[MD] Overcoming the System

[Ian Glendinning]

Hi Matt, another long one ... (I think Ron's inputs are relevant too)

(When you say system thinking in philosphy - I suspect you really mean
thinking of "philosophy as a system" ? See later.)

Nowhere I am asking you to "drop your lens" any more than I think you
are asking that of me. I am just asking for explanation. Clearly I'm
not getting your explanations.

Lets try this one. You said ...
"On the one hand you say you believe in lots of systems, yet on the
other hand you seem to (consistently) conflate conceptual thinking
through the lens of a single system."

No, no, no. I'm not "conflating" anything - the very opposite. I admit
to "systems thinking" and would defend that (as I did to Dave) if I
saw any actual objection to it. It's my chosen, preferred style after
"50 years worth of wisdom" (and cultural influence) - seeking natural
processes - but not something I'm ignorant of, or blind to. That said
"the single system" you refer to is the MoQ - the subject of this
forum, no ? It's a "systems view" in my use of the term, just because
I use the term. What it is, is what it is ... an framework of
evolutionary patterns, based on ... etc. But you're not talking about
the MoQ anyway.

I am NOT looking at the world through that MoQ lens. The MoQ came
after the lens - of experience and wisdom - common sense. I'm just
attaching recent knowledge of the MoQ to that common sense. It's a
tool, a system I "could" jettison at any time ... if it failed to
deliver practical value. I can't see that I fail to recognize it as a
tool. I "believe in" many systems, but can't see how any of these are
inconsistent with the MoQ, but hey ... (And no way is it the creation
of "one dude" - Pirsig himself acknowledges the evolved ideas - the
net result of that evolution to date.) If I look at the world through
any lens it's probably a Dennettian - pan-neo-Darwinist - one. But
again the view came before the explanation, the theory.

Now, I think we are both talking about philosophy as a part of life as
a whole (as Ron is) ?

I seem to be saying (and Ron), so live it. But you seem to want to
break of a piece called philosophy and talk about the pros and cons of
treating that as a system, disembodied from life ? Personally, I can't
see philosophy as one distinct thing to talk about in any terms,
something you can stand outside of - use of a given metaphysical model
(tool) yes, but philosophy as a whole ? Can't see it.

What "view" (non-system-thinking view) of philosophy-in-itself, are
you suggesting ?

Regards
Ian

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 8:28 PM, Matt
Kundert<pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Ian,
>
> This is very much missed ships:
>
> Ian said:
> If you feel asking for an example is missing your point - I'm
> not "daring" you to break the system, I'm trying to
> understand your objection to accepting the MoQ -
> pragmatically. Anyway you say, stay at the conceptual
> level ... OK. So answer me these instead ...
>
> Matt:
> No--I didn't say asking for "an example" sans phrase was
> missing the point--I was saying asking me for an example
> _for the MoQ_ was missing the point, because I wasn't
> talking _inside_ the MoQ, if you will, but _about_ it, and
> it's related cousins (other "systems").  As an illustration of
> the confusion, you say you're not daring me to break the
> system of the MoQ, but then say you're "trying to
> understand [my] objection to accepting the MoQ"--but I'm
> not talking about accepting _or_ rejecting _the MoQ_, I'm
> talking about the system metaphor we use to explicate
> (and Pirsig used to write) the MoQ--that's why I talk about
> Steve's circumlocution, which started this whole thread,
> because when someone says "system" and begins taking it
> too seriously, like thinking it underlies the whole of reality
> and always has, Steve's translation scheme quickly reminds
> us, "Oh, no--it's the creation of one dude who's as caught
> in time and place as anyone else."  Which is what Steve did
> for--god, I don't even remember who he was talking to
> anymore.
>
> And I didn't say "stay at the conceptual level"--it's the
> confusion of taking _the MoQ_ as the _only_ conceptual
> level that might lead you to think that the _only_ way to
> talk _about_ something (which I sort of defined as basic
> "reflection," "philosophy") is through _the MoQ_, which
> makes sense of why you keep thinking I'm objecting to
> _the MoQ_, and why I keep taking all of your replies as
> _more examples_ of why the system _metaphor_ is
> bad--why all these "onlys"?  I added them, but do you see
> how they fall out of what you're saying as replies to me,
> how, while on the one hand you say you believe in lots of
> systems, yet on the other hand you seem to (consistently)
> conflate conceptual thinking through the lens of a single
> system.
>
> Now, on the other hand, if you asked me to stop thinking
> with whatever lens I'm using (we can call it "Matt's
> pragmatism"), I wouldn't know how--but I'm not asking you
> to stop thinking like Ian, as if you were to pop eyeballs out
> (because for pragmatists it's lenses all the way down).  Like
> the wisdom of the post-analytic tradition of Wittgenstein,
> Sellars, and Rorty tells us, you can't put everything into
> question at once, but you can put one bit here in question
> while standing on this other bit over there.  It's like you think
> I'm asking for you to put _the whole bit of the MoQ_ in
> question, when it's more like I'm just talking about a little bit
> of it (it's composure as "system").
>
> Ian said:
> I'm also not saying philosophy is a system. Or rather I'd
> have to stretch the "system" metaphor too far to be useful -
> its a whole collection of different "systems" in my terms.
>
> Matt:
> Heh.  Well, then it really is a wonder what you've been
> talking about with me, because I've been _only_ talking
> about the system metaphor in philosophy.
>
> Ian said:
> What "two practices" are you really talking about here "I
> care about the real life experience of balancing two
> practices. Right now I care about the interplay, the thin
> moments we have _between_ two practices" ?
>
> Matt:
> What you're missing is the fact (which I may have
> obfuscated a couple times, but I'm also pretty sure I said
> fairly clearly a couple times) that my term "life" is the whole
> to which "philosophy" and "dish washing" are but two,
> random particular parts of the whole.  In the above "real life
> experience of balancing two practices" I am talking about
> balancing--as the _two_ examples I keep talking
> about--philosophy and washing the dishes.  And from my
> point of view, you are only focused on _the MoQ_, not the
> interplay between the practice of the MoQ/philosophy and
> the practice of the dishes, because you keep asking for an
> example that illustrates why I don't accept the MoQ.  But
> A) I'm not talking about accepting or rejecting the MoQ and
> B) I don't think the dichotomy between accepting and
> rejecting do justice to the way _any of us_ do
> philosophy--or _should_ if we were able to get out from
> under the metaphor of system.
>
> I'm talking about my opinion of the MoQ, right now--I don't
> accept it _or_ reject it.  Why?  And now I'm _not_ talking
> about my opinion of the MoQ--because it is only by virtue
> of the idea of _system_ that we think that it, or any other
> philosophy, is something we need to accept or reject
> wholesale.  Steve's circumlocution puches up this absurdity
> of accepting or rejecting wholesale--if we replace "the
> MoQ" with "Robert M. Pirsig's writings," we can see how
> silly it is to _accept_ the bit in ZMM when he describes
> sitting in a corner and letting the cigarettes burn down to
> his knuckles.  What's there to _accept_?  It is a bit of
> narrative, not a philosophical position (though, like all pieces
> of life, it most certainly _can_ be turned into grist for a
> philosophical mill, which is what Pirsig was doing).
>
> You keep asking for one illustration of the interplay, how
> system is like weights, and all the rest of phrases I keep
> using to try and articulate my point.  So, I'll give it again:
>
> "The deal is, if you're focused on the system (a _philosophy_),
> then you're ability to repair _the system_ becomes your
> ability to not fall into disarray in the world.  If you come
> across a problem that you can't for the life of you figure
> out how to fix (we can't be ingenious all the time)--isn't
> that _exactly_ what happened to Pirsig in ZMM...?
>
> "But, if instead you are focused on life, then you're already
> well aware that there are tons of problems that you face,
> not all of them at once, some you defer, like that problem
> with your philosophy you just...can't...work...out--ah, screw
> it, I need to do the dishes right now, or feed myself, or put
> that cigarette out so it doesn't burn into my fingers."
>
> Notice: life is the whole, and philosophy and dishes are two
> particulars within the whole.  What I'm asking is that we _not
> lose sight of the whole_.  This is illustrated in the second
> part where, while focused on the whole, we treat both
> philosophy as a particular bit we can pick up and put down
> because we need to do a different particular bit of life
> (the dishes).
>
> System, on other other hand, lends itself to obsession (and
> becomes a weight) because of the example of
> Pirsig--because Phaedrus conceives of the world, not just
> as a mythos, but as a _systematic mythos_ and his ability
> to fix the world, and his life, becomes his ability to fix
> conceptually the mythos.  Which is why he goes off the
> deep end (narratively speaking).
>
> I'm with you--I think there are all sorts of strands (you said
> "systems" in a very wide sense) of mythos floating around
> our cultural ether, and Pirsig picked out one and focused on
> it.  And it helps a lot to focus on the one he did.  But there
> are others, and there are others we use all the time just
> fine without our world falling apart because someone asked
> us whether the value we place upon the fork is in the fork
> or in our heads.
>
> Ian said in a different thread:
> Matt, you claim "Down with System, Up with Life!" in one
> short paragraph, .... and spend the whole of the rest of
> your response in the traditional system of comparing
> philsophical "isms".
>
> Matt:
> That's a good, fair point, drawing attention to my isms.
> "Down with System" doesn't mean down with philosophy,
> though, silly--it means down with a certain metaphor for
> philosophy.  I'm still okay with sitting here and doing
> philosophy and not the dishes.  Remember when I said
> that Pirsig's talk of "the MoQ" and Rorty's "we's" were
> rhetorical figures?  So are "isms," and I don't fault rhetorical
> figures for being figures, I just want to talk about their
> effects.
>
> For instance, you say "traditional system," but in my
> terms--which, granted, I'm only articulating more fully
> here--that's an oxymoron.  I'm not sure he ever said so,
> but the reason why I think Rorty preferred "isms" to
> "system," and why I do, is because "system" is a synchronic
> notion, while an "ism" is a diachronic notion.  The former
> rests on a spatial metaphor that, therefore, stretches
> throughout your entire web of beliefs.  The latter rests on a
> temporal metaphor that, therefore, stretches throughout
> time to other people's webs of belief.
>
> The short of it is that Rorty thinks pragmatists should favor
> diachronic notions because the notion of a "tradition" is
> what hangs our world together after Platonic, ahistorical
> foundations go by the wayside.  So, Rorty's "isms,"
> specifically "pragmatism," are actually the opposite rhetorical
> figure from Pirsig's "the MoQ."  Instead of repeating all the
> time, "I think, I think, I think," Rorty externalizes his
> philosophy, not by the metaphor of building a big machine
> outside of his house, but by joining hands with other people.
>
> Matt
>
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