[MD] The Intellectual Level of Quality, according to Mark

[david buchanan]

dmb said:
Given that this is supposed to be a place to discuss metaphysics, to debate philosophical issues, all this other stuff seems like a distraction. To be honest, I don't really care if that makes me seem unfriendly. The only that matters to me here, is WHAT you say, not how you say it or what a nice guy you are. For all I know, you could be posting from a psych hospital, a prison or a circus.

Dan:

I thought this discussion group was centered around Robert Pirsig's books, LILA and ZMM. Sure, there's philosophy there. But there's a lot more besides. There's a story. To neglect the story is to miss half the point.

dmb says:

I agree. The narrative aspect of Pirsig's books certainly wouldn't count as a distraction. The relevance of each contribution is open to debate of course, but distracting "stuff" I had in mind was, for example, the story about domestic disputes while almost getting lost on the highway. The other problem is focusing too much on style of the posts or the personality of the poster rather than the content of the post. Basically, my complaint is about irrelevance, which is not a word I'd apply to any part of Pirsig's books. 

Dan also said:

In fact, over the years as I gone along my merry way I've come to see the story as the important part of the equation. A writer can build metaphysical and philosophical underpinnings into a story on many levels. Whether a reader is capable of understanding the depths of those levels is problematical though.


dmb says:

I agree. It would be nice if we had a few novelists, literary critics, or even just a few english majors. The section in ZAMM where Chris and is "father" are climbing a mountain together always comes to mind here because the parallels between the hiking and the philosophizing are so striking. Just before they would have reached the top the narrator gets spooked by the sounds of small landslides and decides to turn back and head down toward the valley again. Philosophically, he does the same thing. Coward! No wonder Chris wants his real dad back.  



Dan said:

Consider for a moment that "all this other stuff" might just be inconsequential Dynamic Quality. It is like that. It flutters around the edges, a moth distracting from the beguiling light of knowledge being thrown into the world by real discussions centering on philosophy.



dmb says:

Not sure what you mean here but it's clear you've raised the issue of how and where DQ is likely to play a role in a situation like this one. For those who've read his books, the most obvious illustration would be motorcycle maintenance. (I'm trying to win a place on the cover of next month's edition of "Obvious Magazine". They're doing a small piece about my academic article in the spring edition of the journal "Duh!".) 

There is quite a lot packed into that analogy but I'm thinking in particular about the demands of the bike. There are thousands of precise parts to it and they all have to work in harmony smoothly if you want to take her down the road. Getting to know the bike means prolonged and careful engagement, means gaining enough experience to get a feel for the materials and the tools and bringing that to bear in an active, intelligent engagement with those precision parts as a whole system of relations. In this case, the bike is an analogy for the MOQ as a metaphysical system. In both cases, I think DQ comes out of that kind of focus, that kind of caring. Thus my complaints about distractions. In this analogy, irrelevance is one of the gumption traps. You know, you're trying to weld a chain guard and he's trying to hand you an ice cream cone. 
It's probably a fitting time to mention the importance of being stuck. The other day I stumbled on some brain research that lends support to Pirsig's ideas in this area. (Baston, Schoenrade and Ventis. 1993) They compare religious experience to creative problem solving. Apparently, in both cases people get stuck. In both cases, the person faces a problem that cannot be solved from within their present conceptual structure. The left hemisphere, with all it's discrete concepts, definitions and understandings, just doesn't have what it takes to see any solution. This is a painful situation but it is a crucial to the growth process. Anyway, these researchers think that what happens in such a crisis is the brain switches from left to right hemisphere dominance so that the person gets a non-verbal insight that is beyond the persons conceptual structures. Even more astonishing, this insight can not only solve the problem at hand it can also alter and expand the person's whole conceptual structure. 

I think that's one of the ways we can take the idea that the real bike you're working on is yourself.


Thanks,
dmb 




 		 	   		  
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