2024 was a whole year consisting almost entirely of a single aside from my intended research and writing agenda. (Cut to the chase for 2025 Priorities?)
It was the 50th anniversary of publication of Robert Pirsig’s ZMM – his seminal “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”. Helping to found the Robert Pirsig Association (RPA), getting it up and running on-line and supporting various #ZMM50th events became all-consuming. I say almost because I did also try to tie-in “more than science” working with the International Society for Systems Sciences (ISSS) thanks to their annual conference event originally timed to dovetail with the #ZMM50thRide. Sadly the eventual timings didn’t work out so I ended up supporting both whilst having to fund the time and money for two separate US trips. No other conferences and, apart from the odd weekend break, zero holidays and only one other foreign trip – a few days of paid and expensed Systems Engineering consulting in Q4. Interesting for its own technical content and useful in providing some unanticipated funds for the unplanned additional expenses. Still, incidentally, with a few hours follow-up to complete. One job to finish for the RPA commitments too – an update to the Pirsig Biographical Timeline.
But Pirsig was only ever one string to my bow. An important introduction to philosophy generally and to “the timelessly recurring philosophical division between the explicit / objective / classic / conceptual / dialectical and the implicit / intuitive / romantic / embodied / rhetorical”. His Metaphysics of Quality (MoQ) was an original monist framing and a useful framework to this day. There’s been 50+ years of evolution of science and philosophy (and politics) since Pirsig’s magnum opus, with even better explanatory theories of how Pirsig’s physical > biological > social > intellectual level relations actually work and how his Zen Quality take on immediate “radical-empirical” experience still represents the moral imperative for our attention to the world beyond science. Not by coincidence, “more than science” remains the outstanding follow-up item from the ISSS workshop that very much contributes to my ongoing research and writing project. Sadly Pirsig didn’t – and only a few Pirsig scholars did – engage with other philosophers and scientists beyond the Greeks into the 21st century. Time waits for no man.
the timelessly recurring philosophical division:
between the
explicit / objective / classic / conceptual / dialectical
“science” for short
and the
implicit / intuitive / romantic / embodied / rhetorical
“wisdom” for short
So, apart from the 3 commitments above …
-
-
- Update to the Pirsig Biographical Timeline
- Consolidating output from the ISSS “more than science” session.
- Clarifying responses to my systems consulting customer.
… I’m back on the original agenda.
As ever I have several open issues to read or file for future reference – lots of open / barely-read / un-reviewed pieces to bookmark – in the post-notes below.
However, last years project priorities pretty much remain this years.
Original 2022 Version – Writing Progress – for 2023
-
-
- The Position – (T – Outline) a statement of what I believe, in brief.
- The Thesis – (T) the whole formal “how and why” development of that.
- Good Fences – an essay on one corollary of the whole.
- Sacred Naturalism – an essay on another corollary of the whole.
- Primary Sources – an acknowledgement of the main originators.
- Time and Tide – (F) a fictional narrative inspired by the whole.
Updated Nov & Dec 2023 “Resolution” – for 2024
… to prioritise my own deliverables.
T – Maybe the priority is “T” (The Technical Text)
F – which may contribute not only to “F” (The Fictional Narrative) but years of prior research and writing into
D – a potentially shorter version of “D” (The Doctoral Thesis)?
P – My involvement in “P” (The Robert Pirsig Association) can only be short-term / part-time.
Priorities Now – Dec 2024 – for 2025
Priority #1
-
- T – my Technical Thesis, probably still in parts:
- OT – Outline / summary of my starting position
- ST – Specific topics deserving of individual chapter / essays
(Good Fences, More Than Science, Sacred Naturalism, etc.)
Priority #2
-
- F – the (pen-named auto-)fictional novel
Priority #3
-
-
- Pirsig / RPA – Timeline update + only a supporting role
- Conferences (UK Only in 2025)
- ISSS-2025 (Birmingham) follow-up to DC-2024 above.
- HTLGI-2025 (Hay-on-Wye) – as the name says 🙂
- OxfordLitFest-2025 (Oxford) McGilchrist et al
- TS-SitP – local attendee / participation only
- Other pub, blog & social-media dialogues.
END
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Post Notes:
Bookmarking the following:
-
- Ben Taylor’s Systems Thinking Reading List.
- Simon Wardley’s “Wardley Maps” generally.
- Which reminds me, the Dave Snowden / Cynefin “more than science” dialogue.
- Nicole Rust’s readings of Francis Crick and Kevin Mitchell.
- Stephen Mumford’s readings of Russell’s metaphysics.
(See previously …)
- Engaging with Birkbeck, London CCCM?
- A critical reading of Michael Levin’s Mind “Technology” project?
- RL Kuhn’s Taxonomy of Consciousness Explanations.
- Drucker’s 1994 letter to Bill Emmott at The Economist.
- Completing a tabulation of the Macy “Humanist” Cybernetics topics.
(And here at the ACS. Ditto a re-reading of Dupuy)
- How Cyber did for Cybernetics – NOT – “relating to computers, computer networks, or technology” (Cyber-Space).
- Naturalised Teleology.
- Brian Goodwin (Edge 1997) – New Science of Qualities.
- Gabrielle Bammer and Jean Bolton on Science & Subjectivity.
- Oikophobia – The tendency to criticise things closer to home (yourself, your group, the current government of your own country, say) rather than bigger shared things.
- Turtles all the way down? Recurring metaphysical question of course, but just a link to the long and wide history of the cosmic turtle.
- And a whole load of half-read / un-reviewed books that will have to wait:
- “Leonard and Hungry Paul” – Ronan Hession
(Half read, very good, small independent publisher, made only a few project-relevant notes)
- “New Finnish Grammar” – Diego Marani
(Completed and reviewed, not fully absorbed into the project.)
- “The Mechanisation of the Mind” – Jean-Pierre Dupuy
(So relevant I absolutely have to do a thorough re-read. Mentioned in ACS bookmark above and already a core part of the project. The original now a collectors’ item. Later edition using the original subtitle “The Origins of Cognitive Science” also very expensive text, even second hand, no Kindle etc – but a highly recommended read.)
- “Queen of Sorrow” – Yvonne (YD) Jones
(Read completely. A wartime “love story” focussing mainly on the resourcefulness of the women and girls. Located around Trieste / Italy – same as Finnish Grammar above, which sparked picking it up – and locally around Redcar (NE Yorkshire / East-Cleveland coast. Not reviewed yet because the otherwise gripping trajectory is strangely incomplete / unsatisfactory / inconclusive despite being full length and difficult to describe without being a spoiler. Presumably intended as the first in a series – leave ’em wanting more? And I can talk to the author – in the pub – before I publish any more.)
- “A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women” and “Mothers, Fathers and Others” by Siri Hustvedt.
(Received as Christmas presents off the reading list – thanks again Robbie – but in the pending pile. Intriguing author, a rave reviewer of Solms, read one piece on Kindle and made notes – but the rest will have to wait.)
- “Myself and More Important Matters” – Charles Handy
(Some catching-up to do on an author that was influential ~40 years ago.)
- “A Confederacy of Dunces” – John Kennedy Toole
(A cult book with a weird tragic history and an even weirder plot / narrative / accent. Known in the bar book-club, but no recollection where I picked-up the reference. Strange to start reading at New Year 2024/25 given the New Orleans Canal Street & Bourbon Street locations. Definitely about “what’s wrong with the world / putting it to rights” but will have to wait to complete.)
- “Uncommon Wisdom” – Fritjof Capra
(Read some of his work early in my project – eg “Tao of Physics” and his film “Mindwalk” but mostly overlooked his work because although his stuff was “right” it wasn’t that original – See Pirsig and Talbot and Josephson – and his style was a bit more sensational-journalistic to my UK eyes. At least part of my being too dismissive too soon with Capra will have been my conflating his “Turning Point” (on which “Mindwalk” is based) with Gladwell’s “Tipping Point”. Received but not read “Uncommon Wisdom” but still early work, because he is much referenced more recently in the Psybernetics (systems thinking) context. Uses the word “wisdom” of course.)
- All back on the shelf. See LIFO Reading.
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Post-Post-Notes
As part of putting to bed all the open links above, I had a couple that were themselves fairly closely linked to each other. Not the first time I’ve mentioned these, but worth capturing together in one place.
At the 1946-onwards “Macy Conferences” as well as all the people who were or became the great and the good of Cybernetics and Complex Systems Thinking – including Heinz von Foerster – was almost the only philosopher outside the Greeks that Pirsig makes specific reference to being influenced by – F.S.C. Northrop – before he started his own writing project.
Dupuy, who wrote about the more humanist balance of the Macy conferences is a much-used resource in that ASC Macy link above. Dupuy wrote “The Mechanisation of the Mind” and I read the 2000 NFT English translation first-edition and his dedication was “for” Foerster who had been a significant source for Dupuy and formed an important introduction for me. Foerster died in 2002 and the subsequent 2008(?) “The Origins of Cognitive Science” MIT Press edition (same text with new preface and the title / sub-title flipped round) is dedicated in his memory.
At the 1995 “Einstein Meets Magritte” conference organised by Francis Heylighen where Pirsig was one of the plenary speakers so were Heinz von Foerster, Ilya Prigogine and Francisco Varela.
(The Tucson “Science of Consciousness” conferences started the same year, and split the European and USA attendees – more detail.)
As recently as last year (2024), Francis Heyligen – organiser of that Einstein Meets Magritte” conference – produced this paper “Curiosity, Awe and Wonder: the Emotions that Open Our Mind” which drew this peer-review comment:
“It’s brilliant. I have no suggestions for improving it.
Heylighen is breaking into an area with tremendous potential. We’ve been rejecting these emotions as secondary, as epiphenomenal, since Galileo. Heylighen expands the scientific investigation with a much broader and deeper epistemology. With his high standing in the science world, the impact of his article will be significant. The only suggestion I have for the author is to write more articles in this vein. This direction is both rare and important.”
(Hat tip Michel Bauwens @mbauwens on X/Twitter.)
(Lots of common / relevant reference sources in that paper, though sadly, no Pirsig, no McGilchrist, no Northrop, no Dennett …)
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