From: abahn@comcast.net
Date: Fri Sep 12 2003 - 22:38:47 BST
Yale and all,
I don't really hold Pirsig in that high of esteem. I agree he was an explorer
and I appreciate all the insights he lent to me, but I don't think of him as any
more than someone groping his way through the world who happened to have written
a couple of nice pieces of literature. I have no desire into making his MOQ
into a new metaphysics and I don't really want to be part of any movement that
does. However, I have learned to appreciate the value of learning from you all.
I presently place a higher value upon following the many diverse discussions
than I do upon memorizing lines and quotes from Pirsig. Someday, I will read
ZMM and Lila again, and I will find these books refreshing, new and inspiring
once more. But, for now, I value the insights I gain through reading new books
as well as following and participating in a few discussions on this site much
more. Pirsig was not meant to remain static. I don't think he put down any
final words. He just continued on with the long line of work done before him.
Now, we all (not just us here, but we ALL) must continue to add on to this work,
not memorize and live are lives according to it.
There are too many paths to explore to become knowledgeable about all of them.
It is also difficult to be a generalist and have a grasp of most of them. But,
certainly, whatever path we choose to inquiry, it must be a path never taken
before. That is why I don't want to follow Pirsig, Budda, Jesus, Suzuki, or
anyone else. I think it is best to just keep going. Sometimes the hard paths
are hard for a reason and nothing is lost by choosing an easier one as long as
it has not been explored before. And there is no reason to worry about if it
has been explored before as long as we are following our individual gut
instincts, or our bliss.
I wrote this many months ago on the spur of the moment when I should have been
completing my PhD in economics. I ultimately decided not to continue on with my
dissertation because it meant having to repeat the work of many others who had
come before me and I was looking for a new path. I posted it to the list at the
time, but no one commented. Perhaps, because it was not that good, but also,
perhaps, because no one was very familiar with me at the time as many now are
not familiar with Yale. I am posting it again, not because I am searching for
comments or because I am offering another path to explore. Rather, I offer it
again to give a better understanding of my interpretation of Pirsig's work. I
might change a few parts if I rewrote it today, but I think it still captures
the essence of what I have taken away from Pirsig.
Regards,
Andy
To MOQ's and all,
This is a short metaphor for Pirsig's MOQ. I realize the Lila Squad and MOQ'rs
have been discussing the MOQ a long while and a new interpretation is probably
not going to go very far, but I had an insight while reflecting on a private
conversation I had with Matt (the endorphin). I am sharing it because I like to
contribute periodically to the discussion here and I think it might help clarify
some of the problems I have with the MOQ for others with similar hang-ups. The
inspiration for this comes from a little parable that opens Richard Bach's
"Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah" (the parable is in the
beginning in the hand-written journal entry). I first read Illusions many years
ago and it probably had a greater impact on my life and worldview than Pirsig's
ZMM or Lila (any "Bach squads" or "Reluctant Messiahs.org" out there in
cyberspace?). I think this might fall under what Matt has called "radically
interpreting Pirsig." No analogy can ever be perfect, and I am sure there will
be some comments finding the faults in this one. It never hurts to throw
something new out there, however if it helps someone gain a new foothold.
The parable is about these creatures clinging to the bottom of a fast moving
river. It is the whole thrust of their lives, clinging. They cling all day
long. It is the only way they know how to live. There are stories of
creatures that have stopped clinging and nobody ever hears from them again.
There are myths of another land downstream and people who can live in the fast
moving current without clinging to the bottom, but these are just stories or
myths. Nobody really dares to stop clinging to the bottom. Clinging to the
bottom has its disadvantages, but it is all the creatures know how to do and the
only way they are taught to live.
I always loved the way this book begins. This parable struck me as very
profound. I have forgot about it over the years, but somehow it sprang to my
mind while walking home from the coffee shop and thinking of the conversation
with Matt and other things concerned with the whole MOQ crowd.
One thing that always bothered me about Lila was the levels. I loved Pirsig's
remarks on quality and his splitting it in two: static and dynamic quality.
But I had a hard time buying his analogy about the levels: inorganic,
biological, social and intellectual. Each level emerges out of the level below
and is thus interpreted as superior or higher quality than the one below. I
think he just chose a bad metaphor. I know what he was getting at, but the
metaphor does not work for me.
I have been interested in emergence and complex systems for some time, because
of the work I do in economics. In complex systems there are bifurcations where
a system branches out or a new pattern develops due to an increase in the flow
of energy or materials through an open system. It is what Prigogine calls a
dissipative structure. It explains the decrease in entropy for a biological
system. Anyway, the biological emerges out of the inorganic. This is the
origin of life. Evolution comes along and intelligence is selected as organisms
adapt to their surroundings. Organisms with better "internal models" (John
Holland's term) have a greater chance for survival. Eventually we get some
organisms that are pretty damn intelligent (those would be us). When
intelligent creatures interact through language, society is created. Thus, in
the view of complexity, we have: inorganic-biological-intelligence-society.
You see I can't buy Pirsig's analogy because it doesn't fit my paradigm, but yet
I am digging the whole thing about dynamic and static quality. I also
understand, somewhat, where he is coming from with the idea of intellectual
level. I think democracy is a good thing, free markets for private goods, and
other institutions too, but these, it seems to me, belong in the social level.
He has not created a very good metaphor for what he is trying to describe. It
doesn't work (for me). It never can.
In the caffeine-induced state while walking home, I think, I discovered a
solution. Bach's parable of the creatures is the better analogy. Dynamic
quality is the stream. Static quality is clinging. When we cling to the bottom
we are in the social level (most of us). In the social level, where most people
cling, the current is slow and the water is murky with sediment. Most of us can
cling to something and let go and cling to something new, never leaving this
shallow murky pool. We can just sort of wade from one spot to another grabbing
on to the selection of philosophies or worldviews put before us. But sometimes,
someone stops clinging and escapes the pool to venture off downstream, like
Pirsig. What happens is they get bounced along the rocks by the current, until
they find something they can grab on to, because it hurts to be bounced on the
rocks. They are clinging again but there is nobody else around and the current
is very fast. Once you stop clinging and let the current sweep you away it is
very difficult to swim back upstream where everyone else is clinging. So Pirsig
starts collecting other creatures that have stopped clinging upstream and are
now bouncing on the rocks toward him. It feels much better for these creatures
to cling again to Pirsig and it is refreshing to be in the faster current where
the water is cleaner than where everyone else was clinging before. It also
feels better for Pirsig to share this new piece of river bottom with other
creatures. Eventually more creatures join them until a large group of creatures
are clinging to Pirsig and sediment begins to fill in the gaps and the current
slows down and the water becomes, once again, murky. The creatures are back
again in the social level.
This continues on. Solitary creatures let go (stop clinging) and the current
carries them away. Eventually they cling to a new spot and others join them
there. Society marches on downstream through the interaction of static and
dynamic quality. The intellectual level is only the few brave sorts leading the
pack, being bounced along the rocks. It is dangerous business leading the pack
also, because letting go from society can also mean never getting back. What if
you find a new spot to cling to where no other creatures want to join you? This
is insanity. It is a very thin line between genius and insanity, as most of us
know.
Up near the mouth of the stream is the biological level and, you know what, the
current is fast there also and the water is clean. The biological level is not
any better or worse than the social or intellectual level. It is just further
upstream. Clinging to the biological level feels good. It feels better than
the social level where the current is the slowest and the water is dirty. But
to go from the biological to the intellectual you need to go through the social
level. There is an upstream and a downstream, but there is not a purpose, other
than not to stand still and cling forever. There is no guarantee that what is
downstream is better than the spot where we are currently clinging to (perhaps
Niagara Falls is up ahead, we won't know until we get there). We just know we
have to keep moving and that is what society does; slowly it moves – with the
current.
DMB and Platt, and other "unfallen" priests, think the MOQ is the answer
because the current is still swift there and the water is cleaner than where the
rest of society is. They don't want to let go of Pirsig knowing there are rocks
waiting in the fast current and the rocks can be painful. The MOQ is static
quality. Mapping Lila with an index gives more for new creatures to grab onto
and muddies the water. Is this a worthwhile project, or should they let go
again letting dynamic quality sweep them away? You see the trick is to be able
to swim in dynamic quality and avoid the rocks. But this means a life away from
society - all alone. An exhilarating life it might be, but there will be nobody
to share it with. The ones who are able to do this are the mystics DMB
associates the MOQ with. Pirsig wants to live with the mystics - in the stream,
without clinging. But this is not describable. Once, you decide to put your
experience into words you begin clinging again.
Here is the clincher - Language is static quality. Life (experience--the
stream) is dynamic quality. When we cling we hold on to a description of
reality. Many things, such as quality, are beyond description. They are
indefinable, but that does not mean they do not exist, as Pirsig makes clear.
Quality is a metaphor, a word, for a particular aspect of reality we cannot ever
properly define. Pirsig has split this word into two, static and dynamic. The
static is a word or a sentence we tend to cling to as a description. The static
continually changes over time as we attempt to redefine reality over and over
again. The dynamic, DQ, is another word or metaphor (thus DQ is also static
quality – the word or phrase) describing what can't be put into words. (IMHO,
what Pirsig has merely done here is put off his investigation into the meaning
of quality by splitting it into two and leaving DQ undefined)
Language is the defining characteristic of society. Without an ability to
communicate, the distinguishing feature defining humans as "intelligent" does
not exist. Using our large brains purely for perceiving the world and storing
the data will not allow us to react to these perceptions without any
self-reflection without languauge. Neanderthals had a larger brain cavity than
modern humans, but the positioning of their larynx didn't allow them a capacity
for sound modulation in order for speech to develop. They (admittedly only –
arguably) had greater computational powers and storage capacity than us, but
they lacked a complex language consisting of the many symbols and characters
needed for describing reality.
Language is a gift of an individual's culture or society and thus all
descriptions of reality are filtered through the lenses of an individual's
society. Letting go of society or no longer clinging means no longer
perceiving reality through these lenses. In order for an individual to begin
clinging again they must find or develop a new grammar, or vocabulary, and this
is what Pirsig did with the MOQ and what many continue to do at MOQ.org. There
is no guarantee this is a better description of reality than the previous
description further upstream, but it is surely not a perfectly accurate
description. All we can say is it is a new description. The perfect
description can only be known by letting go again and swimming in the stream (or
dancing with the wu-li masters, pick your metaphor).
I can imagine sharing a life with someone else in dynamic quality, but you
wonder if this might only be a pipedream. Two people swimming along in the
current smiling at one another without being able to put into words their
experiences. Each just content to keep swimming along into new uncharted
territories. I suppose Utopia would be a society of people who are no longer
clinging and letting the current carry them along together. This would not be a
society, though. At least not a society as we know it. Perhaps, it is life as
Neanderthals knew it.
I think I am content to just bounce along the bottom only letting go for short
periods of time. I enjoyed clinging to Pirsig for a short while, but time to
move on and find someone new to cling on to.
Andy
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