Hi Glenn:
I hope you’re enjoying this exchange of views as much as I am.
GLENN:
I say he has a personal vendetta because of the draconian
methods (electro-shock treatment) medical science used to treat
his mental illness, and because he and science disagree on the
interpretation of mental illness.
I don’t think Pirsig’s argument is with science but with
psychiatrists who aren’t in the same ballpark as physicists,
biologists and neurosurgeons. If I may borrow a phrase, mental
health doesn’t “fit into a petri dish.” There’s no meter that
measures insanity. As for electro-shock treatment, it relieves
depression where other methods fail and continues to be used
today. It’s not considered “draconian” in modern medical practice.
PIRSIG (ch. 8)
*Should* reality be something that only a handful of the world's
most advanced physicists understand? One would expect at least
a majority of people to understand it. Should reality be expressible
only in symbols that require university-level mathematics to
manipulate? Should it be something that *changes* from year to
year as new scientific theories are formulated? Should it be
something about which different schools of physics can *quarrel*
for years with no firm resolution on either side? If this is so then
how is it fair to imprison a person in a mental hospital for life with
no trial and no jury and no parole for "failing to understand
reality"? By this criterion shouldn't all but a handful of the most
advanced physicists be locked up for life? Who is crazy here and
who is sane?
GLENN:
This quote is filled with such rhetoric that I can't believe he's all
that serious, but people *do* talk like this when they're seriously
angry. Note his disparaging remark about how science's version
of reality *changes* from year to year and contrast this to the quote
above, which lauds the provisional quality of science.
Aren’t you confusing reality with what scientists say is reality? As
Pirsig put it: “ . . . science is a set of static intellectual patterns
describing this reality, but the patterns are not the reality they
describe.” If you make a distinction between reality and what is
said about reality (as you do in admitting that science gives us a
“version of reality”), then there’s no contradiction in Pirsig’s views
as you suggest. And wouldn’t you say that how people talk when
they are “seriously angry” varies from person to person and that
you’re guessing about Pirsig’s emotional state in order to beef up
your own rhetoric?
GLENN:
He says science should be subservient to social morality, and
unless you can find more examples in Lila, it is the only one he
cites that goes against the grain of the moral hierarchy between
the social and intellectual levels. This in itself is telling.
Happy to oblige. Here’s another example where Pirsig puts
intellect above society:
PIRSIG:
This soup of sentiments about logically nonexistent entities can
be straightened out by the Metaphysics of Quality. It says that what
is meant by "human rights" is usually the moral code of intellect-
vs.-society, the moral right of intellect to be free of social control.
Freedom of speech; freedom of assembly, of travel; trial by jury;
habeas corpus; government by consent—these "human rights"
are all intellect-vs.-society issues. According to the Metaphysics of
Quality these "human rights" have not just a sentimental basis,
but a rational, metaphysical basis. They are essential to the
evolution of a higher level of life from a lower level of life. They are
for real. (Lila, Chap. 24)
To claim that Pirsig believes science should be subservient to
society is plainly wrong.
PIRSIG:
The Metaphysics of Quality suggests that the social chaos of the
twentieth century can be relieved by going back to this point of
departure and re-evaluating the path taken from it. It says it is
immoral for intellect to be dominated by society for the same
reasons it is immoral for children to be dominated by their
parents. (Lila, Chap. 24)
If that doesn’t convince you, how about this:
PIRSIG:
We must understand that when a society undermines intellectual
freedom for its own purposes it is absolutely morally bad, but
when it represses biological freedom for its own purposes it is
absolutely morally good. (Lila, Chap. 24)
That doesn’t sound like science should be subservient to society
to me. Nor does this:
PIRSIG:
But there is no way to light that torch within a Victorian pattern of
values. Once intellect has been let out of the bottle of social
restraint, it is almost impossible to put it back in again. And it is
immoral to try. A society that tries to restrain the truth for its own
purposes is a lower form of evolution than a truth that restrains
society for its own purposes. (Lila, Chap. 21)
Finally, just to prove there are many places in Lila where Pirsig
puts intellect above society:
PIRSIG:
Intellect is not an extension of society any more than society is an
extension of biology. Intellect is going its own way, and in doing so
is at war with society, seeking to subjugate society, to put society
under lock and key. An evolutionary morality says it is moral for
intellect to do so, but it also contains a warning: Just as a society
that weakens its people's physical health endangers its own
stability, so does an intellectual pattern that weakens and
destroys the health of its social base also endanger its own
stability. (Lila, Chap. 13)
I hope these examples convince you that Pirsig places intellect
above society, just as society is above biology and biology above
inorganic nature. What he objects to is the use of the scientific
intellectual model (SOM) as the basis for determining morals. He
says that model can’t handle morals (which most scientists freely
admit but offer nothing to replace it) and proposes the MOQ
intellectual model to explain what’s good and bad and why.
To move on to another point, I agree with your description of how
scientists should present the data they find when studying
cultures like the Incas. “Just the facts, ma’m” is the proper
scientific stance. (They do, however, sift their “facts” through a
preconceived value screen.) But then you said something that
puzzled me as you wrote about Margaret Mead:
GLENN:
Here is a scientist who speaks her mind morally, the very thing
Pirsig would like to see more scientists do, and he lambastes her
as one of those objective types. Well, which way does he want it?
Pirsig wants scientists to speak their minds on moral issues?
Seems to me he says their subject-object approach to morals is
the cause of today’s societal decay. Have you a reference to back
up your claim that Pirsig looks to science for moral
pronouncements?
GLENN:
Pirsig's argument is causally weak. It's less an argument than an
accusation. It's a stock answer that sounds good so long as you
don't ponder it too much. You can re-read my other arguments in
my posts to Jon. You are correct that Mr. Pitts' assessment is far
from profound, but he doesn't jump to conclusions.
You say Pirsig jumps to conclusions when in fact he takes an
entire book to build a case for his conclusions. You may not agree
with his conclusions, but they’re hardly the “jumping” variety.
GLENN: (Answering my assertion that scientists have become the
high priests of our age)
There are a lot of studies put out by a lot of scientists and many
contradict one another. Consider how many studies it took for
people to finally believe that cigarette smoking is dangerous to
your health. Human's effect on global warming is still a hot issue.
And the number of diet remedies is enough to make your head
spin. People take a lot of what science says with a grain of salt
because they know there's a lot of controversy. Silicon breast
implants are safe, then they're unsafe, then they're safe again.
Eggs are bad for you, then they're good, then they're bad again.
Scientists argue over the relative dangers of fossil fuels versus
nuclear energy, and the public is left not knowing what to believe. If
there are so many issues that science is unclear about, why
would people take science, much less a single scientific study, as
gospel?
No doubt there are many contradictory scientific studies. But that
in itself doesn’t disprove my claim. The high priests of science,
while they engage in fierce infighting the same as priests of the
cloth, usually end up reaching a “consensus” which will then be
taken by the public as gospel. The history of the dangers
attributed to cigarettes is a case in point. There are indeed many
issues science is unclear about today and “more studies are
required,” usually at taxpayer expense. But few doubt that science,
not metaphysics, will be the final arbiter of what is “real” and “true”
in the areas you mention. The problem arises when the claim is
made that only material things, such as fossils and breasts, are
“real.”
GLENN:
Finally, how can you explain why so many people believe in God,
guardian angels, creationist theory, ESP, alternative medicines,
and astrology when science is either neutral or antagonistic
toward these? So no, I don't think scientists are considered
today's high priests.
Whoa. Let’s not lump ESP and alternative medicines, both of
which carry some scientific credence, with guardian angels and
astrology. Also, I don’t think you’ll find belief in creationist theory
too prevalent among intellectuals. God is another matter.
According to some polls I’ve read, about half of scientists say the
believe in a God. So I don’t think your conclusion is justified by
your premises.
Throughout your criticism of Pirsig you keep mentioning his tone,
his “rhetoric” and his emotional state, as if “how” he says
something is as important as “what” he says. Such emphasis
doesn’t jibe with the sort of emotionless scientific “objectivity” you
champion. This disconnect puzzles me.
This statement also puzzles me:
GLENN:
He also wants people to take on faith the idea that Dynamic
Quality is the basic stuff of the universe, and to do this he needs to
raise doubts about science, since faith isn't scientific.
I’ve shown in previous posts that science is ultimately a faith-
based approach to reality. Perhaps it’s also instructive to look at
how science describes an abstract entity that it considers the
basic stuff of the university—energy. It can neither be created nor
destroyed, put together nor taken apart, and on the whole it is
neither increasing nor decreasing, remaining always constant. It
nevertheless undergoes transformations or manifestations, for all
types of energy and matter, whether kinetic, thermal, or molecular,
are spoken of as “forms of energy.” As a matter of fact, science
claims that all phenomena in the universe are ultimately nothing
but forms of energy so that this energy more or less underlies all
material things.
Perhaps you can explain what the difference is between saying all
things are forms of energy and all things are forms of Quality. How
does the data change?
Platt
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