dmb said:
...We don't need it [the term "irrational"] because the terms Pirsig uses are
just fine but they don't carry the same negative baggage. "Irrational" would be
a bad substitute. ...I mean, unless the purpose is to be pejorative, use of the
term "irrational" in relation to "Quality" or "Dynamic Quality" just shows bad
rhetorical taste. It's the wrong word in the sense that it's a bad artistic
choice.
Dan replied:
I pretty much go along with this. What I think may have a bit of merit is
irrationality as intuition, what we might call gut feeling. Searching Lila I
could find no reference to intuitive thinking other than a short paragraph
pertaining to Dusenberry. In ZMM, intuition is linked to 'grooving on it' and
immediate perception, to the romantic mode: ...Maybe that's why Robert Pirsig
doesn't go into it much at all in Lila. I don't think we can properly say
intuition is pre-intellectual awareness yet it might be some of the first
patterns to emerge. Inspiration and art are not rational and yet they aren't
entirely irrational either. Rather, there is an intuitive quality which emerges
from experience that has little to do with intellectual patterns, or classical
ideas.
dmb says:
Right, intuition doesn't come up in Lila because, I think, because in ZAMM it
was so directly connected to the romantic style of thought and that's why he
ditches the classic-romantic distinction. In Lila he switches to the
static-Dynamic instead, of course, and there we can see that romantic thinking
is still thinking and shouldn't be confused with pre-conceptual or
pre-intellectual awareness. Classic and romantic refer to different ways of
thinking - wherein those with a classic temperament love Aristotelian details
and those with a romantic temperament prefer Platonic wholes. Dynamic Quality
is neither because it's prior to reflective thought and so cannot be a thought
style of any kind. And yet the patient on the table is still analysis itself,
reason itself, and Pirsig's expansion of rationality is accomplished by putting
DQ at the center of our thinking, even at the center of the scientific process
itself. We can see this in both books but in Lila, where we see that gut
feelings might just be a biological response, Pirsig is more precise about
the difference between gut instincts and pre-intellectual awareness.
In LILA Pirsig wrote: "The Metaphysics of Quality says that science's empirical
rejection of biological and social values is not only rationally correct, it is
also morally correct because the intellectual patterns of science are of a
higher evolutionary order than the old biological and social patterns. But the
Metaphysics of Quality also says that Dynamic Quality - the value-force that
chooses an elegant mathematical solution to a laborious one, or a brilliant
experiment over a confusing, inconclusive one-is another matter altogether.
Dynamic Quality is a higher moral order than static scientific truth, and it is
as immoral for philosophers of science to try to suppress Dynamic Quality as it
is for church authorities to suppress scientific method. Dynamic value is an
integral part of science. It is the cutting edge of scientific progress
itself."
Similarly, In ZAMM Pirsig wrote: "I think that it will be found that a formal
acknowledgment of the role of Quality in the scientific process doesn't destroy
the empirical vision at all. It expands it, strengthens it and brings it far
closer to actual scientific practice."
Krimel's use of "irrational" confuses pre-intellectual awareness (Quality or
Dynamic) with instincts and primitive forms of cognition. There is a vast
distance between Krimel's claims to be improving the MOQ and his ability to
comprehend the basics of the MOQ. He's trying to bridge that gap with snark,
egotism and an unrealistic (i.e. delusional) sense of his own capacities.
Dan said to dmb:
.... I guess what I am getting at is: if we are relegated to only groping
static quality patterns, how do we go about growing the MOQ? Are we doomed to
continually repeat the same old mantras until we grow tired and give up?
Perhaps this is where an intuitive take on the MOQ may be of value. I don't
mean wallowing in irrational nonsense but rather recognizing there is more to
the MOQ (and elephants) than just static patterns.
[snip supporting quote from ZMM: "...Why should an irrational method work when
rational methods were all so rotten? ... This was the beginning of the
crystallization..." [ZMM]
Dan continued:
What he seems to be saying is that rationality only goes so far. If new ideas
and inspirations are to be given a chance to crystallize, perhaps intuition is
better than rationalization. Maybe there are times when the rational solution
simply will not work, no matter how carefully one plans their days and spends
their nights laying out metaphysics and picking up bar ladies and rubbing
elephants on their fat old behinds.
dmb says:
That's a good point but I'd add a qualification, one that's very important, I
think. The growth of new ideas and the moments of inspiration we want almost
never happens in the absence of static patterns. It's not enough all by itself
but you gotta have that first. They call it a necessary but insufficient
condition of growth. That's what I saying about Lila's problem the other day;
she lacks the stability needed to contain her freedom, she's extremely
degenerate in the Pirsigian sense and in the common sense too, I suppose. Or
consider all the training and hard work Poincare had under his belt before he
could intuit the mathematical solution in a flash of insight. This is what
Pirsig says about the Zen monks too, how the Dynamic is found right in the
midst or their static rituals, and he even describes this in terms of trying to
"perfect" those patterns. The classroom scenes in ZAMM, where your supporting
comes from, illustrate this point too. After they had become convinced
that Quality is real and they could recognize it even if they couldn't define
it, then the standard texts came into their own, he says. Now they we're just
a bunch of disconnected, arbitrary rules. The were tools and guides to help you
achieve quality in thought and speech. With undefined Quality at the center,
even though it remains undefined, the static patterns themselves are
transformed from obstacle to aid and are thereby redeemed. I think this is a
very, very important point. Clinging to DQ all by itself is a foolproof recipe
for chaos.
Dan said:
Yes, Lila is primarily a rational novel delineating the MOQ in a conceptual
classical mode. ZMM, on the other hand, pays homage to the intuitive romantic
mode which has been abandoned in Lila. I understand the 'why' behind this yet
it seems as if something of value has been lost in the translation.
dmb says:
I think the revision in Lila only sharpens and clarifies what he was saying in
ZAMM. The language of the second book is more technical and less literary
though, so it certainly feels less groovy. Plus New England and sail boats are
kinda posh where motorcycles and Montana are earthy and gritty. But he never
really romanticized the romantics. You know, his artist friend couldn't sculpt
a back yard grill or fix a short in his light switch. His drinking buddy, the
drummer, could not fix his own motorcycle. There is something wrong with our
technological world, he says, but running from technology is not the solution.
The solution is to see that technology is not some evil death force but a
fusion of nature and the human spirit. -- And of course these lessons in
motorcycle maintenance are a miniature study in the art of rationality itself,
he says. So rationality - or static intellectual quality - has always been the
focus of Pirsig's attention, regardless of which book we're tal
king about. His root expansion of rationality is achieved by putting undefined
Quality or DQ at the center of his metaphysics but that is the goal and the MOQ
itself, as opposed to the DQ it talks about and centers around, is static and
intellectual, conceptual and definable, as any metaphysical system must be.
I think vague notions like intuition, inspiration, grooviness can be clarified
by the MOQ as we get it in the second book. The levels of static quality
sharpen the distinction between, say, the gut feelings of certainty a
mathematician and the gut feelings of a Nazi. We see how the hippies confused
DQ with biological quality, etc.. And these levels of static quality - in
relation to DQ - is what constitutes the self and the whole defined world.
Every last bit of it. Only DQ is left out of that defined static world. I would
NOT defend the "classic" mode per se, but the conceptual mode, the intellectual
quality mode? Oh, hell yes. I think "Perfection" is the most unrealistic word
in the english language but I really am convinced that inspiration and insight
are the rewards of effort, come directly out of the work that it takes to get
it right, to get it down. I think this is what the MOQ says and I think this
holds true with math, motorcycles or just about anything else, includ
ing the MOQ itself.
Dan said:
The way I understand it, Dynamic Quality becomes synonymous with experience...
This seems to be a hang-up for a number of folk here who claim we experience
static quality. No, we don't experience static quality. Rather, static quality
emerges from experience. So if we do not experience static quality, do we
experience Dynamic Quality? No, not if Dynamic Quality and experience become
synonymous. Again, this is not a proper question to be asking within the
framework of the MOQ. Rather, all these concepts, including the term
'experience,' emerge from Dynamic Quality, which itself is an intellectual term
to point to that which lies beyond definition.
dmb says:
You and Dave have been going around and around about that for quite a while
now, eh? Can't say I've followed every twist and turn but it's pretty clear
that "experience" is main the point of contention. There are some very good
reasons to be careful in using that word around here. I guess you know why such
caution is advised; because "experience" means one thing under SOM and
something completely different in the MOQ. What's more, the MOQ's
pre-intellectual experience or pure experience is not the only kind of
experience. Once that gets cleared up, I suspect, the rest of your dispute with
Dave will sort itself out.
Let's say we've already ditched the SOM version of "experience" wherein the
subject perceives and then conceives the objective realities that were already
out there independently of the subject. So we're NOT talking about experience
on that model. (Krimel needs to hear that even if you don't, Dan.) This dualism
says that subjects and objects are required for there to be any experience at
all. Subjects and objects are the pre-conditions that make experience possible.
The MOQ rejects that model of experience and instead begins with a very
different conception of experience. With this new starting point, "experience"
takes on a whole new meaning and now the word is being used here in a very
special sense of the word. We're talking about DQ as pure experience itself,
the cutting edge of experience, so out front that it is prior to concepts.
Think of the DQ/sq distinction as a line between two phases or moments in an
overall process. Think of them as two parts, both playing a role in the same
process. In that sense, they are both included within our overall experience.
The primary empirical reality is experience prior to concepts but then, very
quickly and automatically, concepts are added and give shape to the immediate
experience. We experience the whole thing and they're constantly working
together so seamlessly that we can hardly tell one from the other.
The same sort of issue comes up around the James quote that Pirsig uses,
wherein "there must always be a discrepancy between concepts and reality".
People mistakenly read that to mean that concepts are not real or are not part
of reality. But here "reality" refers to that same pre-conceptual experience,
which is the starting point of reality in the MOQ and in radical empiricism. It
wouldn't be too far wrong to simply rephrase it as something like, "there must
always be a discrepancy between pre-conceptua experience and conceptual
experience". Or you could say DQ is undivided and unsorted experience just as
if comes - before it is mixed with our trainload of conceptual additives.
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