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. [Krimel] I think this assertion is completely unwarranted. I believe was covered in the first post in this thread. ___________________________________________________ [Robert Pirsig] A particularly large amount of this time had been spent trying to lay down a first line of division between the classic and romantic aspects of the universe he'd emphasized in his first book. In that book his purpose had been to show how Quality could unite the two. But the fact that Quality was the best way of uniting the two was no guarantee that the reverse was true - that the classic-romantic split was the best way of dividing Quality. It wasn't. [Krimel] He see that the Tao provides a means to unite dualities and begins to consider "the best way to divide" the Tao. He is not looking for the only way to divide the Tao nor does he seek to kill it with his division. He knows he can do not such a thing to the Tao. Not at all. ___________________________________________________ [dmb] 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. [Krimel] This mistake is based on your first. Intuition is the mode of thinking preferred by the romantic. It is irrational thinking in that it does not depend on concepts. Concepts can be tools to evaluate our intuitions. But the romantic is more likely to listen to the still small voice than the scratching of chalk on a blackboard. [dmb] 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. [Krimel] The classic mode is entirely rational. It is static as a machine is static. It is algorithmic. It offers precision in exchange versatility. It works in a classroom but not in a bar room. [dmb] Dynamic Quality is neither because it's prior to reflective thought and so cannot be a thought style of any kind. [Krimel] The dynamic aspect of Quality is entirely irrational BECAUSE it is prior to reflective thought. Reflective thought is EXACTLY what it is not. It is that other thought, that isn't thinking. The thought that is in doing and acting and engaging with experience. It is implicit, unconscious, abductive, feeling, mystical, emotional, moody, magical, continuous, procedural, flowing heuristic... [dmb] 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. [Krimel] I read Pirsig as saying that the romantic sees Value without meaning and the classic sees Meaning without value. The expansion of rationality occurs with the realization that you can't have one without the other. They need to compliment rather than contradict one another. They are tools in the human toolbox and we would do a better job of fixing things if we learned to use them both. [dmb] 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] I see no connection whatever between the assertion you made and the quotes that follow. I see no distinction being made between a gut instincts and pre-intellectual awareness. He seems to be saying that our appreciation of an elegant mathematical solution or a brilliant experiment is fundamentally aesthetic. Without emotional commitment or biological motivation there is no basis for meaning. Pirsig says nothing about where intuition comes nor does he say anything about where it does not come from. [dmb] 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. [Krimel] As I have said from the very beginning, my use of the term irrational is derived from Dan Ariely. In his two books Ariely illustrates the way the most trivial things imaginable influence what we think and do by. Daniel Kahneman gives a much fuller account in Thinking: Fast and Slow. My claims here have been restricted to a critique of a particular interpretation of the MoQ. You continue to confuse this interpretation of the MoQ with the MoQ itself whatever it may be or is becoming. I see nothing in Pirsig to suggest that we cannot offer descriptions of any of the things he talks about. He certainly does this. Furthermore you have done nothing to show any distinction whatsoever between the terms "irrational" and "pre-intellectual." I would argue at minimum the former has the advantage of being in the dictionary. In addition the lead quote of this post you also offer this comment to Dan: "That's pretty much what I was thinking but my version of this criticism goes a bit further. Irrational does mean "not rational" but the term is very often used pejoratively to characterize faulty reasoning, magical thinking, mental illness, and the like. In fact, that's how the word is ordinarily used. People say you're being irrational when you not making any sense or when you're taking some silly superstition seriously. Knock on wood." If this is your agreement I invite your response to the follow my previous discussions with Dan on the subject. "But he (Dan) argued that the term carries negative baggage and I agree. I attempted to explain that my problem with the term Dynamic Quality is exactly that. It is loaded with baggage and in my view baggage whose contents are just as deceptive for being pleasant as irrational's are for seeming harsh. dmb jumped in agreeing on bags Dan and I had packed but suggesting that tinkering with the meaning or lack thereof Pirsig's terms, threatens to topple the edifice of the MoQ." It seems a bit hypocritical to dismiss a term for carrying too much of one kind of baggage when you are smothered by baggage of your own. More than hypocritical it is... what did you call it...? "bad rhetorical taste" ...right that was it. The specific term at issue here is "irrational." I hope that having corrected your misunderstanding about Nietzsche's use of the term "chaos." Perhaps you could explain why in Nietzsche's sense chaos is not a legitimate term to use in a description of the dynamic aspect of Quality? Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
