Category: Pirsig

Ant tipped us off that Robert Pirsig had been interviewed for The Times to coincide with the re-release of Lila in the UK, and the upcoming publication of David Granger’s book “Dewey, Pirsig and the Art of Living“. Here is the Times Online article by John Freeman.

Excellent optimistic interview “”I think this philosophy could address a lot of the problems we have in the world today” he says, leaning forward, tapping the pad of paper. “Just so long as people know about it.” Says Bob.

(Lots of the biographical summary looks straight from my pages, and in fact Bob confirms John Freeman did his homework using the timeline.)

(I think I blogged this earlier review of 60’s & 70’s that mentions ZMM, Bob’s first book.)

Pirsig’s Metaphyisics of Quality – It’s Evolutionary Psychology, Stupid
Wilson’s Consilience – It’s Evolutionary Psychology, Stupid
Rand’s Objectivism – It’s Evolutionary Psychology, Stupid

It’s Evolutionary Psychology, Stupid

I realise I missed the boat, and that evolutionary psychology as philosophy came and went out of fashion some time ago, but all roads, even diametrically opposed ones lead me to the same place, which shouldn’t be a surprise, since the earth we inhabit (maybe even the universe we seem constrained to inhabit) seems close to spherical.

Matt commented in my earlier thread referring to Wilson, that Rorty’s problem with (scientists like) Wilson, is that they are mistaken to somehow suggest joined-up science replaces philosophy of any kind. I keep quoting Max Born, who apparently said “Theoretical Physics is Actual Metaphysics”. OK, so there is always a metaphysical boundary condition in even the most holistic scientific explanation of the whole world, but the boundaries between science and philosophy must be constantly re-drawn by scientific understanding, no ?

(BTW, my favouring science is purely pragmatic and contingent. Somewhere in that metaphysical hole there may be something that ultimately invalidates science in some sense, some sense hard to imagine naturally, but whilst science shrinks the hole and makes ever more consilient, joined-up, consistent explanations of the whole outside the hole, then it has the maximum value / quality of the available “belief systems”.)

Explanations of the “whole” need to include the spiritual and human nature aspects of reality, otherwise we have a humungous hole in our model. Part of Matt’s objection (on Rorty’s behalf) to Wilson was that it was arrogant for a scientist to suggest that (consilient, scientific) explanations of human nature were either necessary or valuable in any predictive causal sense. Pragmatically, Matt and Rorty would be right, given accepted knowledge of the current state of “scientific received wisdom”. But of course causality and predictability, are two hugely problematic issues, being addressed by both philsophers and scientists. Personally, I think philosphers’ progress with predictable causation is best in the areas that point out its illusory nature (see Paul Turner’s Buddhist view), which it is of pragmatic value to at least be aware, whereas scientists are advancing “complex recursive systems evolution” views of at least explaining it, with statistics and emergence as the closest things to predictability and causation.

OK, so …

I already, in my 2005 paper, referred to Pirsig’s MoQ as evolutionary psychology. Wilson’s neo-Darwinian angle on consilience is also easy to characterise as evolutionary psychology in a direct sense and the meta-sense. (ie at the top of the evolutionary pyramid, it is “our” intellect that is evolving, but part of that evolution of intellect is evolving our evolutionary explanations of the physical and biological layers on which it is built – that’s all I mean by “evolutionary psychology”. It’s awesomely consilient.)

You may have noticed, if you’re following MoQ-Discuss, that I’ve been reading Ayn Rand. Well if Atlas shrugged, Ian struggled. (Aside – I’m still only 400 pages through my 1000 page edition, and I have no prior knowledge of the main plot or point of the story.)

In summary – much of the plot (so far) is about big business, self-made men (and women), moral choices and “state” interfence. I said after 200 pages, lousy physics, lousy metallurgy, lousy engineering, lousy politics and nauseating sex, but OK business and OK morality. I didn’t mention the stilted writing (as Alice did below), the idiot-proof plot, and the transparent one-dimensional characters, but hey, I pressed on in hope and with suspended disbelief.

The science actually gets less believable, or at any rate more fictional – something close to a perpetual motion machine that creates dynamic (kinetic) power out of static energy (matter) – but hey, that sure is a business opportunity for the right guy or gal with the right access to the technology, motivation, funding, opportunity, freedom from state red-tape, etc. (A large part of the plot is about market distortions created by “bad” legislation – eg people trading in quotas and stocks making five times the profits of those in the primary industries – no, really ?)

I also said earlier that the Randian morals (expressed by her apparent heros and heroine anyway) were the triumph of the (individual) will kind. Little did I know.

Although the edition I’m reading (Signet Centennial paperback edition), has a deliberately sparse introduction, to leave the reader with only Rand’s text, I discover there is a 2-page summary of “The Essentials of Rand’s Objectivism” at the end. I thought it might be a laugh to read it, put me out of my misery anyway.

To be continued.

Funny how the overly rational attracts mental (ill-)health metaphors. “Autistic” was my current favourite until I saw this passage from Nick Maxwell.

Science is indeed neurotic. It suffers, that is, from what I call “rationalistic neurosis”, a methodological condition that involves suppressing, or failing to acknowledge, real, problematic aims, and instead acknowledging an apparently unproblematic “false” aim. Rationalistic neurosis inevitably has bad consequences. The more rationally the false aim is pursued, the worse off one is from the standpoint of achieving one’s real aim. Reason seems to become counterproductive.

That last sentence is the “Catch-22” of our problem. We “seem” to be promoting “irrationality” even though, quite clearly, we are trying very hard not to. Hence its Catch-22 like qualities, something I’ve not mentioned for a while.

It’s a loopy world. So loopy that several of us, David Morey of the MoQ-Discuss forum, on the “Friends of Wisdom” mailing list, from which Nick’s words are quoted, have linked the “aim-directed-rationalisty” wisdom thread to Values and Quality in the Pirsigian sense. Strange then that Nick’s words, in an article called “Science under Attack” (The Philosopher’s Magazine Issue 31, 3rd Quarter 2005, pp. 37-41), were :-

But both sides in this “science wars” debate miss the point. Those who attack scientific rationality, and those who defend it, are actually busily attacking and defending, not scientific rationality at all, but a species of irrationality masquerading as scientific rationality. Instead of fighting over the current orthodox, and irrational conception of science, both sides ought to turn their attention to the question of what precisely needs to be done to cure science of its current damaging irrationality, so that we may develop a kind of science that is both more rational, and of greater human value.

The point I always try to get across, more generally, is that wisdom-inquiry is both more rational (more intellectually rigorous) and, potentially, of greater human value, than knowledge-inquiry.

TPM was the magazine that interviewed Pirsig recently about his “Metaphysics of Quality” and concluded there was nothing to it. What goes around comes around, and the great loopy contradictory convergence goes on.

Bio pic of Burt Munro, Kiwi who set the world speed record at Bonneville on his US “Indian” motorcycle. A film which, the lead Anthony Hopkins says, “is the best he’s ever made”.

Looks interesting to Pirsig / Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance fans, on the evidence of the trailers, and not just because of the motorbike connection. The individual driven by a passion from youth, the man and boy relationship, where the boy understands the real man better than others do, living life through immediate experience, a man “from another planet”, the functional quality of improvised (brandy bottle stopper) tank plug based on understanding the engineering more deeply than surface appearances. Anthony Hopkins own affinity with the machine avoiding flooding the sensitively tuned engine. Connotations of the very name “Indian”. All stories ZMM fans will recognise.

Two trailers, one here at the Beeb, another slightly different one here at a New Zealand Entertainment site. And don’t forget to read the interview on this “Senior Journal” site, with Wayne Alexander who built and prepared the bike(s) for the film, which includes the Hopkins anecdote towards the end.

Uncanny how Hopkins looks like contemporary Pirsig too.
(You still working on that film project DMB ?)

[Post Note : I did obtain the film on DVD, and it’s very good, both the story and the Hopkins portrayal. Must review sometime. Is there any other biographical source on Munro ?]

Recently read Pauline Graham’s compilation of the works of Mary Parker Follett “The Prophet of Management“. Generally considered by a host of modern management gurus to have written the final word on many important management subjects, back in the 1920’s, when she became well known through her writing, lecturing and consulting. She is often cited (after Newton) as a giant on whose shoulders many of them stand. However she lay practically unknown and unreferenced for the following 30 odd years, as being of no significance, until unearthed in 1950’s by the guru of management gurus Peter Drucker (recently deceased).

(One of my earlier aphorisms, in the mould of reality having to be believed to be seen, is that “you have to believe in giants before you can stand on their shoulders”, but I digress.)

One aspect of her work was in “conflict management”, not only in resolving disputes (eg employers & unions) but in encouraging real differences to be aired (eg in counselling situations), where they would in general be hidden or unspoken. She says “Just so far as people think that the basis of working together is compromise or concession, just so far do they not understand the first principles.”- ie win-win integration is the aim, etc. (And for those advocates of the “False Prophets” view – she of course is not disclaiming management power to enforce its decisions, but she does remind us from where such power comes.)

Anyway, I was struck by the philosophical basis of her ideas, consistent with the agenda here …

“Progressive experience depends on relating. The ardent search for objectivity, the primary task of the fact worshippers, cannot be the whole task of life, for objectivity alone is not reality.”

“I do not see how [opposing tendencies] can be avoided whilst we see reality [exclusively] as either subject or object.”

“[Citing Edwin B Holt’s – The Concept of Consciousness] Reality is defined as some very complex system of terms in relation. Reality is in the relating; in the activity-between … subject and object are equally important and reality is in the relating of these [and] in the endless evolving of these relations. This has been the grain of gold of the profoundest thinkers from Aristotle to the present [1920’s] day.”

“Full acceptance of life as process gets us away from [controversy]. This is neither conventional idealism nor realism; neither mechanism nor vitalism.”

“We have to study a whole as a whole, not only through analysis of its constituents. The whole is determined not only by its constituents, but by their relations one to another.”

“The culture of an organisation has a momentum of its own, but an organisation is not an entity separate from it’s members. Parts and the whole are bound together in dynamic interaction. It is this dynamic interaction that must be influenced in order to bring about change in an organisation.”

“Without difference there is no progress. The value is in the difference. Common thought is not held [after removal of differences] but is produced by the integration of differences.”

“A Darwinist view of progress as evolution characterised by competition alone is too simplistic in ignoring cooperation.” [A prescient comment for the 1920’s given the later “Selfish Gene” view which drops the pure competition metaphors to the genetic level, and fully recognises the neo-Darwinian mixed competitive and cooperative strategies at the individual organism level.]

Interestingly, given the Pope’s recent warnings about “relativism”, this week’s BBC “In Our Time” discussed the topic. We should indeed all be worried by a spin on “relativism” that can be rhetorically interpreted as a wishy-washy “anything goes”. I liked the Hegelian (?) absolute-relativism idea. Very Pirsigian. A fundamental and relatively fixed (if not wholly absolute) framework in which “relations” determine reality and truth. Rebecca recently coined “Relationalism” over on MoQ-Discuss, as an antidote to the pejorative rhetoric surrounding “relativism”.

I could highlight all the key words in the Follett quotes, but I won’t; It’s not about objects, objectively distinct from subjects, it’s about

value-in-difference-in-relations,

and

life-as-process-as-dynamic-interaction, or evolution

One in a long line of holding posts for a link to the subject of psychedelics (Peyote, Mescaline, LSD, etc.) and their role in enlightenment and the study of consciousness. [Link via Ant at robertpirsig.org] [See also Timeline 1960, and Peyote, and Funghi.]

This is a review of Albert Hofmann, who as creator of LSD was also a pioneer in this area, and has now lived beyond the ripe old age of 100. I wonder what the queen would say in her telegram (if he wasn’t a Swiss resident that is.)

“Dear Mr Hofmann,
Many happy returns.
One wonders what one might consider to be the secret of one’s long life ?”
Love Liz,
HRH, etc … 🙂

Post Note : Sue Blackmore attended the celebration and wrote this piece for the “THES”. Interestingly part of the discussion is on that to which he attributes his longevity.

[Note – Local copies of linked articles re-instated.]

Julian Baggini, editor of TPM – “The Philosopher Magazine” and goto philosopher of British media, has interviewed Robert Pirsig about his Metaphysics of Quality (MoQ), via e-mail rather than face-to-face, and placed the entire transcript [local copy] as well as his own article “Zen and the Art of Dialogue” on-line [local copy].

[Post Note : Pre-2010 TPM pages have gone offline. TPM Copyrights acknowledged. As noted in the comment below – the exchange says rather more about Baggini trying to conduct the Pirsig  interview by email – resulting in a “standoff” – than it does about the MoQ or philosophy in general.]

[Post Note : Also full disclosure, I’ve gotten to know and become a “fan” of Julian Baggini’s work since this original encounter. See Baggini on Psybertron.]

In his neutral role as journalist interviewer, it’s not clear whether Baggini had any prior knowledge of Pirsig’s ideas, but clearly Bob’s penchant for avoiding comparative philosophology, between his own work and that of other philosophers past or present, meant Baggini had a frustrating experience getting Bob to elucidate. I guess that’s why Bob chose to present his work in the form of his two novels, and avoid any direct involvement in conventional philosophy since. Bob is never going to win friends and influence people in mainstream philosophy, and the old dog will probably not be learning any new tricks at his stage of life.

This article is mentioned by Pirsig in the interview.

A thread of thoughts has developed on MoQ-Discuss.
And a good post from Matt Kundert here, and another one here.

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[A 2021 footnote: A disdain for philosophology is something Pirsig shared with Wittgenstein. He famously sought a special kind of originality with a belief in transcendent fundamentals, that the idea of critically comparing one’s own work with that of another mere human was anathema. Quite unlike his friend Ramsey, another merely human genius.]

Been away from blogging for a week, spending a week at a business development and golf sales conference in Koh Samui, Thailand. Beautiful location, fun time.

Flying back, Bangkok to London, I continued to read Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children”. 75% through, it’s a great read. Whacky style, funny, serious period of childish biographical Indian history – loaded with the language of Hindu / Moslem / Christian mythology and morality – “strange fiction more credible than rational truth” – reminded me of Martel’s more recent “Life of Pi” with Joycean linguistic invention thrown in.

Caught in the act.

Anyway two points of note.

Flew right over Benares – Amritsar – Lahore – Faisalabad in clear darkness whilst reading the machinations of Partition and subsequent Sino-Indo-Pakistan wars. The cease-fire line / border between India and Pakistan continuously sodium illuminated with border posts in a long twisty thread just east of Lahore, stretching south from the line of dispute in Kashmir. Spooky.

Intriguing is the fact that one of Rushdie’s heroines is a sea captain’s wife called Lila, promiscuous lady, with a shady past involving a death or two. The book’s 1960’s / 70’s chronology refers to Kerouac and Heller amongst others, but no Pirsig or ZMM. Pirsig’s “Lila” was published in 1991. Rushdie’s Lila saw print ten years earlier in 1981, when “Midnight’s Children” won the Booker Prize. (It won the Booker of Bookers too in 1993, when Rushdie also became Honorary Professor at MIT.) Must read more Rushdie – I first made the Pirsig / Rushdie connection here.

[Thanks to Alice for this Reason On-Line link to an interview with Rushdie.

Loved this quote from Rushdie

This is the problem with the truth. Truth is never one-dimensional. It is contradictory sometimes. But politics wants clarity.

]

A cross hit search link looking for Pirsig and Hofstadter threw up this essay by Ram Samudrala.

In fact Ram’s is an interesting personal web-site. I guess being a fan of Harry Potter isn’t yet a capital offence.

Crossed paths with Pirsig, under McKeon at Chicago. [Obit via NYT] [via Henry] CHICAGO (AP)

Wayne Booth, a prominent literary critic and professor whose books are required reading at many universities, died Sunday. He was 84.

Booth died at his home from complications of dementia, said Josh Schonwald, a spokesman for the University of Chicago, where Booth was a faculty member for more than four decades.

Booth’s ”The Rhetoric of Fiction,” published in 1961, is ”the single most important American contribution to narrative theory — a book that continues to be read, taught and fought about,” Bill Brown, chair of the English department, said in a statement.

Other works include ”A Rhetoric of Irony” in 1974 and 1988’s “The Company We Keep, The Ethics of Fiction“. His book ”For the Love of It” was a memoir about how he became an accomplished amateur cellist, starting at age 31.

Booth joined the University of Chicago in 1962 after teaching at Haverford College and Earlham College. He also served as dean of the university’s undergraduate division from 1964 to 1969. He retired in 1992.