Hi Sam,
"Elizaphanian" <Elizaphanian@btinternet.com> wrote:
>Whilst looking at mysticism in Pirsig, I reviewed the part early in Lila
>where he chooses not to go down the mystical path, and instead write a
>metaphysics. Two things:
>
>- the first is that he is clear that writing a metaphysics is a degenerate
>activity. Another way of putting that is to say that any metaphysics that is
>created will inevitably be flawed, or, in parallel with Godel's theorem, if
>you've got something which is beautifully logically consistent it will be
>incomplete, or if it (claims to be) complete, it will be inconsistent. It's
>not open to us to be right about everything (that's why mystics leave
>perfection to God).
Pirsig says that writing a metaphysics is a degenerate activity and will be
flawed, but the flaws he speaks of creep in because the intellectual "map"
of reality described by a metaphysics falls short in depicting the "terrain"
of reality. I don't think it's because of any parallel with Godel's theorem.
If Godel's theorem applies to a metaphysics, it would mean that the "map of
reality" itself is internally incomplete or inconsistent, which is a separate
problem from the one of capturing the essence of a "terrain" sufficiently.
However, the Godel problem is really an academic one - a problem in
principle, not practicality. No one has shown that important theorems in
arithmetic are blocked from proof because of Godel's theorem. Godel
invented an ingenious self-referential statement to prove his theorem,
but the statement itself is relevant only to Godel's theorem, not to the
advancement of arithmetic.
If a theorem in mathematics is shown to be inconsistent it is almost always
due to a flaw in logic or some other miscalculation or misapplication of
mathematics, not a consequence of Godel's thm. Godel's theorem can no more be
trotted out and used as a blanket excuse for mistakes or incompetence in
arithmetic as it can for a metaphysics (if indeed it even applies to grammars
capable of describing a metaphysics).
>
>- the second is that he indulges in writing a metaphysics because it's fun.
>(I would also say that it can be practically useful - just as mathematics
>can be useful even when it is imperfect).
>
While it's apparent that some people join this forum because they enjoy
arguing, I never thought Pirsig wrote Lila for the fun of it. If he had fun
writing it, a sense of fun didn't shine through the prose. It's one of
the most humorless novels I've read. He would probably say that he wrote Lila
in part to answer his ZMM critics about the vagueness of his Quality ideas
and to absorb all the psychic loneliness the SOM has wrought on him and
provide the world with an alternative so that we need not suffer as he did.
It doesn't seem he was motivated by fun, or even enjoyed the exercise once
he got going.
Glenn
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