Dan McGrath (dnmcgra@ibm.net)
Mon, 1 Sep 1997 04:05:51 +0100
Excuse my rambling, here. I'm not entirely sure about the best way, in
my first post, to join the conversation already underway.
I don't have a copy of "Lila," though I have read it. When I learned of
this discussion group, I tried to buy a copy, but the bookstores didn't
have one in stock. So, I turned my now rekindled interest in Pirsig to
my tattered old copy of "Zen and..."
I'm about half-way through what must be my fourth reading. And I'm
amazed at how well this book works as something worthwhile to return to
after a number of years, to get a new measure on oneself. The marginal
notes I made on earlier readings, and which I thought so insightful at
the time, now look naive, though not entirely wrong. It helps me
realize that my thinking and my life have moved on since I wrote them.
Of course, the book's story line encourages such thoughts as well, being
as it is about the author's own search through past chapters of his
life. Through most of the book, Pirsig disowns Phaedrus -- seen as
someone apart that haunts him, not as himself. Rebuilding that
synthesis is difficult.
The contrast between analysis and synthesis -- two fundamentally
different ways of thinking -- is what is most on my mind during this
reading. Pirsig seems most at home with analysis, as Phaedrus' sharp
intellect wields his knife slicing reality now this way and now that in
the hope of finding insights into what he chooses to call quality.
By contrast, synthesis seems to be a mystery to Pirsig during most of
"Zen," even though there are points where he appears to be quite aware
of it, as when he counterposes the "classic" thinkers (read those who
see things analytically) with "romantic" thinkers (who I see as most at
home with a synthetic perspective). Through such eyes, Phaedrus saw the
university as a temple of reason, though I doubt his artist friend
DeWeese whould have seen the university in exactly those terms. Art is
more about synthesis, dealing with perceptions of the whole, and of
making new wholes that hang together.
Phaedrus, and Pirsig, are perplexed by where scientists find their
hypotheses, which seem to come out of nowhere. How unscientific
(meaning unanalytical)! But hypotheses are the product of synthesis,
not analysis. They result directly from the scientist's effort to
create a mental model, a representation of the whole, of how the world
works. It's from dealing with that mental model, an effort at creating
a holistic picture, that the hypotheses are derived. That's why Kuhn's
paradigm shifts occur. During long periods, when a particular mental
model dominates thinking, only a certain range of hypotheses can be
derived. But the emergence of a new model of reality quickly yields a
rich array of new hypotheses.
I'm reminded of how pattern recognition (synthesis in action) derives
from portions of our brain quite different from those that give us the
powers of speech. This is often abbreviated as the familiar
right-brain, left-brain distinction. Perhaps because our pattern
recognizing brains are incapable of speech, or perhaps even of
sequential thought, we find it difficult to describe synthetic
thinking. Our logical left brain reverts to mumbling about mysteries
and ghosts. The left brain seems to imagine that analysis is all there
is to thinking; it has no conception of visual thought.
But I doubt that synthesis -- seeing the pattern of the whole -- is such
a mystery. I could lay out a jig saw puzzle with only 20% of the pieces
properly arranged. Still, you'd likely recognize the whole picture
instantly. If I ask you how you did it, you'd find it impossible to
describe. Your left brain might tell silly stories that your right
brain -- if it could listen -- would probably find hysterically funny.
This must seem a digression, I suppose, from the serious work now
underway in this group of building tables and defining how many levels
are required to properly represent the structure of quality in the
universe.
But, perhaps it's not a digression at all.
Take care.
Dan
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