[MD] Reductionism

[Matt Kundert]

Matt mentioned:
I would also add, Steve, that your addition of "worseness" 
to "betterness" in your description of what Pirsig means by 
DQ is a conspicuous alteration of what Pirsig says with fair 
consistency in Lila (despite the SODV passage just 
discussed, where he says "liking and disliking").

DMB replied:
 Better and worse are just two sides of the same coin.

Matt responded:
While it is certainly true that better and worse are two 
sides of the same coin, I find it difficult to think one is 
using a single, unified sense of the term denoted by "DQ" if 
one wants to say both 1) "DQ is reality and therefore both 
betterness and worseness" and 2) "DQ is the best." To say 
that all Pirsig was saying about evolution was that the best 
survive and the worst die, it seems to me, is to fall into the 
same meaninglessness Pirsig accused Dawinianian 
tautologists who say survivors survive.

Ian then said:
I think I agree with all your "logic" Matt, but I don't believe 
DMB or Steve or anyone is making those those two 
assertions (1) and (2) - at least not on the same level.

Matt:
So, it sounds to me like your agreeing that there is _not_ 
a single, unified sense of the single term "DQ"?

I think we need far more explicit clarification and 
explication of Pirsig's terms--it is the ambiguity in Pirsig's 
texts (as befits any philosopher with his intellectual 
ambition) that creates, I would suggest, almost all of the 
communicative confusion in our discussion forum.  (That's 
not true--by far and wide the biggest stumbling block to 
discussion is the unconscious background assumption, 
which we get from how easy it is to buy groceries and the 
like, that philosophical communication is easy because we 
all speak the "same language"--or rather, _should_ be easy, 
which is why communication breaks down.)

That might sound rich coming from me, but I've tried to be 
as open, honest, and explicit as I can in explicating Pirsig's 
philosophy (qua _his_ philosophy).  The biggest difficulty in 
explicating any philosopher doesn't come from those who 
disagree with the philosopher, however--it comes from 
those who identify with the philosopher's philosophy, 
because the instinct will be to speak in his voice and, quite 
unconsciously and unknowingly, not notice when your voice 
has modulated to something different (a problem I can 
appreciate quite well).

I see the irony surrounding this brief discursus on what we 
might call DMB's "radical empiricism reading of DQ" to be 
that I came to think some years ago that holding the two 
senses of DQ above together was untenable and Pirsig 
must be using two different senses.  But I also became 
convinced, through conversation here over what Pirsig 
meant, that Pirsig A) did have a unified concept of DQ and 
B) didn't think it was untenable.  (If I remember correctly, 
I'm pretty sure it was Anthony and DMB who were pushing 
back against my assertions.)  In other words, any "different 
senses of DQ" reading is not strictly an accurate reading of 
how Pirsig views his philosophy hanging together.

I don't know what the answer is--I haven't spent time 
researching or excavating Pirsig's philosophy in a long time.  
But I don't know how one put's together

1) DQ as force (from the stove)

2) DQ as the purpose of life (in the alteration of evolution)

3) DQ as better than static patterns (as in the "all things 
being equal" clause, p. 183)

I'm not sure you've exactly appreciated the problem, 
though, Ian because you said this: "DMB's 
(simplified-in-context) statement of Darwinian evolution is 
about as interesting as Pirsig's - ie not very."  That is 
demonstrably _not_ what Pirsig thinks, or at least as I read 
it in the previous post (which means you might have been 
more explicit in deviating from what I had said).  Pirsig was 
suggesting that the traditional explication of Darwinian 
evolution was _lacking_  because of the tautology.  Pirsig 
was offering a more interesting understanding of evolution.  
But I don't know how the two get put together.  The only 
way radical empiricism (which is (1)) can be a teleology 
(which is (2)), it seems to me, is if one commits to saying 
that, when all other things are equal, if one chooses static 
over Dynamic, then one is misunderstanding reality.  And I 
don't think anyone wants to say that.

I'm not trying to get lost in "logic" (which I don't understand 
pejoratively anyways, and I'm not sure why anyone would 
want to), nor am I trying to refute any piece of Pirsig's 
philosophy.  I'm simply trying to help understand what Pirsig 
means.  As I see it, understanding the tensions in anyone's 
philosophy with other pieces of typical cultural 
understandings (let alone the potential conflicts within a 
text) simply afford the opportunity for creative articulation.  
The above is one problem-area, an area that needs careful 
interpretation, an area that provides the excuse for 
productive analysis (as opposed to simple quotation).  
Problems aren't problems--they're opportunities.

Perhaps DMB's reading is the accurate one.  Or, perhaps, 
DMB's right _and_ Pirsig sees himself as having a unified 
concept in DQ with a single, extended sense (which is either 
tenable or untenable).  I'm not sure.  If the radical empiricism 
reading of DQ is accurate, so much the better, since I've 
been talking like that for a while, though I've not comitted 
to a self-description as "radical empiricist."  (And I apologize 
to everyone who sees such an assertion on my part as 
strange, perverse, and disingenuous.  I think it simply a 
problem of communication.)  If it's not, I'm not sure why 
anyone, say DMB, should abandon it if they think it's the 
way to go.  Being inconsistent with Pirsig does no harm to a 
living philosophical tradition, which is the only point in saying 
there exists a class of philosophers called "Pirsigian."  And if 
there isn't such a thing, then I don't know what the hell 
we're all doing here.

Matt

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