Here is a revision of my previously posted essay.
My Holarchy and the integration of
Robert Pirsig and Ken Wilber
By Gary M. Jaron
May 5, 2002[i]
I must confess my own holarchy/map/diagram of metaphysical reality began out
of rejection. I looked upon a map/diagram and was displeased, it was ugly.
Socrates taught me about the Good, the True and the Beautiful. Robert
Pirsig[ii] taught me that this holy trinity was one and it was Quality. Of
course! Things of powerful and fundamental truth were not only good, but
they were beautiful--they were simple, elegant statements of clarity. Truth
and Beauty were united. Classical attributes of beautiful things were
simple, elegant, and balanced. Lets us look at the map of reality that
precedes Pirsig's revelatory new metaphysics.
Reality
Subjective(Mental)
Objective(Physical)
Classic (intellectual)
Romantic (Emotional)
Here is a balanced and sturdy configuration. On the top is a unity out of
which branches off two levels of balanced items. It is no wonder that such
an edifice has stood the test of time. A building such as this has a solid
foundation. It is like a two story building with a peaked roof. Solidity,
strength, simplicity, are all adjectives one can used to describe the
diagram on purely esthetic observations. It thus should have some sort of
truth to it, since it has such overwhelming beauty. But, there is something
wrong with the picture when you examine it through the eye of intellect, as
thousands of years of philosophic and scientific writings have conveyed.
Now, lets look at the 'New' metaphysics of Robert Pirsig, he the champion of
Quality, he the unifier of all that is Good, True and Beautiful.
Quality(Reality)
Romantic Quality
Classic Quality
(Preintellectual Reality)
(Intellectual Reality)
Subjective Reality Objective Reality
(Mind) (Matter)
My first reaction to this map/diagram was purely esthetic. And I was
shocked. It was ugly. It was unbalanced. If it was a building it would
surely topple over! This edifice could not stand on its own! I was
completely baffled. How could someone who wrote with such elegance about
truth, which surely Pirsig does, create such an picture that so clearly
lacks elegance? Without even analyzing the words and ideas conveyed by the
diagram I felt that there was something wrong with this picture of reality.
But, most shocking of all, upon my current re-reading of Pirsig's book,
probably my 6th or 7th read of it, I had my own revelation! The diagram
Pirsig presented was not an accurate picture of his own words! It was as if
the diagram was laid out by the Narrator and not by Phaedrus the philosopher
who had the revelation concerning Quality. Return with me to chapter 20 of
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Go to what is page 247 in the
Quill edition, the paragraph begins thusly:
'He'd been speculating about the relationship of Quality to mind and matter
and had identified Quality as the parent of mind and matter, that event
which gives birth to mind and matter. This Copernican inversion of the
relationship of Quality to the objective world could sound mysterious if not
carefully explained, but he didn't mean to be mysterious. He simply meant
that at the cutting edge of time, before an object can be distinguished,
there must be a kind of nonintellectual awareness, which he called awareness
of Quality. You can't be aware that you've seen a tree until after you've
seen the tree, and between the instant of vision and instant of awareness
there must be a time lag..The past exists only in our memories, the future
only in our plans. The present is our only reality. The tree that you are
aware of intellectually, because of that small time lag, is always in the
past and therefore is always unreal. Any intellectually conceived object is
always in the past and therefore unreal. Reality is always the moment of
vision before the intellectualization takes place. There is no other
reality. This preintellectual reality is what Phaedrus felt he had properly
defined as Quality. Since all intellectual identifiable things must emerge
from this preintellectual reality, Quality is the parent, the source of all
subjects and objects.
Powerful words. But let us carefully consider them. The scene that Pirsig
is describing consists of a person observing a tree. So, first off there
exists matter! A human being stands on planet Earth and a tree grows out of
the soil of planet Earth. Examine the word 'preintellectual'. Watch where
it takes us. Pre-intellectual means something before there is an
intellectual understanding. The intellect is a faculty of a human mind!
Pre-intellectual is before the things the mind creates, which is words.
Before intellect there is a non-verbal occurrence. We now have a body which
has sense data, non-verbal, and this body process the sense data with its
intellect--its mind. Out of this processing we have understanding. Pirsig
labels Preintellectual with Romantic Quality and intellectual with Classical
Quality. The actual diagram Pirsig is describing looks more like this:
Objective Reality
(Quality)
Matter
(Planet Earth)
(trees and people)
a human mind
-------(Sub
jective Reality)-------
preintellectual awareness
(Romantic Quality)
intellectual distinguishing
identifiable things
(Classic Quality)
Now this visual edifice is solid and stable. But this is not the diagram
that Pirsig gave in his book! But it is the diagram as described by the
paragraph from his book that I just cited! Quality exists before words,
before intellect. We are made of matter and perceive things made of matter
(trees). We silently, non-verbally are aware of, experience objects made of
matter and then we come to understand those objects and give them labels,
words. This labeling is Classic Quality which we make in our intellect--our
mind! Classic Quality is a product of a human mind! Romantic Quality is
the silent appreciation and experience of matter by a human being with a
mind! That is exactly what Pirsig is saying in the paragraph I quoted.
Wow.
My goal, for the remainder of this essay is to work out the implications of
this new diagram. In doing this I will attempt to integrate the world views
of Robert Pirsig and Ken Wilber. I will do this with the model of the brain
and the mind from Erich Harth's book: The Creative Loop: How the Brain Makes
a Mind (1993), and lastly with my own insights. In the end the success or
failure of this venture lies with me. I foresee a view of the world that
starts with energy moves up to matter, through simple cellular life, going
up to plants, animals and continuing on up to human beings, who have minds,
and have a connection to the ultimate spirit of cosmic all and oneness. My
intention is to end the 'mind -- body question' by simply pointing out that
Pirsig, Wilber, and Harth have actually already solved and dissolved that
age old problem.
What is the Mind? Rene Descartes in his Discourse on Method (1637) posited
that the body was matter in motion and the source of emotions, desires,
instincts, and physiological process. The Mind was a non-material
intellectual faculty whose nature was totally different than anything else
in the material universe. The mind and the body: two unique substances that
interact with each other. Since then many have others have entered the fray
and proposed all sorts of ways to describe and overcome the difference
between the mind and the body. I believe the mind and the body are two
sides of the same thing.
Take with me this leap of faith and imagine the universe thusly: The
universe is made up of energy and matter and that is all, nothing else but
this. What makes for the rich diversity of existence is structure. Matter
and energy is interconnected and structured in an almost infinite variety of
ways and configurations on an incredible multiplicity of levels. From
sub-atomic particles all the way up to galaxies. All of it is merely energy
and matter which has a particular structure. Now having said this, I do not
believe that the universe is devoid of life, mind, spirit or Quality. I
simply believe that all of these things evolve from the complexities
contained within the internal and external attributes of the structure of
energy and matter. I believe that Quality is the Internal aspect and the
cause of the diverse configuration of structure Externally and Internally of
all energy and matter in the Universe on all levels. I believe that mind
and spirit are the internal experience and the internal attributes of the
external arrangements of all energy and matter.
To get from the above vast vision to my explanation I need to start with an
examination of words. To understand words I need to briefly explore Taoism.
Lao Tsu taught that: 'The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The
name that can be named is not the eternal name.' [From Lao Tsu's Tao Te
Ching, Chapter One, translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English.] Alfred
Korzybski wrote something very similar when he said: 'A Word is not the
things spoken about, and that there is no such thing as an object in
absolute isolation.' [From pg 50 of Korzybski's book Science and Sanity.]
And: 'The map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a
similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.'
[Korzybski, pg. 58.] The Tao is the ultimate object that we can speak about
and the ultimate territory that we can try to map. But everything that we
say is 'not the eternal Tao' it remains words. The Tao is before human
words and human maps. Human words and human maps come after and are not the
same as the pre-verbal/non-verbal reality and experience of the Tao. So,
what follows is a map in the form of words. It can never be the same as the
Tao, but it is all we humans can do. We are map makers and word users[iii].
The human word 'Tao' [which has the literal translation into English as a
way, a path, a road.] and the human word 'Quality', I believe are exact
equivalents. The choice of words are the products of two individuals
working within the maps of two cultures. One map and culture was a Romantic
Quality[iv] culture (China, and thus the world, as experienced by Lao Tsu)
the other a Classical Quality[v] culture (United States, and thus the world,
as experienced by Robert Pirsig.) Having said this, I will start with both
terms for final emphasis and then drop the use of the word 'Tao' and switch
to Pirsig's term Quality, since this essay that follows is more about
Classical Quality map making than Romantic Quality map making.
I believe that Tao/Quality is the ultimate Holon, and all Holon's exist not
in absolute isolation but in a Holarchy[vi]. And by saying this I therefore
am asserting that the totality of everything, all non-verbal objects and all
verbal objects are Holons. The assertion that Quality is a Holon is
something that is inherent in the nature of and the reality of Quality. It
is not a mere human map. [An analogy: The word 'gravity' is a human
invention and everything that can be spoken to describe 'gravity' in what
ever symbol system used is still a collection of human effort. Yet, Gravity
is a force which exists in the workings of Reality before any human every
noticed its presence.] (The word 'Holon' and the word 'Holarchy' are the
invention of Arthur Koestler from his book 'The Ghost and The Machine'. The
recognition of the importance of those terms to making a true map of reality
was later acknowledged by Ken Wilber[vii].)
A Holon is a term to describe an object which has the characteristics of
simultaneously being both an individual whole, composed of parts, as well as
being a single part of some larger whole. This part and whole aspect is
complementary and not a divisible distinction. An analogy is to a photon
having both wave and particle characteristics, depending on the tools use to
examine the photon. All Holon's have the following characteristics. They
came be described from the perspective of External and Internal, as
Individual Wholes and as Parts of a Collective, and they have Dynamic
Quality and Static Quality. [These last two terms are from Robert Pirsig and
were not known to, or used by, Koestler or Wilber.]
All of these characteristics are not either/or choices. Not one or the
other. Each pair, External--Internal, Individual/Wholes--Collective/Parts,
Dynamic--Static, are choices along continuums where abstract purity is
imagined at either end of the continuum, but objects can be described
anywhere along that continuum. The act of placing an object along the
continuum is a human choice. And thus is not the 'True' choice, which is
what both Lao Tsu and Korzybski warns us about. That all objects have those
characteristics is 'True', it is a part of the non-verbal and pre-human
nature of reality. Realizing that those choices exists and formulating a
map to describe those choices is a human act and a human product and thus
theoretically there can never be an end to the map making.
As Koestler and Wilber have eloquently stated in their books, all Holons are
part of a Holarchy. They can be mapped out showing their relationships
vertically and horizontally. This arrangement is endless in either
direction. Unless you recognize that at either end, the final
uppermost/biggest whole that can be imagined is Quality and the final
smallest part that can be imagined is Quality. To give as an illustration
of a External Classical Quality holarchy, one made by a Western Scientists,
the Universe would be at the top of the holarchy and quarks, or whatever
makes up quarks, would be at the bottom of their holarchy.
Now begins my map making.
Reality is because there is Quality. Without Quality there would only be
pure, uniform, undifferentiated energy quantum particles. Because there is
Quality the Universe exists and is structured as it is. Energy and Matter
continually dance and flow in a continuum of Dynamic and Static
manifestations all in accordance with Quality. Quality is what makes for
organization in a structural pattern of Holon's in a Holarchy. That flow of
energy and matter has formed into many things, some of which are a form of
life[viii] which is sentient. [Theoretically humans are not the only such
species in the Universe, hence this reference. But for the sake of
simplicity I will henceforth only address this discussion to our own
species.]
All human beings interact with the Universe and within themselves. This
interaction is Pirsig Quality Event. That interaction starts externally as
an interaction of energy and matter with other configurations of energy and
matter which make up the human body. This External aspect of the Quality
Event, like the rest of the Universe, is a continuum of events of sub-atomic
through atomic, through molecular, through chemical, bio-chemical, through
networks of biological systems. Our brains have evolved such that the
neurological wiring not only processes data coming in from sources external
to the brain, but it is wired to react to and monitor it's own brain
processes. Our brain is 'self-aware' on a biological level because of this
reflexive and recursive neurological structure[ix]. This 'self-awareness'
of our own biological/nervous system and brain states is the external key to
our own inner experience of self-awareness. This addition of Wilber's sense
of Internal is what Harth was missing from his own analysis. Harth only had
a construct of the external physicality as being all that was, and thus
could not imagine that all things had by their very nature a valid and
acceptable Internal aspect. Once this is added then Harth's own model is
complete in and of itself. He has describe the model of neurological
structure that gives rise to the mind. This being aware of our own
processes is the experience that is a continuum from sensations up to
feelings and even up to thoughts. This internal experience and processes is
what gives rise to the Mind.
We evolved, for reasons unknown, the ability to conceive of and process the
monitoring of our own internal brain processes into sets of symbols. These
symbols give rise to words. A product of the workings of our brain biology
gives rise to a mind. Within that mind are thought processes, which are
pre-symbolic. We developed overtime symbols, which eventually evolved into
words, as a means to organize our thought processes. Our attempting to
organize and understand the world we live in and experience is a process
which utilizes symbols and words.
The brain is a collection of neural structure which is holarchical. It can
be mapped out vertically and horizontally. What I am about to do is to
describe that holarchical structure.
The First, lowest, and quantitatively speaking, the largest amount of
activity takes place at this 'basement' level of brain activity. It is the
level of matter/energy exchange taking place in the form of bio-chemical
neural interaction. It is where and when information from higher level
brain activity is transmitted and starts other bio-chemical neural
interactions which lead to information being sent to the rest of the body
bio-chemical systems. All sensory data is input to this level. All sensory
data is compared to stored information made up of, at this level, previous
patterns of information. To reiterate, everything on this level is either
in coming or out going matter/energy and it is also the structured patterns
of matter/energy which makes up the whole unit known as a single human body,
a single human being.
The second level up, and the next largest amount of activity, is when the
bio-chemical neural patterns of information is processed, is matched up with
the bio-chemical neural patterns of information that is stored as the
symbols of human creation. When the highest 3rd level takes notice of this
activity, it is the Internal experience of this External bio-chemical
neurological process which is what we humans describe as non-verbal
feelings, non-verbal images and non-verbal sensations [Touch, taste, smell,
etc.]. This experience is Internal and the first experience of what has
been labeled by the word--'Mind'. All those 'feelings', 'images',
'sensations' ('smells', 'tastes', 'touches', etc.) have been stored as
patterns of neural inter-relationships similar to how data is stored in a
computer, to use a metaphor. We can by example compare this 2nd level with
all the data stored in a computer, which is stored as patterns of ones and
zeros, on and offs. This is the same for neurons. They have, or have not,
a bio-chemical charge, which is the equivalent of the computer's ones and
zeros. At this 2nd level information is sent up to the upper 3rd level of
brain activity and information is brought down from that 3rd level. This
2nd level also interacts with the level before and below itself, the 1st
level.
This 2nd level starts as an External processing level and therefore before
the existence of human words. At this level non-verbal 'feelings', 'images'
'sensations' are then being translated into human symbols and words. Also
at this level human symbols and words are being translated back into
non-verbal feelings, etc. This activity when it is noticed by the uppermost
level will be first experienced non-verbally and then be experienced
verbally when the 3rd level desires to comprehend the experience. Then the
3rd level will experiencing 'thoughts' and 'emotions'. At the moment any of
this is noticed by the 3rd level it becomes part of the Internal aspect of
the Mind event/experience. This 2nd level is where the neural system
process the data and 'understands' that data. This is the level of both
'sub-conscious thoughts' and 'un-conscious thoughts', to use terminology of
the human map called psychology. Of course so long as there thought
processes remain un-noticed by the upper 3rd level then remain non-verbal
processes. Any and all thoughts noticed by the 3rd level are experienced by
that 3rd level as 'thinking', 'ideas', 'beliefs', 'theories', etc. All
products of the human Mind are first composed/created at this 2nd level.
At this 2nd level External objects, External experience of those objects,
and even the human constructs of Ideas, Beliefs, etc, all are classified and
located along the Classical Quality -- Romantic Quality continuum.
'Classical Quality' and 'Romantic Quality' are not part of the six
characteristics of Holons. They are pure human experience[x] and
constructs. They are products of Internal human activity[xi]. They have no
External existence outside of a human mind[xii] [except that the words which
the human mind has created can be manifested in External mediums, on
computer screens and on paper, for two examples.] This means that
theoretically anything can be classified as either having more or less
Classical Quality, or more or less Romantic Quality by any single individual
human and these choice can be diametrically in opposition and contradiction
to another human's choices.
Over all it is here at the 2nd level that what we humans describe as
Internal Reality is created[xiii]. Everything experienced 'here' at this
level is part of Internal Reality. Everything not experienced 'here', and
not experienced at the final 3rd level is thus designated as External
Reality.
The uppermost level of neural activity is the smallest quantitatively. It
is the level of 'Consciousness'. Another word for this level is 'Awareness.
' Consciousness is the Internal experience of self-identity. This upper
3rd level is where and when all brain activity previous described is
experienced. Here is where and when thoughts can be formed in a verbal
manner that directs the human body to take action. Here is where and when
the experience of controlling the lower level activities takes 'place'.
This is the level of awareness. It is a level of pure experience. It is
not a level of brain processing[xiv]. All neural brain processing which
allows there to be the experience of consciousness, is done at all the lower
levels.
The 3rd level is simply the sensation of directing thought and experiencing
emotions and even experiencing the non-verbal sensations and all other
sensory data. What is called 'the conscious mind' is at this level. To
repeat myself: the activity that gives rise to the 'conscious mind' or
'conscious awareness' or 'consciousness' is all taking place below this 3rd
level holarchically speaking. This experience of consciousness can be
extremely focused. Consciousness can fixate on simply the Partness of a
single Holon, be it a singular object or act of Internal or External
reality. Or consciousness can focus on the Wholeness of a single Holon,
mystically expanded into a sensation of cosmic communion with the totality
of Internal and External Quality.
My map, my holarchy can be illustrated thusly:
EXTERNAL REALITY
TAO/QUALITY
ENERGY/MATTER
UNIVERSE
---
-----QUALITY EVENTS-------
SENTIENT BEING
BIOCHEMICAL EVENTS
WITHIN THE SENTIENT BEING
-----------SEN
TIENT BEING'S MIND------------
INTERNAL REALITY
SENSATIONS/FEELINGS/THOUGHT PROCESS
Symbols/Words
Ideas/Beliefs/Emotions
Romantic
Quality - - Classical Quality
________________________________________________
[i] This essay is a work in progress.
[ii] I will be footnoting this essay with citations from Pirsig's book, Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values', Quill
edition, 1979, as I re-read it.
[iii] This process of using words and making maps is a process of taking a
dynamic event composed of the interaction of the infinite world of things
and rendering them static. It is a process of taking life out of it all.
Pirsig, ZMM, pg. 83, 'When analytic thought, the knife, is applied to
experience, something is always killed in the process.' This death is a
necessary by product of analysis, of map making. Map making is always
studying dead things. Map making is linear and sequential, because that is
the structure inherent in the use of human language. To make up for this
linear, sequential staticness metaphors are employed. Metaphors are a
static attempt to put back the element of the dynamic into one's
analysis/maps.
[iv] Pirsig, ZMM, , pg 73, 'A romantic understanding sees it [the world]
primarily in terms of immediate appearance.The romantic mode is primarily
inspirational, imaginative, creative, intuitive. Feelings rather than facts
predominate. "Art" when it is opposed to "Science" is often romantic. It
does not proceed by reason or by laws. It proceeds by feeling, intuition
and esthetic conscience.' [pg. 124] 'The romantic reality is primarily
esthetic, but it has its theory too.' [Could Romantic Quality be a
recognition by a human being of the Internal nature of objects?]
[v] Pirsig, ZMM, pg. 73, 'Classical understanding sees the world primarily
as underlying form itself.' [pg 74] 'The classic mode.proceeds by reason
and by laws-which are themselves underlying forms of thought and
behavior.There is a classic esthetic which romantics often miss because of
its subtlety. The classic style is straightforward, unadorned, unemotional,
economical, and carefully proportioned. Its purpose is not to inspire
emotionally, but to bring order out of chaos and make the unknown known. It
is esthetically restrained. Everything is under control. Its value is
measured in terms of the skill with which this control is maintained.' [pg
124] '.classic reality is primarily theoretic but has its own esthetics
too.' [Could Classical Quality be the recognition by a human being of the
External nature of objects? 'Underlying form' being an attribute of the
External nature of an object.]
[vi] Pirsig, ZMM, pg. 101, 'This structure of concepts is formally called a
hierarchy and since ancient times has been a basic structure for all Western
knowledge.' The difference between a hierarchy and a holarchy is this, a
hierarchy is an arrangement of parts with no acknowledgement that each
element on one level is composed of all the parts of the level below it, and
thus missing the realization that each element is both a part and a whole.
A holarchy is a hierarchical arrangement of holons, those parts/wholes.
[vii] Ken Wilber's main work on this subject is 'Sex, Ecology, Spirituality:
The Spirit of Evolution', 1995, 2000. Wilber wrote an 'abridged' version of
this book when he published 'A Brief History of Everything', 1996, 2000.
[viii] Pirsig, ZMM, pg. 12, '.a whole community of millions of living things
living out their lives in a kind of benign continuum.'
[ix] This is where Erich Harth comes in. [All citations are from the
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company 1993 edition of Harth's book.] Harth
describes four attributes of consciousness: 'Perhaps the most striking of
these are its selectivity, exclusivity, chaining, and --I
believe--unitarity.1. Selectivity. Not all neural activities enter
consciousness. Indeed, only very few do. Some of these are sensations.We
also select into consciousness perception, the identified or otherwise
analyzed sensory events; and feelings, the less sensory and more cerebral
transactions (such as thought patterns that do not arise from specific and
present sense data, Instead, they are brewed from stored and perhaps innate
knowledge, often with a dash of hormonal seasonings. [from pg127]) In this
spirit, I would call consciousness itself a feeling. Finally, we may be
conscious of our own consciousness in what has been termed a potentially
infinite regress. Some hierarchy of conscious events seems to suggest
itself here. 2. Events are selected singly into consciousness. Being
conscious of one thing prevents us from thinking of another at the same
time. This is what I mean by exclusivity. The brain can simultaneously
carry out hundreds of tasks.But your consciousness can accommodate only one
sensation or perception or thought at a time..3. Chaining. Items in
consciousness are chained together, sometimes haphazardly, sometimes
following a plot, linked together by association and reasoning.4.
Unitarity. .Consciousness unifies both the subject and the object, both the
person who possess it and the contents of his or her conscious
mind.Consciousness makes it appear that a single individual.is the recipient
of all sensations, perceptions, and feelings, and the originator of all
thoughts. [pg 139-140] I want to account here for some of the attributes
of consciousness, but I do not have a physicalist model for the feeling of
being conscious and therefore cannot claim to have an explanation of
consciousness.' [Here I disagree with the author. I believe he is
downplaying the significance of his own model. I believe that once you
recognize the Wilber realization of the Internal aspect of any Holon Harth's
model becomes a model of consciousness.].'My model requires no separate
monitoring system or 'new form of sense organ,' but it accomplishes the same
tasks through simple and plausible neural mechanisms that are integral parts
of the brain's main sensory pathways.[pg. 141] .In his picture,
consciousness involves the cyclic reactivation of images or other cognitive
states through active reflection from higher order cerebral centers. The
chaining of images is achieved by associative connections in the cortex,
which triggers new concepts or ideas to be fed into self-referent loops.My
model further assumes that the central, symbolic neural activities by
themselves are not accompanied by feelings of consciousness. Many such
activities must by going on simultaneously in all parts of the cortex. But
subjective awareness results only when specific activities are selected for
elaboration and reinforcement by self-referent channels.The normal visual
pathway in humans consists, as we have seen, of a series of feedback
loops.Here the exclusive selection of specific sensory features is
accomplished by optimization processes.I have demonstrated that the
necessary neural mechanisms exist in the case of vision. Analogous neural
circuitry exists in other sensory pathways.[pg. 142.].In the present,
self-referent model that I have proposed, there is a theater, and the action
is on its stage is being scrutinized by an observer. Unlike previous
attempts that have placed the theater at the highest level of cerebral
activity, I believe that the unification is located at the only place where
sensory patterns are still whole and preserve the spatial relations of the
original scene--at the bottom of the sensory pyramid, not at the top. It is
there that all the sensory cues and the cerebral fancies conspire to paint a
scene. There is also an observer: it is the rest of the brain looking down,
as it were, at what it has wrought. Consciousness, which arises in this
self-referent process, not only unifies the immediate sensory messages but
also becomes the joiner of everything around us, past, present and future.'
[pg. 144] .'Nonlinearity combined with self-reference has produced
unexpected and utterly astounding results.' [pg. 148]
[x] Pirsig's train metaphor?
[xi] Pirsig, ZMM, pg 79, 'With a single stroke of analytic thought he
[Phaedrus] split the whole world into parts of his own choosing, split the
parts and split the fragments of parts, finer and finer and finer until he
had reduced it to what he wanted it to be. Even the special use of the
terms "classic" and "romantic" are examples of his knifemanship.'
[xii] Pirsig, ZMM, pg82, 'The application of this knife, the division of the
world into parts and the building of this structure, is something everyone
does.'
[xiii] Pirsig, ZMM, pg. 82, 'All the time we are aware of millions things
around us.aware of these things but not really conscious of them unless we
are predisposed to see. We could not possibly be conscious of these things
and remember all of them because our mind would be so full of useless
details we would be unable to think. From all this awareness we must
select, and what we select and call consciousness is never the same as the
awareness because the process of selection mutates it. We take a handful of
sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful
of sand the world. Once we have the handful of sand, the world of which we
are conscious, a process of discrimination goes to work on it. That is the
knife. We divide the sand into parts. This and that. Here and there.
Black and white. Now and then. The discrimination is the division of the
conscious universe into parts.' [pg. 83] 'Classical understanding is
concerned with the piles and the basis for sorting and interrelating them.
Romantic understanding is directed toward the handful of sand before the
sorting begins. Both ways are valid ways of looking at the world.'
[xiv] At least that is my current hypothesis and assertion.
Gary Jaron: "People shape, and are shaped by, Ideas."
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