differences and then correlations between the differences and then repetitive patterns of the correlations. But it is not until the baby is several months old that he will begin to really understand enough about that enormously complex correlation of sensations and boundaries and desires called an object to be able to reach for one. This object will not be a primary experience. It will be a complex pattern of static values derived from primary experience. Once the baby has made a complex pattern of values called an OBJECT and found this pattern to work well he quickly develops a skill and speed at jumping through the chain of deductions that produced it, as though it were a single jump…in a very short time it becomes so swift one doesn’t even think about it….only when an “OBJECT” turns out to be an illusion is one forced to become aware of the deductive process. …In this way static patterns of value become the universe of distinguishable things. Elementary static distinctions between such entities as “before” and “after” and between “like” and “unlike” grow into enormously complex patterns of knowledge that are transmitted from generation to generation as the mythos, the culture in which we live.”  (Lila, chapter 9)



David Morey said:
Great quote, so repetitive patterns are noticed by babies, now before we get to conceptual rocks, there are lower level percepts linkable into rocks, i.e. certain shapes, colours,  textures. Now this is a baby, is it reasonable to see babies as using concepts to do this? Do you associate concepts only with language and culture, or do you see babies as doing something conceptual?

dmb says:
The passage explains how we learn to interpret experience in terms of "things" and how we first learn to use the concept called "object". We all learn this as babies, usually from our parents and so even though it is a very old and very basic concept it is still part of the mythos, part of the culture. -- But I notice that you're still wanting to say that there are "patterns" in the DQ part of Pirsig's equation. How many times do I have to point out that this is a contradictory misuse of the very terms under discussion. Yes, the quote does say that a normal and attentive baby should "notice differences and then correlations between the differences and then repetitive patterns of the correlations," but this is said in the context of explaining how static patterns are derived from DQ. Static patterns are not to be confused with the flow of perceptions, feelings, and sensations from which they are derived. 

Marsha has making this same mistake for quite a while. About six months ago Marsha said: In mindful awareness one drops the narration (language) function for a more perceptual (immediate) experience, but there is still pattern identification in differentiating shapes, smells, sounds, tastes and touch. ..The differentiating is there with perceiving too." 


So I showed her how this view is contradicted by Pirsig's view:

"Quality is shapeless, formless, indescribable. To see shapes and forms is to intellectualize. Quality is independent of any such shapes and forms. The names, the shapes and forms we give Quality depend only partly on the Quality. They also depend partly on the a priori images we have accumulated in our memory. We constantly seek to find, in the Quality event, analogues to our previous experiences. If we didn't we'd be unable to act. We build up our language in terms of these analogues."

Do you remember your response to this quote, David? Back then you were saying the same contradictory nonsense that you are saying today. Back in early May you said to me, "obviously there is nothing nonsensical about "pre-conceptual static quality," and "you seem to want to call everything that is non-conceptual by the name of DQ, but why? Are all patterns conceptual?" http://www.mail-archive.com/moq_discuss@lists.moqtalk.org/msg53903.html

Do you see why I might be irritated at having to do this all over again? No matter how many times I give you the answer and no matter how carefully I try to explain it, you just don't get it. 



"People fail to grasp their own incompetence, precisely because they are so incompetent. And since, overcoming their incompetence would first require the ability to distinguish competence form incompetence people get stuck in a vicious cycle."

"The skills needed to produce logically sound arguments, for instance, are the same skills that are necessary to recognize when a logically sound argument has been made. Thus, if people lack the skills to produce correct answers, they are also cursed with an inability to know when their answers, or anyone else's, are right or wrong. They cannot recognize their responses as mistaken, or other people's responses as superior to their own."


http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolved-primate/201006/when-ignorance-begets-confidence-the-classic-dunning-kruger-effect