Rick, Erin,
PIRSIG
...he thought that the light was nothing more than involuntary widening of
the iris of the eyes of the observer that lets in extra light and makes
things look brighter, a kind of hallucinatory light produced by optic
stimulation, somewhat like the light that comes when one stares at something
too long. Like eye blinks, it's assumed to be an an [sic] irrelevant
interruption of what one "really" sees, or it's assumed to be a subjective
phenomenon, which is unreal...(p387-388).
RICK
This, I believe, is the real smoking gun. Clearly he feels that we all SEE
the Dharmakaya light. He's suggesting that our culture explains away the
light as 'irrelevant' or 'unreal'.... not that we're blind to it.
By 'irrevelant' and 'unreal' I think he is emphasizing the cultural
understanding that, for the relatively few people who do see it, the
D. light is something that either gets in the way of objectivity, like
eyeblinks, or is subjective (it's all in your head).
If he thought we all saw this light he would really be naive, and it really
would be a different smoking gun, wouldn't it? But from the context of
the rest of the passage it seems clear to me that he realizes most people
don't see the D. light, as when he says how his personal knowledge of the
light was a burden for communication and how religious people in the past
saw it a lot more than today and more people in other cultures see it than
people in Western culture, and then he explicitly says:
PIRSIG:
But nobody sees it because the cultural definition of what is real and
what is unreal filters out the Dharmakaya light from 20th century
American "reality" just as sure as time is filtered out of Hopi reality,
and green-yellow differences mean nothing to the Natchez.
(By 'nobody' he doesn't mean nobody, of course, because at least he sees
it and he thinks El Greco saw it. By this he means that the vast majority
of people don't see it.)
For me, the iris paragraph you and Erin bring up is difficult to interpret.
I'm tossing out my first interpretation that everyone biologically "sees"
the light but that its perception gets cognitively blocked by social
filters.
Here's what I currently think Pirsig means:
He says the light that causes the D. effect is not special, supernatural
light, but just extra light that's let in by dilated irises (I think he
means pupils). I've had my pupils dilated with eye drops at the eye
doctors, and the edges of objects get fuzzy and the overall visual scene is
brighter. This is what Pirsig thinks is the D. light effect, and he may
be right. Most people's pupils do not dilate unless you move from a dark
place to a light place, and once acclamated to the light, stop dilating
before the D. effect can be seen. This is why the norm is to not see the
effect. If Pirsig's pupils dilate past the norm (over-dilate), the effect will take place. Even for people like Pirsig, who see the effect, the D. light is unpredictable. It comes and goes. Apparently his pupils
don't always over-dilate.
So now the question is, why do the pupils of a relatively small percentage
of the Western population sometimes over-dilate? Why do the pupils of
religious people of our past and people in other cultures over-dilate at
higher rates (he assumes this because there's a ton of literary and
artistic references to light in past religion and other cultures)? Why do
the pupils over-dilate when you take peyote or mescaline? Why do they
over-dilate when you are insane? Why does the effect come and go?
Pirsig thinks it's due to the culture being too objective. When you let go
of your objectivity your pupils dilate more than normal and you see the
light. When you become more objective, you build up static patterns, your
pupils close up more, and the D. effect goes away.
Pirsig doesn't think the light is supernatural, but it seems that the
cause of the pupil over-dilations are, and he thinks there's plenty of
mystic import associated with the light. Pirsig suggests that pupils often
over-dilate when you have Dynamic Quality experiences.
Quite amazingly, he also suggests that you can see the Quality of a thing
depending on whether it *gives off* the D. light. According to Pirsig, El
Greco's paintings suggest that El Greco saw the light around the Christ
child but not the prosecutor of the Spanish Inquisition. He saw the light
on Lila twice and he thinks this means there is something Dynamic about
her. He thinks the kitten follows him around because the kitten sees the
D. light around Pirsig. The tiger gets up and looks closely at Pirsig for
the same reason. He's suggesting a shared, implicit communion between
himself, these creatures, and the D. light.
It's not clear that Pirsig, when his pupils are over-dilated and he's
seeing the D. light, sees some things giving off the light, and others not
giving it off. He doesn't mention seeing anything give off the light other
than animate objects, so you're left with the impression that some things
give off the light and other things don't. If all things gave off the
light, why would he see special import in the things he does mention?
When my pupils were dilated at the eye-doctor, everything in my visual
field exhibited this fuzzy glow, from furniture to people. I can't think
of any physical reason, if this is purely a feature of involuntary pupil
dilation, why some objects would give off the light and others wouldn't.
RICK
Pirsig is saying that Intellectual patterns are related to Social
patterns the way a river is related to its bed [foundation].
That's my reading anyway. what do you think?
If he intended 'basis' to mean 'foundation' then it could explain why he
added biological patterns to the quote. But if he meant this then why
stop at the biological level? Why not say that inorganic patterns are
the basis for our selection, which is even more accurate under this
interpretation. Of course, this thread of the discussion about this quote
depends on "observe" meaning "study", and I'm not so keen on that
interpretation anymore.
>ERIN:
>>... and on page 387 he gives a biological explanation of that
>>dharmakaya light.
>
GLENN: No. He thinks its an objective phenomena - an inorganic pattern.
>A biological explanation suggests that he thinks the light was generated by
>his brain - that it's subjective. He doesn't think this.
ERIN: How is this not a biological explanation..."
OK. I'll agree it's a biological explanation to a point, but there's no
biological explanation for why the pupils over-dilate. For that he's
attributed a mystical cause. I can't agree with him when he says his is an
explanation *grounded* in physical reality. I think in this day and age we
should be able to expect an explanation in terms of biology for why pupils
might over-dilate.
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