> dmb wrote: > John and Sylvia, the Sutherlands, were real people but in Pirsig's first book > they also represented millions of people who, like them, felt alienated by > technology and our technological world. We start out with ghost stories and > little repair lessons involving handlebars and beer-can shims. But before you > know it, he has you thinking about the foundations of science and the kind of > metaphysics behind our scientific world. And then, by time we get to the > artful mechanic, we even reach mystical peaks.. The art of motorcycle > maintenance is miniature study in the art of rationality itself, he says. The > solution is not to run away from technology or science or rationality. No, > Pirsig wants to show us how the Buddha resides in the gears of a motorcycle > every bit as much as the lotus flower. That's a metaphor for science and > rationality too. That's the aspect of the Buddha that hasn't been talked to > death already. That's what static intellectual quality, as it's construed in > his second, is supposed to be all about. This is not a contest between gears and lotus flowers. It's not a contest between intellectuals and mystics. It's about Pirsig's reformation of rationality, where Quality and value are integrated into intellectual values. They're are distinctly different but they're not mutually exclusive. They are supposed to work together. That's the whole point of the MOQ!
djh responds: I think you're both correct and incorrect here. You're correct that Mysticism and Intellectual quality do indeed work together. But the key point here is that they work together by being mutually exclusive and in opposition! "If one inserts this concept into a case such as that of the brujo in Zuni, one can see the truth of it. Although the Dynamic brujo and the static priests who tortured him appeared to be mortal enemies, they were actually necessary to each other. Both types of people had to exist. If most of Zuni went around drunk and bragging and looking in windows, that ancient way of life could never have lasted. But without wild, disreputable outcasts like the brujo, ready to seize on any new outside idea and bring it into the community, Zuni would have been too inflexible to survive. A tension between these two forces is needed to continue the evolution of life." - Lila Chapter 9. and.. "[The] division of all biological evolutionary patterns into a Dynamic function and a static function continues on up through higher levels of evolution. The formation of semi-permeable cell walls to let food in and keep poisons out is a static latch. So are bones, shells, hide, fur, burrows, clothes, houses, villages, castles, rituals, symbols, laws and libraries. All of these prevent evolutionary degeneration.On the other hand, the shift in cell reproduction from mitosis to meiosis to permit sexual choice and allow huge DNA diversification is a Dynamic advance. So is the collective organization of cells into metazoan societies called plants and animals. So are sexual choice, symbiosis, death and regeneration, communality, communication, speculative thought, curiosity and art. Most of these, when viewed in a substance-centered evolutionary way are thought of as mere incidental properties of the molecular machine. But in a value-centered explanation of evolution they are clos e to the Dynamic process itself, pulling the pattern of life forward to greater levels of versatility and freedom... Without Dynamic Quality the organism cannot grow. Without static quality the organism cannot last. Both are needed." - Lila Chapter 11. So how can Pirsig make the statement that the 'Buddha resides in the gears of a motorcycle every bit as much as the lotus flower' when they are in opposition? The reason is that DQ can indeed be found in all static quality patterns. As is better known to folks from the East - it can be found in all static patterns by putting those patterns to sleep. Something which he describes in more detail in Lila.. "The Zen monk's daily life is nothing but one ritual after another, hour after hour, day after day, all his life. They don't tell him to shatter those static patterns to discover the unwritten dharma. They want him to get those patterns perfect! The explanation for this contradiction is the belief that you do not free yourself from static patterns by fighting them with other contrary static patterns. That is sometimes called 'bad karma chasing its tail.' You free yourself from static patterns by putting them to sleep. That is, you master them with such proficiency that they become an unconscious part of your nature. You get so used to them you completely forget them and they are gone. There in the center of the most monotonous boredom of static ritualistic patterns the Dynamic freedom is found." - Lila Chapter 30 This boredom is the same boredom found after thinking about a broken motorcycle over and over again - as described in a rare ZMM quote where Pirsig explicitly talks about Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: ""Let's consider a reevaluation of the situation in which we assume that the stuckness now occurring, the zero of consciousness, isn't the worst of all possible situations, but the best possible situation you could be in. After all, it's exactly this stuckness that Zen Buddhists go to so much trouble to induce; through koans, deep breathing, sitting still and the like. Your mind is empty, you have a "hollow-flexible" attitude of "beginner's mind." You're right at the front end of the train of knowledge, at the track of reality itself. Consider, for a change, that this is a moment to be not feared but cultivated. If your mind is truly, profoundly stuck, then you may be much better off than when it was loaded with ideas." - ZMM > dmb wrote: > But what does Marsha put on display day after day after day? A profound > alienation from anything and everything intellectual! Kill, kill, kill the > philosophers! Logic is for losers! Definitions are degenerate! And how many > other MOQers echo this upside down, totally backwards nonsense? One is too > many. > > Dumping on the motorcycle gears is dumping the lotus is dumping on the Buddha > is dumping yourself is dumping on the world. There is no freaking way that > this counts as a good idea by Pirsig's lights. Not a chance. > > I'll reproduce the evidence so it can be ignored once > again.------------------------- djh responds: Well as I've said repeatedly - ultimately definitions are degenerate but does that mean we shouldn't define? Is that even possible? I don't think it is so I think something better to be interested in (rather than trying to avoid degeneracy) is looking at what's good. What's good intellectually? There's an interesting question! Finally, to avoid further accusations of 'ignoring the evidence' I'll actually respond to each quote you provided below as well... > dmb provided quote one: > "I think furthermore, that all his metaphysical mountain climbing did > absolutely nothing to further either our understanding of what Quality is or > of what the Tao is. Not a thing. That sounds like an overwhelming rejection > of what he said and thought, but it isn't. I think it's a statement that he > would have agreed with himself, since any description of Quality is a kind of > definition and must therefore fall short of its mark. ...No, he did nothing > for Quality or the Tao. What benefitted was reason. He showed a way by which > reason may be EXPANDED to include elements that have previously been > unassimilable and thus have been considered irrational. I think it's the > overwhelming presence of these irrational elements crying for assimilation > that creates the present bad quality, the chaotic disconnected spirit of the > twentieth century." (ZAMM, p. 257) Right the reason why rationality has been EXPANDED after ZMM is that we walk away with the understanding that there aren't fixed Platonic eternal truths - but provisional pragmatic ones. From this perspective it is no longer necessary to argue over *the* truth but simply to look at what's valuable intellectually. Rather than being simple amoral beings who are only interested in truth folks can intellectually 'expand' their rationality and look at what's good without being irrational.. > dmb provided quote two: > "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." (ZAMM) Indeed it does. For starters - rather than A causing B - B valuing precondition A is much more interesting. > dmb provided quote three: > "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." (LILA) Dynamic value is indeed at the cutting edge of scientific progress. It is at the cutting edge because without Dynamic value we'd just be stuck with a whole bunch of static scientific truths which never changed. The conflict between the Dynamic idea and the static one is *the* cutting edge of science. 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