Ant McWatt (ant11@liverpool.ac.uk)
Fri, 3 Jul 1998 03:50:34 +0100
On Thu, 2 Jul 1998 11:08:22 -0500 glove
<glove@indianvalley.com> wrote:
> as much as i would like to oblige you and stop blocking
> your in-box with my drival, it seems to me that something
> in my writings is pulling you, otherwise why even bother
> answering my nonsensical drival, not once but twice? i
> realize my writing is nonsense and i said it very clearly
> for all to read. did you miss something, or are you in
> the habit of responding to nonsense?
Hi Glove, Jonathan, and the LS.
Sorry for overacting with my comments yesterday but a
number of things Glove wrote got me very annoyed.
> i realize that my opinions are just my opinions...now you
> have to realize that your opinions are simply your
> opinions and nothing more. i am sure from your name
> dropping that you are very well read and consider
> yourself as yourself, completely separated from universe
> and safe in your little haven of intellectualism.
I actually think we are different aspects of the one
universe. i.e. there is nothing separate from anything
else.
> 'the world has no existence whatsoever outside the human
> imagination' is a direct quote from zmm page 31. if MOQ
> doesnt support relativism, then pirsig has certainly
> changed his zen-like viewpoint over the years. and if
> this statement doesnt resound with subjectivity, i have
> never read a statement that does.
In ZMM and LILA, Pirsig definitely does NOT support
relativism. However, to be fair to you, Glove, chapter
three in ZMM can be construed as supporting relativism but
that is to misunderstand what Pirsig is trying to do in ZMM
overall. In the following, I'll try to explain what he is
trying to do so you might understand why I jumped down your
throat so much yesterday:
In chapter three, Chris asks his father if ghosts exist and
at first gets a flippant, dismissive response (nearly as
bad as my responses yesterday but not quite):
"They contain no matter and have no energy and therefore,
according to the laws of science, do not exist... "
It is only when Chris points out that an Indian friend of
his actually does believe in ghosts that his father decides
to take the question seriously. This is an interesting
tumaround: it is clear that the narrator is influenced by,
or at least aware of the pressures to demonstrate cultural
tolerance. It is out-of-order to make light of people's
beliefs by saying, straight-forwardly, that they are wrong.
Instead, the narrator now says:
"Indians have a different way of looking at things, which
[is not] completely wrong. Science isn't part of their
tradition."
It seems that the narrator believes in ghosts in a certain
sense: he acknowledges that ascriptions of reality to
things (be they ghosts or atoms) depends on the context of
thought in which they are located. Thus, he says:
"Within a context of thought [the Indian one], ghosts and
spirits are quite as real as atoms"
If he chooses to believe in atoms but not ghosts this is
because he is immersed in a modern 'scientific' way of
thinking, but he can also step outside of this context and
see the claims of Indians as equally intelligible. He
admits:
"The rest of the time I'm feigning twentieth century lunacy
just like you are."
Now we have a philosophical tension developing here
in ZMM: the narrator's expressed position on ghosts (and
the laws of science) seems decidedly relativistic and at
this stage it is possible to draw out clear similarities
between the narrator's views on science, the status of
scientific theories, laws and concepts, and those of some
of the most well known relativist philosophers of science
such as Kuhn and Feyerabend.
So what argument does the narrator offer in support of his
seemingly relativistic stance?
In so far as there is an argument it is this: we are
asked to consider whether the law of gravitation existed
before Isaac Newton discovered it. It seems clear that it
could not have: like all knowledge it has no mass, no
energy and therefore exists nowhere but in our heads.
Thus:
"The law of gravity and gravity itself did not exist before
lsaac Newton."
>From here, Pirsig moves to the view that the laws of
science are human inventions, that the world has no
existence whatsoever outside of the human imagination.
Thus, he claims, as you have pointed out:
"Laws of nature are just human inventions, like ghosts ....
The whole blessed thing is a human invention, including the
idea that it isn't an invention. The world has no existence
outside the human imagination."
It can be very controversial to compound gravity and the
law of gravity especially as it is done without any
explanation at first. Pirsig wants to collapse
imagination and perception but his reasons for this are not
given until Part Three of ZMM where the subject/object
distinction is dissolved and replaced with the notion of
Quality Events. In these events the distinction between the
law of gravity and gravity fall away as there is no “known”
and no “knower”.
In Part One of ZMM , it is also very important to note
that the purpose of the book is introduced. That is to
"dig deep beneath the trivia of modern life".
"I would like not to cut any new channels of consciousness
but simply to dig deeper into old ones that have become
silted in with the debris of thoughts grown stale..."
"...the stream of our common consciousness seems to be
obliterating its own banks, losing its central direction
and purpose, flooding the lowlands, disconnecting and
isolating the highlands and to no particular purpose than
the wasteful fulfillment of its own internal momentum."
The image of digging beneath the silt is a powerful one and
supplies us with an adequate, although loose, definition of
philosophy: to engage in philosophy is to dig among our
everyday, seemingly insignificant, beliefs, looking beneath
them to the solid ground on which they lie. This is the
purpose of the narrator's chatauqua: to dig a deeper channel
through the silt, to set the river flowing along a more
decisive course.
Pirsig's analogy is significant: not only does it
succinctly express the purpose of the book, it captures the
essence of the problem of modern Western societies that
embrace liberalism, namely, the sense that, if all beliefs
and ways of life are of equal value with respect to the
truth (one possible basis for liberal tolerance) then the
choices between them can be nothing but arbitrary.
So in Part One, we see a tension between the expressed
intentions of the book to restore direction and purpose lost
in a tide of relativism and the relativism expressed in the
conversation about ghosts and the laws of science.
The question asked in chapter one "Which is best?" has no
meaning against the backdrop of philosophical relativism
because to be committed to relativism is to uphold the idea
that there are no absolutes.
"What is best?" in this context has no definite answer and
it only makes sense to ask "what is new or different?" -
hence the clogging mass of trivia in relativist societies.
Ultimately, a self-consciously relativist society can do
little more than pursue an endlessly unsatisfying search for
cheap thrills and ever more spectacular forms of
entertainment.
If it is not clear in Part One that Pirsig is looking for
an alternative to the directionless, unsatisfying
relativism of Western society, it certainly becomes clear
later (Part Four, chapter 29) when he identifies himself
with the Sophists of Ancient Greece.
"In a moment of joyful realisation he exclaims:
"Quality! Virtue! Dharma! That is what the sophists were
teaching! Not ethical relativism..."
It therefore seems safe to presume that, from the start
of ZMM, Pirsig is after some sort of realist alternative to
the more dominant, relativistic position. ZMM attempts to
provide that sense of direction and purpose which is lost
under this pervasive influence of relativism.
The difference between one context for thought and another
is therefore a difference in Quality. In ZMM, reality is
understood as 'Quality', therefore the difference between
two belief systems consists in one of them being a better
expression of reality than the other. So the difference in
the beliefs between scientific laws and the ghosts of the
Indians is a difference of Quality.
I hope that makes more sense to you than my ravings
from yesterday.
>From one 20th century lunatic to another,
Anthony.
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