[MD] Intellectual Level

[david buchanan]

Andre quoted Pirsig: 
> 'Poincare then hyposthesized that this selection is made by what he called the 'subliminal self',
> an entity that corresponds exactly with what Phaedrus called pre-intellectual awareness.
> The subliminal self, Poincarre said,looks at a large number  of solutions to a problem, but only the
> INTERESTING ones break into the domain of consciousness. Mathematical solutions are selected by the
> subliminal self on the basis of 'mathematical beauty', of the harmony of numbers and forms, of
> geometric elegance. 'This is a true esthetic feeling which all mathematicians know',Poincare said...
> It is this harmony, this beauty that is at the center of it all'.
> 
> Poincare made it clear that he was not speaking of romantic beauty, the beauty of appearances which
> strike the senses. He meant classic beauty, which comes from the harmonious order of the parts, AND
> WHICH A PURE INTELLIGENCE CAN GRASP, which gives structure to romantic beauty and without which life
> would be only vague and fleeting...'. My emphasis.(ZMM, p261)



dmb says:

This quote couldn't be more relevant. This felt beauty and harmony is what guides the formation of new scientific hypotheses. Pirsig says essentially the same thing at the end of chapter 29 of Lila, where Pirsig says, "Dynamic value is an integral part of science. It is the cutting edge of science itself." 


These quotes from ZAMM about Poincare are preceded by the notion of multiple truths. (This is another area where Marsha badly misunderstands the basic idea.) In the first quarter of the 19th century, he explains, Bolyai and Lobachevski "established irrefutably that a proof of Euclid's fifth postulate is impossible". 

"Mathematic, the cornerstone of scientific certainty, was suddenly uncertain. We now had TWO contradictory visions of unshakable scientific truth, true for all men of all ages, regardless of the individual preferences.  This was the basis of the profound crisis that shattered the scientific complacency of the Gilded Age. HOW DO WE KNOW WHICH ONE OF THESE GEOMETRIES IS RIGHT? ...And of course once that door was opened one could hardly expect the number of contradictory systems of unshakable scientific truth to be limited to two. A German named Riemann appeared with another unshakable system of geometry which throws overboard not only Euclid's postulate, but also the first axiom..."


The idea that there can be three different kinds of internally consistent and scientifically valid geometries is parallel to the Art Gallery analogy in chapter ten of Lila, where SOM and the MOQ are compared to two equally valid maps, one with rectangular coordinates and one with polar coordinates. So here Pirsig is giving us examples of multiple truths in geometry, geography and metaphysics. In all these cases, the truth isn't just our own personal truth. It's not true just because we want it to be true and of course there are lots and lots of ways to be wrong about geometry, geography and metaphysics. These various systems aren't true in the sense of being objectively true, they are pragmatically true. They work. They are convenient and useful to anyone capable of grasping their meaning and putting them to work. Unlike SOM, the MOQ does not insist on a single, exclusive truth. But that certainly doesn't mean there is no such thing as laborious, confusing, or inconclusive idea. That doesn't mean any old thing is right. It has to make sense. It has to work. It has to fit the context, agree with experience and function in future experience.