[MD] The strong interpretation of stop signs.

[plattholden at gmail.com]

On 24 Jul 2010 at 8:26, Mary wrote:

> Arlo said:
> It just struck me as coming close to the height of absurdity to declare
> that the man who's ideas we are here (ostensibly) to discuss is the
> "least" authority on what those ideas are. It would be like me saying,
> "Let's talk about what John's ideas are, but the person who we can
> ignore the most in that discussion is John".
> 
> 
> 
> dmb says:
> 
> But then hacks get their hands on these not very interesting ideas and
> before you know it everything means anything anybody wants it mean and
> - presto! - we're all swimming in sea of bullshit. It quickly turns
> into nothing but sheer intellectual debauchery. And then anyone who
> protests against this nonsense is Hitler.
>

[Mary replies]

These are not my assertions, but Pirsig's.  

Zmm Ch 16.
Phædrus´ second metaphysical phase was a total disaster. Before the
electrodes were attached to his head he´d lost everything tangible: money,
property, children; even his rights as a citizen had been taken away from
him by order of the court. All he had left was his one crazy lone dream of
Quality, a map of a route across the mountain, for which he had sacrificed
everything. Then, after the electrodes were attached, he lost that.
I will never know all that was in his head at that time, nor will anyone
else. What´s left now is just fragments: debris, scattered notes, which can
be pieced together but which leave huge areas unexplained.
When I first discovered this debris I felt like some agricultural peasant
near the outskirts of, say, Athens, who occasionally and without much
surprise plows up stones that have strange designs on them. I knew that
these were part of some larger overall design that had existed in the past,
but it was far beyond my comprehension.
...
It is probably a long way from what he thought. When trying to recreate a
whole pattern by deduction from fragments I am bound to commit errors and
put down inconsistencies, for which I must ask some indulgence. In many
cases the fragments are ambiguous; a number of different conclusions could
be drawn. If something is wrong there´s a good chance that the error isn´t
in what he thought but in my reconstruction of it, and a better
reconstruction can later be found.
---

You see, the person with the original inspiration no longer exists.  Robert
Pirsig the author is not the person who experienced the original insight.
He has no direct memory of it.  No 'arloian' absurdity exists, and if there
is any 'bullshit', it is in the 'DuMB' complaints.


Hi Mary,

Not only is your point revealing and valid, but I 've always thought it close 
to the height of absurdity to declare that the man whose ideas we're here to 
discuss was so pigheaded he could never, under any circumstances, have second 
thoughts about his previously stated opinions. In fact, his change of mind from 
classic-romantic to DQ-SQ shows he is anything but static, inflexible  
automaton.

Platt