ELEPHANT TO MARCO AND ALL:
>> MARCO WROTE:
>>> As Quality is
>>> an event, Reality is an ever
>>> present event.
>>
>> ELEPHANT:
>> I think you will find "ever-present event" is a contradiction in terms.
>>
>> (Kant's quite good on that one).
>>
>> Just a thought.
MARCO:
> Yes, it was a paradox. Like to say: a never ending moment.
ELEPHANT:
I don't think that 'never ending moment' is any advance on 'ever-present
event'. Is it too much to hope that your acknowledgement of the 'paradox'
consitutes 'conceeding the point'? Very probably. For there's more....
MARCO:
> I had the temptation to stay still without any answer, as it is clear that we
> are on opposite positions (especially on what it means "static" and "Dynamic")
> and it seems that either I don't understand you or you don't understand me
> (probably both, but I have the excuse I'm not English:-) ).
>
> However....
>
> a.) You state that Pirsig states that "it is possible for us to *obtain* and
> *pursue* and *have* both DQ and SQ simultaneously, but that is not the same
> thing as anything *being* both dynamic and static simultaneously". I don't
> think so, mainly because we can't *have* quality. We are made of Quality.
> Moreover, I state that "to be dynamic" has nothing to do with "to have DQ"
> (see below).
ELEPHANT:
You say we are made of quality. Quite so. But since there are two things
that 'we' might refer to here there are also two different kinds of quality
involved: the static and the dynamic. In as much as we are dynamic
realities, this is just the same as saying that the universe is a dynamic
reality: you can't separate the two in that which is essentially continuous.
Here you are right to say that 'we' *are* DQ, and do not *have* it.
But the picture is slightly complicated even within DQ, in that Pirsig
sometimes speaks of Dynamic Quality as the continuum, and just as often of
it as one *end* of the continuum (ie the sense in which *high* quality can
be distinguished from *low* quality). When Pirsig speaks (as he does) of
something *having* greater DQ than another (e.g. with the hot stove), it is
of the *one end of the continuum* Dynamic Quality he is speaking of, and not
the *continuum entire*. So, thinking of 'we' as 'the universe', and DQ as
the whole continuum, you are right in saying that DQ as the *continuum
entire* is something we are made of, not something we *have*. But on the
other hand I am right in saying that as limited beings distinuguished from
the universe as a whole we, as intellectualised static patterns of
self-image, can *have* DQ only as *one end of the continuum*: for such a
finite being could never be the same thing as the infinite DQ.
In sum, my reasons for thinking that objects cannot *be* and can only *have*
DQ and SQ symultaneously remain perfectly sound.
One might however raise some questions for Pirsig here. One might say:
'isn't it confusing to think of DQ both as the aesthetic continuum and as a
pole upon that continuum?'. Well yes, I think this is a flaw - although a
flaw that is not fatal. What I think it suggests is that language, static
intellectual patterns, are operational even in the distinction between High
DQ and Low DQ.
I guess I might get howled at for some of this.
MARCO:
> b.) About the beauty of Diesel Oil.... the Latins used to say "De gustibus non
> est disputandum"...
ELEPHANT:
Indeed, that is precisely the dictum that Dewey is denying when he says that
taste is the only thing worth disputing about (and by implication the only
thing that *is* disputed about).
Marco:
> I don't think it is possible to approach Diesel Oil with
> the right frame of mind, so that every static intellectual concept can be
> dissolved (I hope at least we agree here, or do you love Diesel Oil so much to
> drink it that every morning with eggs and bacon?).
ELEPHANT:
The whole Elephant/Diesel Oil thing is just a rumour got up by the press.
We're just acquainted, that's all. In fact I think it is possible to
approach D.O. with the right frame of mind, but that frame of mind is not
'loving diesel oil' - which I'll agree isn't a very live option except for
oil barons. No, by 'right frame of mind' I was thinking that you could just
stand before a pool of the stuff agast, thinking 'existence!' and nothing
more. Pure perception, they call it in ZEN. Read Sartre on confroning
those tree-roots. Nausee. Acquaintaince with the Flux (like I said we're
just good freinds).
MARCO:
> So IMO Diesel Oil is not
> beautiful.
ELEPHANT:
Agreed. Like I said, it's the sublime we're talking about here, not the
beautiful.
MARCO:
> But also, even marble seems to be a stupid rock.... then
> Michelangelo came.
ELEPHANT:
The Dolomites are fairly Sublime you know. (The Sublime: that reality which
surpasses and escapes our practical reason, humbling us, if you will).
Beauty, by contrast, is connected to Order, Function, Harmony, Proprortion,
and thus (remember that discusion of Ratio?) to Reason. Beauty doesn't
escape practical reason: it's one of it's cheif objects (as a form of the
good). Naturally Helen Blaxendale is also Sublime, as well as harmoniously
proportioned and Beautiful and an object of quite alot of intense practical
reason, but then a wart-hog can be sublime. (Male philosophers tended to
associate men with the sublime and women with the beautiful - this is
something of an insight into their psychology).
MARCO:
> c) You rightly state that 'Seagull' is a conceptual tool for interpreting the
> world. Unless you use the term Seagull also for dogs and cats, IMO we are
> using this term to interpret a small portion of world. It's not a case that
> this small portion of world uses to fly over the sea, to eat fishes and
> produce eggs. I call 'Seagull' these (and others) REAL and STATIC
> characteristics...
> IMO "outside there" there are really static characteristics like these, and
> not only a dynamic continuum. Right, we create static concepts when we try to
> interpret the world.... but static concepts work well just because the world
> is (also) made of real static characteristics.
ELEPHANT:
Indeed here we disagree. If you think that there are real static
characterisics "out there", then you are not making the dynamic/static your
primary cut. Rather your primary cut divides things into cats and dogs and
seaguls, and the DQ/SQ split is then overlaid onto this SOM universe. The
world is *not* made of static entities: the world is Dynamic Quality. No
amount of SQ objects joined together can amount to DQ, since the former are
discrete and the latter is continuous. And if you think that the world is
fundamentally both discrete and continuous *at the same time* you are
enjoying a temporary lapse in reason. The idea that something is both
discrete and continuous is a contradiction in terms. If it's the kind of
contradiction in terms that turns you on, and you want to go ahead believing
it anyway despite the contradiction, that's fine too. Just don't bother
arguing with anyone from that day forward: because from then onwards you
will have already agreed that contradictions can be true, so nobody will be
able to bring you to see that you are talking gibberish, and you will have
no way to argue that anyone else is mistaken either.
MARCO:
> I'm stating that reality "out there" is static and dynamic, if the MOQ view is
> correct.
ELEPHANT:
No, this combination is an impossible contradiction (and that's just it).
If the MOQ view is correct the reality out there is Dynamic, and the static
reality is an itellectual one, not one 'out there'.
MARCO:
> e) You state that the Quality Event is an object. I don't think so. Of course,
> when we talk of a Quality Event, we rebuild a static intellectual concept. But
> the real event came before any subject and object. It creates the subject and
> the object.
ELEPHANT:
Pause for a moment, and really try thinking of 'the real event' that came
before any subject or object. It's hard. Impossible, actually. So long as
you keep looking for an event, you will only find objects. This is like
trying to wonder if a tree exists if you don't conceive of it. All the
trees that you can think of to serve as examples are conceived-of trees.
Likewise all the events you can think of are conceived-of events. And, for
that matter, 'event' is nothing more than a conception anyway. All that is
real and outside of conceptual trickery is the Dynamic.
Pirsig is right to say that the Quality-Event is the pivotal occurance in
the creation of subjects and objects. But that is all one with saying that
the QE is the primary kind of object, the kind out of which all other are
built.
MARCO:
> It is clear the huge distance between us. I think it is difficult for you to
> convince me (as well for me to convince you); however, if you want to try,
> please offer some original quote from Pirsig. Especially those where you can
> find that:
>
> - it is possible for us to *have* DQ and/or SQ. - the *essence* of language,
> or whatever else, is different from it as natural phenomenon.
> - language comes before all natural phenomenon - the quality event is an
> object
>
> My impression , sorry to state this baldly, is that you have read Lila without
> switching off enough intellectual static filters. You are trying to put your
> experience of the MOQ within too many preexisting patterns.
>
>
>
> However, surely we are both wrong
ELEPHANT:
No doubt we are. And no doubt I would say that you, too, are trying to fit
your experience of the MOQ within too many pre-existing static patterns. To
be frank, it isn't the *number* of static patterns here that's worrying us,
is it? After all, the idea that reading can be helped by switching off
*all* static filters is absurd: what is an alphabet but a static filter?
What is a language but a static filter? Your real claim isn't that I've got
too many static filters, but simply that the ones I have got are the wrong
ones. Well, that may be. But for now I level the exact same accusation in
return. Your commitment to the materialist idea of static patterns out
there is extraordinarily strong - although this is not, perhaps,
extraordinary in this culture. But such a strong commitment is a serious
handicap to an understanding of Pirsig, who manages to integrate a reading
of the Pragmatists with some rare insights into Plato. Neither James nor
Plato are committed to the idea of static patterns out there, and neither is
Pirsig. You'd like me to cite chapter and verse. What would that acheive?
One has to do one's thinking for oneself. What we're both hoping is that
the other will read Pirsig (and others) again and more carefully, taking
into account the possibility that the veiws we so decidedly maintained
before are quite wrong. I think that is the main prize, and if it is, then
we have both won.
All the best
Elephant
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