ROGER RESPONDS TO JAMIE'S QUESTION ON ROMANTIC
UNDERSTANDING
Welcome Jamie!
These are very tough questions, but I will give them a shot.......
Jamie wrote:
>boiling all of this down to the bone: does romantic (emotional) and
>classic (intellectual) understanding (of the first chart) fit in the
>second chart. I realize that as i ask this question, i am
>supperimposing the two hierarchies, perhaps confusing them. am i
>identifying a condition (the two "understandings") that exists only in
>the realm of "Truth"-centered reality that does not exist in one that is
>"Quality"-centered? i'm not entirely convinced that this is so.
Roger:
The problem with your issue is complicated because Pirsig supplemented and
improved his metaphysics after ZMM. Instead of Romantic and Classic, he went
to the terms Dynamic and Static. Much of his writing on the former terms
carries right over to the latter, but not all of it.
According to the MOQ, Dynamic Quality is pre-intellectual reality or Pure
Experience. Our understandings , including "a priori conditions" and
"romantic understanding" are patterns of static quality. However, I think it
could be argued that "pre-intellectual understanding" is another term (albeit
a sloppy one) for Pure Experience itself. (Pirsig's "preintellectual
awareness" is a better term). In the same sense, if Romantic understanding is
defined as pre-intellectual awareness, my above statement that it is a static
pattern would be wrong. Have I confused you?
Let me try again. That which is understood is a static pattern.
Understanding is a form of Dynamic Experience. Understanding and thinking
are part of the preintellectual Present. Thoughts and
that-which-is-understood are abstractions derived from that experience.
Jamie:
>my problem, though is associating an "understanding" with a
>"preintellectual reality." the time lag that pirsig associates with
>qualtiy, which separates the sense perception and the mental recognition
>(p. 222), sounds like an a priori condition (p.224). if indeed this is
>so, a preintellectual reality could not be recognized. the "gee, the
>motorcycle is working now, everything is groovy" feeling would only be
>recognizable as an intellectual reality, after the preintellectual
>reality.
Roger:
I would say that "reality recognized" is not the full reality. It is a
patterned concept of the true unpatterned Dynamic Quality. On the other hand,
"recognizing" is a name for a particular experience. The experience of
recognizing is preintellectual, but the recognition is a static pattern. It
gets kind of confusing, but as an analogy, I have used the example of
shouting in a canyon. If the pure experience is the initial sound, the
static patterns are like the echoes. They are faint distortions of the
original experience, but they are themselves experience as well. I don't know
if this analogy works, or just confuses things further....let me know. I
recommend reading William James' "Does Consciousness Exist" for a fuller
explanation.
Jamie:
>after rereading my post, it sounds like i am "splitting hairs," but i
>honestly can't figure this out. it is important because i want to
>determine where certain "schools" of composition pedagogy fit within
>pirsig's second metaphysical hierarchy. in addition, i want to make a
>claim that he falls in a certain category, albeit in a "subsection"
>which he shares with no one. this category or school is one that is
>neither singularly subjective nor objective but evenly both.
Roger:
I know absolutely nothing about composition pedagogy, but I would venture to
say that the MOQ's position is that experience or Quality creates subjects
and objects. A composition is created by the cumulative patterns of quality
that can be sorted in 4...no, in 5 orders. These patterns themselves are
derived from Pure Experience itself.
Let me know your thoughts
Roger
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