© Roger M Tagg 2010-2011
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I read these books many years ago (starting mid to late 1970s). Robert Pirsig described, against a background of his own travels, his search for a philosophy of life. In the first ("Zen ..."), he has recently recovered from a mental crisis, partly triggered by battles with university teachers when he was a mature student. The book mixes several themes: the geographical journey on the motorcycle (from Minneapolis to San Francisco); the lessons for life from maintaining the motorbike; his personal journey through both Western and Eastern philosophy; the painful recollection of his life events leading up to his breakdown; and the fitful attempts to re-bond with his son Chris. There's not a terrific amount on Zen, but a lot of criticism of Western philosophical traditions and American university practice. One gets pretty confused at times, especially when he speaks sometimes as himself, but at other times talks about his pre-breakdown self in the third person as Phaedrus (the name of one of Socrates's opponents in a dialogue related by Plato). He tends to think Socrates as where the rot started, although he is even harder on Aristotle.
In the Lila book, he is running a motor boat down the Hudson river towards New York. He picks up a rather dubious woman, Lila, who joins him on his journey. Again, he uses a pseudonym for himself some of the time; this time he is Rigel (one of the brightest stars, but also representative of 'The Mathematician' in Arabic). I didn't feel that Lila contributed any more to the discourse than Chris did in the first book, but maybe she triggered his thoughts about morals, as she seems fairly directionless.
The value of these books is in his putting forward of some life-principles for a post-religious (in the traditional sense) world. In the first, he rails against subject/object dualism (as do many more recent philosophers), but says that subject and object are both part of 'Quality' which he equates with the (un-definable) Oriental concept of 'Dharma'. This appears at times rather mystical, but at other times seems not so far removed from existentialism. In the second book he talks more about "Dynamic Quality", and contrasts it with Positivism (something which has in any case gone largely out of fashion). It seems to show some similarities to pragmatism (although he regards 'usefulness' as subordinate to dynamic quality) and - once again - existentialism, possibly of the Merleau-Ponty variety.
As a contribution for the benefit of the human race, these books were a fantastic revelation - especially as they were written by someone who had recovered from a mental breakdown. The books, particularly "Zen ...", were hugely popular in their day, and many people I know read "Zen ..." at the time. But although it is still a lot more readable than those of most academic philosophers, it hasn't retained its original popularity over the intervening 35+ years. In any case, I wouldn't recommend these books for those of a lighthearted, laid back disposition - they are still hard work.
In the highlights below, I've mainly addressed the "mainstream" philosophical strands, but have added a geographical trace of the motorcycle's route across the western half of the US.
| Chapter | Page | Highlight |
|---|---|---|
| Zen | Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Pirsig calls the serious bits the 'Chautauquas' (i.e. travelling teach-ins) | |
| 16 | The anti-technology feeling (of his friends on the other motorcycle). | |
| 18 | "The Buddha, the Godhead resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a motorcycle transmission as He does at the top of a mountain or the petal of a flower." | |
| 27a | "There is no manual that deals with the real business of motorcycle maintenance [RT: or computer techniques]." | |
| 27b | "Caring about what you are doing is considered unimportant or is taken for granted." "When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get onto other things." | |
| 33 | "The 'law of gravity' did not exist before Newton. It exists nowhere except in peoples' heads." | |
| 34 | "Mind has no matter or energy. but it predominates over everything scientists do." | |
| 52 | Going at the technology, intuitively "grooving on it", for immediate artistic appearance, isn't so good as understanding "underlying form." One needs to know "what does the part mean" [i.e. function, value], and not just what it is (e.g. a bit of a beer can). | |
| 65 | "Shapes of technology" - the death force (i.e. they are almost always ugly). | |
| 66 | "Classical" (the world is underlying form) v "Romantic" (the world is immediate appearance or feel). | |
| 67 | Motorcycle riding is romantic, maintenance is classical. | |
| 69 | "Classicism is the 'it all' that the romantics are trying to get away from" ["head stuff"]. | |
| 72 | Analytic thought - the "knife" of discrimination [RT: Latin discussio] which divides everything into categories. | |
| 76 | "Urgent necessity - a way of looking at the world that does violence to neither classical or romantic." "The 'surgeon with the knife' is part of the landscape." | |
| 77 | "Where the 'knife' is applied to experience, something is always lost in the process." | |
| 92 | Hierarchies [assembly] and structures based on other relationships (e.g. 'causes') are what constitutes a 'system'." | |
| 99 | Inductive (generalizing from experience) and Deductive (predicting from a theory) - are 2 types of inference/logic. | |
| 106 | "Formation of hypotheses is the most mysterious of all the categories of 'Scientific Method'." | |
| 107 | Einstein: "only intuition can get you there." "Nature only provides experimental data, hypotheses exist as entities in themselves." | |
| 108 | "Scientific truth is not dogma, good for eternity - but a temporal quantitative entity." | |
| 109 | "Science, by multiplying hypotheses, can create anti-science i.e. chaos." | |
| 114 | "Lateral" knowledge is necessary as well. | |
| 124 | Empiricism - Hume. Nature of "substance" - it's just imagined [RT: but is there a consensus?]. Also nature of "cause." | |
| 125 | Kant - all knowledge may begin with experience, but doesn't necessarily come out of experience. In his view, some aspects are a priori, like time, space etc - these are independent of what we see. | |
| 136 | The oriental view: logic presumes separation of subject from object, therefore logic is not "final wisdom." | |
| 137 | In Zen, the illusion of separation of subject from object is best removed by the elimination of physical, mental and emotional activity ("dhyana"). | |
| 144 | The University as the "Church of Reason"; he means the institution, rather than the location. | |
| 162 | Art and technology not really that different - like Reason and Feeling. What's wrong with Technology is that it doesn't include the spirit and the heart. | |
| 163 | "The crisis is caused by inadequacy of existing forms of thought to cope with the situation. Rationality fails because it contains its own contradiction. Abandoning 'square' thinking [head stuff] and 'grooving it' is also inadequate." | |
| 164 | "Present day reason is like 'flat earth' - if you go too far beyond limits you are considered insane." | |
| 166 | His pseudonym for himself pre-breakdown: Phaedrus - a pre-Socratic philosopher. | |
| 178 | "What is Quality? What's the better-ness?" | |
| 190 | "The University (Church of Reason) attitude is that Society is best served by free men and women - not 'carrot-and-stick' mules." | |
| 195 | "Grades [and competition?] compete with learning for its own sake, but without them, how do you spark the goal-seeking of the individual student?" | |
| 199 | "What is Quality in thought and statement" - test question Motorcycle: 1 - reassembly problems (make notes as you disassemble - advantage over the 'expert'; 2 - intermittent failures (correlate factors); 3 - parts prices; 4 - parts not fitting (machine your own?!)" | |
| 226 | Locke - "all you see in something is Quality - the object is an intellectual construct which you deduce" (false according to Pirsig). | |
| 228 | Scientific materialism - "'what you like' is un-measurable, therefore unreal." Classical formalism - "what isn't understood intellectually isn't understood at all." | |
| 230 | Difficulty in distinguishing Quality from romantic surface appeal. "Peoples' views of Quality differ slightly because they are overlaid with immediate emotions." | |
| 231 | "Squareness = classic Quality, Hipness = romantic Quality?" "Quality is not objective - it doesn't reside in the material world. Quality is not subjective - it doesn't reside merely in the mind. It is a third entity independent of the two." | |
| 232 | A Holy Trinity of Mind, Matter and Quality | |
| 233 | "Quality takes you out of yourself, decreases subjectivity." "Quality can relate to the 'relationship' between subject and object." | |
| 234 | "A Quality event is the cause of the subjects and objects, and not vice versa." "The Sun of Quality does not revolve around the subjects and objects of our existence. It does not passively illuminate them. It is not subordinate to them in any way. It has created them." | |
| 241 | "Reality is the moment of vision before the intellectualization takes place. There is no other reality." | |
| 251 | Quality and Art, Religion and Science. "Art is high-Quality endeavour. God is Good." | |
| 257 | Poincaré - "the axioms of Geometry are disguised definitions - the resulting system cannot be said to be 'True or False'. It is 'Advantageous' (or not), more (or less) 'Convenient'." [what about other Geometries, e.g. non-Euclidean?] (RT: Sounds a bit like Pragmatism.) | |
| 258 | "Which facts are you going to observe? Which hypotheses to test?" "General facts are more precious, more likely to reappear." | |
| 260 | "A scientist does not choose at random the facts he observes - he seeks to condense." "One can discover facts by deliberate randomization, i.e. by taking a break, forgetting about it for a bit, not trying too hard. Use the subliminal self, the pre-intellectual awareness." | |
| 261 | "One chooses the facts most fitting to contribute to classic beauty or harmony." | |
| 262 | "Selection of facts 'before you observe' is 'whatever you like', but only in Subject/Object Dualism - if Quality enters as the third basis, it is not so arbitrary." | |
| 269 | "A person who cares about what he sees and does has the characteristics of Quality." | |
| 270 | "Quality is the Buddha - Quality is scientific reality." | |
| 272 | "The classic pattern of rationality can be tremendously improved by recognizing Quality." Discussion on "Stuckness". | |
| 275 | "A good mechanic has to have Care." | |
| 277 | "Romantic Quality is the cutting edge of experience." "Value is the predecessor of structure." | |
| 278 | "If you want to do something without getting stuck, you have to have a feeling for the Quality of the work." | |
| 279 | "Stuckness precedes all real understanding." "An ego-less acceptance of stuckness is a key to an understanding of all Quality." | |
| 280 | "The one screw you are stuck on is 'worth' the selling price of the whole machine." "The interest is in what the part does, not what it is." | |
| 283 | "Plastics and synthetics aren't bad in themselves - it's the associations, e.g. the relationships between the people who produce the technology and the things they produce." | |
| 284 | "At the moment of pure Quality, subject and object are identical - he likens that to 'getting with it'." "The way to solve the 'human value versus technical needs' conflict is not to run away - but to break down the barriers." | |
| 285 | "Dullness overlaid with veneer of style is worse - phony!" | |
| 287 | "It's time to re-assimilate the passions, the emotions that Socrates rejected - because they are central. We are snowed under by 'thin art', i.e. stylishness that misses underlying form." "The time for real unification of art and technology is long overdue." | |
| 288 | "Peace of mind is 'the whole thing' - we need to be 'at one with this goodness'." | |
| 290 | "'Just fixing' is meditation, like 'just sitting'." One should "avoid personalizing the differences between subject and object." | |
| 291 | "If one is going to make the world better, start off with one's own heart, head and hands." | |
| 296 | "Don't dissipate energy and stew about things - be up at the front of the train of one's own awareness. Deliberately escape from the struggle for a time." | |
| 297 | "'Gumption' - the psychic gasoline." | |
| 299 | "Gumption Traps - anything that causes one to lose sight of Quality. [or enthusiasm] | |
| 304 | "Value traps: 1) too rigid values - can't adjust after premature diagnosis was wrong (slow down, live with it for a while, and 'a timid humble fact will ask if you are interested in it'); 2) ego; 3) anxiety; 4) boredom (try something else for a while, or a ritual may help); 5) impatience (have flexibility in goals)." | |
| 313 | "Truth traps: 1 - Yes/No logic (we should allow Japanese 'mu' [RT: a bit like 'not applicable'?])." | |
| 316 | "Psychomotor traps: 1) bad tools; 2) bad surroundings; 3) muscular insensitivity to materials." | |
| 319 | "If you practice avoiding the gumption traps, you may get better at the art of living." | |
| 320 | "Biggest gumption trap of all - the rat race (the 'funeral procession'), [RT: the Lemmings]." | |
| Ch 28 | 332a | Substance v method. "Substance doesn't change. Method contains no permanence. ... In technical composition, a similar distinction exists between physical ... and technical description. If you confuse (these), you get all tangled up and so does the reader." |
| 332b | "No academic discipline is without both substantive and methodological aspects. Quality is outside of both ... it's the goal towards which they are both aimed.". | |
| 332c | If there is too much division into Substance and Method, there's no room left for Quality. | |
| 337 | "Empirical scientific education can't be 'good' education, because science is value-free." "But we can't accept the Aristotle tradition of defined, fixed values." | |
| 338 | "The division of study into Substantive and Methodological fields is an outgrowth of Aristotle's dichotomy of form and substance. Non-dualists have little use for this." | |
| 343 | The 'Mythos' which existed before the 'Logos' of the Greek philosophers RT: and the New Testament, especially John's Gospel?) was the common knowledge of the human species. It's similar to the Old Testament, Vedic hymns, Celtic and Teutonic legends. | |
| 344a | Western culture is more advanced in the Logos; its language structures encourage this. Indians and Chinese, for example, have a different concept of The Truth (RT: and, presumably, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth). | |
| 344b | "What keeps the world from reverting to Neanderthal with each generation is the continuing, ongoing Mythos, transferred into Logos but still Mythos." | |
| 344c | "The definition of a person who has rejected the mythos is 'insane'." | |
| 345 | "Quality is the generator of the Mythos. Religion isn't invented by man - men are invented by religion. Men invent responses to Quality, and among these responses is an understanding of what they themselves are." The Mythos grows by analogy with what you know already. | |
| 346 | "The Mythos that says that the forms of the world are real, but that the Quality of this world is unreal - now that is insane." "Aristotle and the Greek philosophers are the villains." | |
| Ch 29 - the crux | 351 | "The real evil isn't the objects of technology but the tendency of the technology to isolate people into lonely attitudes of objectivity. ... It's the objectivity, the dualistic way of looking at things underlying technology, that produces the evil. A person who knows how to fix motorcycles - with Quality - is less likely to run short of friends than one who doesn't. |
| 352a | "Any further improvement of the world will be done by individuals making Quality decisions. ... (not) big programs full of social planning that leave quality out. ... Everyone's just about out of gumption." | |
| 352b | "The Ancient Greeks' ... mythos endowed our culture with the tendency underlying all the evil of our technology, the tendency to do what is 'reasonable' even if it isn't any good." | |
| 353 | Aristotle's dumb remark according to Pirsig: "Rhetoric is an art because it can be reduced to a rational system of order". | |
| 355 | "By this criterion General Motors produced pure art, whereas Picasso did not." | |
| 359 | "Dialectic means 'of the nature of dialogue' ... nowadays it means logical argumentation. It involves a technique of cross-examination, by which truth is arrived at (according to Plato, the only such method)." | |
| 360 | Aristotle demoted dialectic to be subordinate to scientific method. But Pirsig's Phaedrus was more "outraged that rhetoric had been brought down to the level of dialectic". | |
| 361 | The people Plato hates most, next to tyrants, are rhetoricians. | |
| 363a | In the Gorgias dialogue, Socrates doesn't "use dialectic to understand rhetoric, he is using it to destroy it ... his questions ... are just word-traps". | |
| 363b | "Socrates has demonstrated to Gorgias that both rhetoric and cooking are branches of pandering ... they appeal to the emotions rather than true knowledge." | |
| 364 | "Dialectic, the usurper ... the parvenu, muscling in on all that is Good and seeking to contain it and control it." | |
| 365 | "Plato's hatred of the rhetoricians was part of a much larger struggle in which the reality of the Good (Sophists) and the reality of the True (Dialecticians) were engaged ... for the future mind of man. Truth won, the Good lost, and that is why today we have so little difficulty accepting the reality of Truth and so much difficulty accepting the reality of Quality, even though there is no more agreement in one area than the other." (RT: I question this last point.) | |
| 366 -367 | The divergence of Good and Truth started with Parmenides (one of Socrates' predecessors). More dialectical divisions emerged, e.g. mind v matter, subject v object, form v substance. These are all "ghosts" of our modern Mythos. | |
| 367 | Cosmologists agreed that a universal immortal principle existed, but they couldn't agree on it. Sophists thought that the object wasn't to find some single absolute truth. | |
| 368 | Phaedrus/Pirsig is more with the Sophists. Quality is a relationship between man and his experience; he is a participant. | |
| 369 | But Phaedrus/Pirsig doesn't agree with the Sophists that the goal is Virtue. Guided by HDF Kitto, he sees it as Areté, excellence or duty towards oneself, which he equates with Dharma. He flirts with equating this with "Homeric heroism" (e.g. Hector) - but I (RT) think that's shaky ground - those heroes had a number of non-excellent traits. | |
| 371 | Areté predates the Church of Reason and the substance-form and mind-matter dualisms. | |
| 372 | When we start to apply dialectics and structure our world, we lose some understanding of the whole. (RT: probably a fair point.) | |
| 373 | Good was taken from the rhetoricians, and Plato subordinated it to Truth. | |
| 374 | Aristotle said that appearances cling to something which is independent of the and which, like Ideas, is unchanging. Was this the start of Science as we know it? | |
| 375 | Rhetoric today is reduced to the teaching of mannerisms and forms (RT: I suppose one would say Spin). | |
| Ch 30 | 377 | The showdown (discussing the Phaedrus dialogue) and breakdown (RT: due to getting too worked up about it all, it would seem.) |
| 389a | Plato: "what is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good - need we ask anyone to tell us these things?" It's "impossible to define the Good in its intellectual relation to things". | |
| 389b | Asking "what is Good?" has become very difficult in the modern world. (RT: there may be good reasons, including much higher complexity of life. Also, does Good equate to Happiness - which is what the Dalai Lama seems to concentrate on.) |
| Zen | The Geographical Journey (an interesting route - I've done several sections of it myself - the ones in blue type) | |
| 3 | On an old concrete highway between Minneapolis and the Dakotas. | |
| 27 | Entering the Red River valley (presumably near Fairmount, ND) | |
| 43 | Ellendale, ND | |
| 47 | Hague, ND | |
| 48 | Herreid, ND, Mobridge, SD - onto US 12 | |
| 54 | Lemmon, SD | |
| 73 | Bowman, ND | |
| 78 | Baker, MT | |
| 89 | Miles City, MT | |
| 98 | Following Yellowstone valley | |
| 111 | Laurel, MT (just W of Billings) | |
| 113 | Heading up the US 212 to Red Lodge (p 117) and up the Beartooth Pass (10940 ft). | |
| 130 | Cooke City, MT, and entering Yellowstone Natl Park (p 135). | |
| 138 | Exit park at Gardiner - heading N on US 89. | |
| 147 | Left onto I-90 over Bozeman Pass into Bozeman (p 148) | |
| 253 | Restart after stay in Bozeman; | |
| 256 | Three Forks, Continental Divide, Anaconda, Phillipsburg, Maxville, Hall (all MT). | |
| 263 | Missoula, Lolo Pass (p 264) on US 12 and into Idaho. | |
| 281 | Taking a left on State 13 to Grangeville, ID (p 282). Next day continuing south on US 95 through White Bird on Salmon River (p 283). | |
| 291 | Riggins, New Meadows, Tamarack, Cambridge (p 292) (all ID), | |
| 294 | Now on ID 71, cross Snake River (Hells Canyon) and onto OR 86. | |
| 301 | Baker City, OR | |
| 307 | Prairie City, OR | |
| 312 | Dayville, OR | |
| 316 | Mitchell, OR | |
| 319 | Prineville Junction, OR and left onto US 97, to Bend, OR. | |
| 335 | Taking OR 138 to Crater Lake, then south on OR 62 and back to US 97 on east side of Klamath Lake (p 341). | |
| 346 | Going west to Medford and Grants Pass, OR (p 347) | |
| 350 | Taking US 199 south west into California | |
| 357 | Crescent City, CA - on the Pacific. | |
| 376 | Arcata, CA (just north of Eureka) | |
| 394 | Weott, Leggett, CA - turn onto coast road CA 1 presumably | |
| 396 | On Mendocino County coast | |
| 403 | Manzanita, CA | |
| 406 | Ukiah, Hopland, Cloverdale, Asti, Rosa, Petaluma, Novato (all CA, back on US 101) - to San Francisco Bay. |
| Lila | Lila - An Inquiry Into Morals | |
| 33 | "Your head is like a cup of tea - if you want new tea, clear out the old lot." | |
| 43 | "An objective approach to research can miss things." | |
| 52 | Indians are the originators of the plain, laconic, no fuss mid-West style of US speech. | |
| 58 | "Small talk encourages mannered circumlocutions and 'forked tongue' speech. Indians speak from the heart or shut up." | |
| 67 | "Classical 19th century science insists that science is only a method for determining what is true, and is not a body of beliefs in itself." | |
| 68 | "There is a danger of too few theories on anthropology if 'hard science' is the only acceptable method." | |
| 74 | "Does value exist? Under strict science probably not. But the Zen book said 'Quality is Value'." | |
| 79 | "Can one build a system in which values can be discussed without getting into a cul-de-sac?" | |
| 80 | "Objectors to the Value approach: Logical Positivism - 'only science can investigate, and Metaphysics is un-provable' and Mysticism - 'fundamental reality is outside language'. Zen thinks even Metaphysics is too scientific." | |
| 81 | Zen book: "Quality doesn't have to be defined." | |
| 82 | "Degeneracy is an unavoidable part of life." | |
| 83 | "Sitting on a hot stove is a low-value situation - the person perceives the low value first." (RT: pre-reflective in the Merleau-Ponty sense.) | |
| 84 | "Don't try to assign values as subjects or objects - keep in a separate category." | |
| 95 | He makes Rigel say: "it's wrong to say Quality doesn't need defining - because not everyone will agree on it." But Pirsig as himself claims: "Disagreement is only on the objects in which they think Quality inheres (Lila as an example?)." "Quality itself has agreement - the objects are transitory." | |
| 97 | Rigel again: "Quality that is independent of experience doesn't exist - I can do without the concept. Quality is the values I've grown up with. The ideas in the Zen book don't help preserve the underlying form of society." | |
| 118 | "For Victorians, it was the pose that constituted quality." | |
| 119 | "Quality is morality, but not necessarily traditional poseur morality." | |
| 120 | "The world is composed of nothing but moral value - contrast with view that 'only objects are real'." "Our culture is a set of special intellectual glasses through which we interpret experience." [RT: like Eddington's fishing net?] | |
| 121 | Einstein - "common sense is a bundle of prejudices acquired before the age of 18." | |
| "The Metaphysics of Quality is Empiricism, i.e., all knowledge arises from what the senses provide. But normal empiricism discounts the validity of any knowledge from imagination, authority, tradition or pure theory. | ||
| In the Metaphysics of Quality, values of art and morality, and even religious mysticism are verifiable. They were excluded in the past because of the 'subject and objects only' fallacy." | ||
| "The 'low value' of sitting on a hot stove is a definite experience - and comes first. Thoughts of 'stove', 'heat' and 'pain' come later. | ||
| "2nd Principle: if a thing has no 'value' it can't be distinguished from anything else. A thing that has no 'value' does not exist, so the 'value' gives rise to the 'thing', rather than vice versa." | ||
| 122 | "Don't seek the 'absolute truth', but the 'highest Quality explanation of things'. Example - Rectangular or Polar coordinates." | |
| 124 | "Substance is a subspecies of value, rather than vice versa." | |
| 126 | "Reality doesn't have to be complex, since it is just 'value' - as experienced by everyone." "No such thing as 'causation' - values precondition." | |
| 127 | "'Causes' implies certainty, 'values' implies preference (e.g. stochastic Quantum Physics)." "No-one sees 'substance', only data. 'Substance' is a deduced concept." | |
| 128 | "'Substance' can be defined as 'a stable inorganic pattern of value'." | |
| 137 | Priests (rigorously structured hierarchy) v Shamans (arrant individualists). | |
| 138 | Struggle between "Static Good" and "Dynamic Good" - the basic division of Quality. | |
| 140 | "Dynamic Quality means getting up off the hot stove before you rationalize (advantage to the mystics)." | |
| 141 | "The purpose of meditation is to get rid of stale, confusing, Static, intellectual attachments of the past." | |
| 142 | One can distinguish Static and Dynamic Quality in Art or Music. | |
| 144 | "What grabs the baby's attention? All he notices is differences and relationships." | |
| 145 | "Children and primitives are nearer to Dynamic Quality." | |
| 146 | "Life can't exist on Dynamic Quality alone - it has no staying power." | |
| 166 | "Zen says that if you answer yes or no, you lose Quality (since it's indivisible)." "We don't have Quality - we are a cohesion of static patterns of it. | |
| 167 | "These static patterns are evolving towards a Dynamic Quality - all life is this migration." | |
| 169 | "Why does nature evolve to more complex and efficient life forms?" | |
| 170 | "Natural Selection might not be enough to explain this."(?) | |
| 171 | "A thing doesn't exist because we have never observed it. The reason we haven't observed it is because we've never looked for it. The reason we haven't looked for it is because it is unimportant, i.e. it has no value." [i.e., it makes no difference] | |
| 172 | "Dynamic Quality is always 'at the spur of the moment'." "Life is characterized by deliberate disobedience of physical laws, rather than by adherence to them." | |
| 173 | "Survival of the fittest - fittest for what? Undefined by Darwin, but it's Dynamic Quality." | |
| 174 | "Biological evolution - weak Dynamic forces at subatomic level discover stratagems for overcoming huge static inorganic forces at super-atomic level. They do this by tipping delicate balances. Most fundamental is Carbon - the lightest IV (half way) element in the periodic table." | |
| 176 | "The world needs static patterns to protect it from degeneration back to previous states. In the case of Carbon, Protein as opposed to DNA." | |
| 179 | Classification of static patterns of value: Inorganic, Biological, Social and Intellectual. | |
| 182 | "A word-processed novel isn't an expression of computer voltages." ["Logical" has separate existence from "Physical"] | |
| 184 | (and earlier) A "platypus" - a conundrum caused by previous faulty classification. "Subject-Object says that Inorganic and Biological are Object (matter), and the higher levels are Subject (mind). 'Man' includes patterns from both." | |
| 186 | "Independence of the Intellectual world from the Social world ('straight to objects') is a myth." | |
| 187 | "A 'moral' person simply keeps his nose clean with respect to an artificial social code." "If moral judgments are assertions of Value, and if Value is fundamental, then moral judgments are fundamental." | |
| 188 | "Not just life, everything is an ethical activity. When inorganic patterns of reality create life, the Metaphysics of Quality postulates that they've done so because it is better." [according to Dynamic Quality] | |
| 189 | "'Amoral objective matter' is a low-level form of morality." "Conventional moral patterns have almost nothing to do with Inorganic or Biological ones. They are as independent as Logical and Physical computer patterns." | |
| "'Laws of Nature', The 'Law of Jungle', 'The Law' (Social) and Philosophy are all independent." | ||
| 190 | "Given a choice of courses to follow, follow what is more Dynamic (higher level of evolution); e.g. kill the germ rather than let the germ kill the patient." | |
| 191 | What about vegetarianism? | |
| 192 | What about criminals and subversive thinkers? | |
| 194 | "Moral codes establish a supremacy of one level over the next lower, e.g.: Biological over Inorganic; Social over Biological (e.g. being anti drugs, murder, theft, or adultery); Intellect over Social (freedom etc). What about Dynamic over Static?" | |
| 196 | "Is the 20th century theme the struggle of the Intellect to subjugate Society?" | |
| 200 | "Quality cannot be defined" [?!] | |
| 202 | Aspects of Quality in thought, speech and writing: Unity, Vividness, Authority, Economy, Sensitivity, Clarity, Emphasis, Flow, Suspense, Brilliance, Precision, Proportion, Depth - these may be no easier to define. | |
| 206 | Aesthetics - concerned with definition of Quality. "What is beautiful?" | |
| 207 | "If Quality is un-definable, then Aesthetics is dead." | |
| 210 | Realism - "if a world without some thing can't function normally, then that thing exists." | |
| 211 | "Pure science, mathematics, philosophy, logic - are unaffected by the absence of Quality." | |
| 212 | Quality-less = "square" | |
| 213 | "'Square-ness' means the inability to see Quality before it has been intellectually defined, i.e. chopped up into words." | |
| 223 | "Is Quality in the object (how do we detect it?) or in the subject (simply just what we like)?" | |
| 224 | "Are subjectivity and objectivity the only choices?" | |
| 225 | "The University (Church of Reason) is concerned exclusively with what can be defined - otherwise go to a Monastery (for Zen etc)." | |
| 237 | "Pure Quality for our cells is making sweat, snot, phlegm - and belching, bleeding, fucking, farting, pissing, shitting, vomiting and squeezing out slimy offspring. Sex is pure Dynamic Quality." | |
| 238 | "The biological judge (for reproduction purposes) may not value too much intelligence." | |
| 243 | Metaphysical hierarchies (he shows diagrams). "Names, shapes and forms we give to Quality depend on a priori images, analogues to our previous experiences. Hence people see Quality differently. | |
| 244 | "It's the student's choice of Quality that defines him." | |
| 245 | "Quality is the continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create the world in which we live." | |
| 246 | Quality and the Tao compared. | |
| 250 | "Aim to show the way by which reason can be expanded to include elements not previously assimilated. Absence of this has created the present bad Quality situation, the 'disconnected spirit of the 20th century'." | |
| 256 | "'The Giant' - a System that sits on top of humans, intelligence, inorganic matter and society. It has its own behaviour (and values) - it's Dynamic! (e.g. New York) [RT: what about a Portuguese Man o' War?] | |
| 258 | "If you want to live in New York, you should be willing to be lucky, i.e. to accept the Dynamic." | |
| 259 | "Socialism failed to allow for Dynamic Quality. The Free Market is based on what people value and how much. Capitalism may be less moral as a static pattern though." | |
| 260 | "Doing things in parallel achieves more - bureaucracy tends to enforce over-serialization." "The philosophy of science doesn't leave room for Dynamic Quality, although science itself does. The reason: science is always provisional, just a model. Science always contains an eraser." | |
| 261 | "The pencil is mightier than the pen." "King, Constitution, Laws preserve the static; Parliament, Juries are the Dynamic eraser. They can wipe out old patterns without destroying the State itself." | |
| 263 | "When something new and Dynamic wants to come into the world, it often looks like hell, but it can get born in New York." | |
| 264 | "When you pass a lot of static laws to cut out the worst, the best goes with it." | |
| 267 | "This city (new York) is composed of their (the Victorians') value patterns." | |
| 297 | Zen - "if you get too famous you will go straight to hell." "The problem is splitting into 2 people - who you are and who they think you are." "Each person you come across is a different mirror. Hell is when all the mirrors take over your life." | |
| 299 | "Sex magazines - one part of you wants to get rid of them, another wants to look at them. A conflict of 2 patterns of Quality - Social and Biological." "Celebrity - a conflict between Social and Intellectual - it's Dynamic Quality only within a static social level of evolution." | |
| 300 | "Celebrity - not something that subject-object metaphysics can talk about, but possible with value metaphysics." | |
| "Celebrity is a culture force - but brings lots of 'celebrity devices' [mostly bad?]." | ||
| 303 | "Films are about celebrity." | |
| 307 | A fallacy in schools - grace and morality have to be forced in. | |
| 308 | "The Victorian stance - affecting some romantic notion of social quality without any real intellectual penetration of the meaning of Quality. | |
| 311 | "Victorians were the last to believe that patterns of Intellect are subordinate to patterns of Society." | |
| 313 | "Once Intellect has been let out of the bottle (of social restraint) it is almost impossible to put back in again." | |
| 320 | "A new class of Intellectual Brahmins has come in over the military and economic castes." | |
| 323 | "Science, the intellectual pattern, has a defect in it - no provision for morals." | |
| 328 | "Indian values are OK for a traditional Indian lifestyle, but not much good in a city which functions on punctuality and attention to detail." | |
| "Despite the Intellectual take-over, the results of the new social looseness have bad Quality." | ||
| 329 | "'Rebel without a cause' - because the intellectuals hijacked all the causes. Cause is the Quality in one's life." | |
| 349 | "A science in which social patterns are of no account is as unreal and absurd as a society in which biological patterns are of no account." | |
| 350 | "The fundamental purpose of Knowledge is to dynamically improve and preserve Society. It is not an end in itself." | |
| 351 | "There are 5 codes of morals: Inorganic over Chaotic, Biological over Inorganic, Social over Biological, Intellectual over Social, Dynamic over Static." | |
| 352 | "The Hippie Revolution was a moral revolution against both the Social and Intellectual." | |
| 354 | "The Hippie cult failed because it didn't distinguish Biological from Dynamic Quality." | |
| 357 | "An intellectual pattern of 'amoral objectivity' is to blame for the social deterioration of American Society." | |
| 358 | "Human Rights is the moral code of Intellect over Society, the moral right to be free of social control." | |
| 359 | "The Intellectual level, in its struggle to be free, has ignored the Social level's role in keeping the Biological level under control." | |
| 360 | "20th century intellectual faith in man's basic goodness is disastrously naïve." | |
| 362 | "We can't 'talk crime to death' - we need some Social control." | |
| 363 | "It is immoral to speak against people because of genetic characteristics (which they can't do anything about), but may be OK to speak against cultural characteristics." "Racism is a confusion of cultural and genetic characteristics." | |
| 364 | "The conflict isn't Biological Blacks v Biological Whites - it's Biological Whites + Blacks v Social Whites + Blacks." | |
| 382 | "We may perceive other cultures' values of Intellectual patterns to have very low Quality, because they are outside the range of our own culture." | |
| 383 | "Psychiatric treatment is not a search for truth but the promulgation of a dogma." | |
| 384 | "Medical doctors are the wrong people to treat insanity - their cures are purely Biological ones, when the problem [may be] Intellectual - anthropologists may be better." | |
| 386 | "Insanity is culturally defined - sometimes it is just culture shock." | |
| 390 | "Language is a cultural filter on the real world." "Psychiatric patients lack the cultural consensus." | |
| 391 | "Sanity is not truth - it's conformity." | |
| 392 | "'Static filtering', like the immune system attacking a transplant, can hinder progress" | |
| 394 | The "cultural immune system". | |
| 396 | "White light." | |
| 414 | "The insane go for illegal value patterns because they resolve what the culture can't handle." | |
| 415 | "'Hypnosis' and 'trance' are platypi, part of the 'occult'." "Theatre and films are a form of hypnosis." | |
| 416 | "The insane person is running an unapproved film which he likes better than the one supplied by the current culture." | |
| 418 | "'Contrarians' may just be actively pursuing a Dynamic goal." "Static contrary patterns can also exist [hence insanity being a problem]. But artists, composers, revolutionaries etc can never be too Static." | |
| 419 | "The insane person's options are: stay locked up, conform, reject all 'films' whether private or cultural and head for Dynamic Quality." "An absence of suffering is ominous - species that don't suffer don't survive." "The insane person's battle is everybody's battle." | |
| 420 | "Karmic cycles of pain and temporary relief." | |
| 423 | William James - Pragmatism and Radical Empiricism (2 independent philosophy systems). "Pragmatism: test of truth is practicality [Pirsig is not so sure] or usefulness. Truth is one species of the Good." | |
| 424 | "In the Metaphysics of Quality, truth is subordinate to Intellectual and Dynamic Quality, not practicality. | |
| Practicality is a Social pattern of Good - Truth should not be subservient to this." "Radical Empiricism: subjects and objects are secondary; they are derived from 'the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material for our later reflection with its conceptual categories', i.e. the 'pure experience' which is Value." | ||
| 426 | "The Metaphysics of Quality continues the mainstream of 20th century American philosophy." | |
| 430 | Insanity problem - "The insane want to force their 'film' on you as well." | |
| 432 | "Insanity is part of the adjustment, of the solution - it is not the problem itself." "Delusion: we are never deluded in the present! - Or is it just a matter of majority opinion?" | |
| 433 | "Trans-substantiation - no less ridiculous an illusion, there are just more people in that culture." | |
| 434 | Japan is suddenly leaving Subject-Object cultures looking a little backward." | |
| 435 | "Shock treatment - is like hitting the patient on the head with a bat. It destroys all patterns (and 'films')." | |
| 436 | "Hopefully the patient, in a moment of Zen wisdom, makes an instinctive decision ... but one can get the same result if you leave the patient in quiet - less damaging ... That is similar to 'Dhyana' (transcendental meditation)." | |
| 439 | "Dynamic Quality approximates to Religious Mysticism minus the 'yelping about God'." | |
| 447 | "If one comes from a cultural tradition where an electronic assembly is primarily a moral order (rather than a pile of substance) it is easier to feel a primarily ethical responsibility for doing good work on it. Hence the Japanese and Far East economic advances, with TQM (Total Quality Management) etc." | |
| 448 | "You don't escape from static patterns by fighting them with contrary static ones ('bad Karma chasing its tail'). You put them to sleep. Ritualistic religion may help this and provide a signpost. The danger is that the rituals become too important." | |
| 463 | "Karma is pain, the suffering caused by clinging to static patterns." "A 'Karma Dump' is the game of taking it out on people close to you, or on identifiable minorities." | |
| 475 | "The primitive have Dynamic Quality best - even the Hindus are hung up with religious bullshit." | |
| 476 | "Good is a noun - that is it." |
Index to more highlights of interesting books
Some of these links may be under construction – or re-construction.
This version updated on 13th January 2011
If you have constructive suggestions or comments, please contact the author rogertag@tpg.com.au .