[MD] The Tao of Quality - Verse 1

[Krimel]

Ron,
In ZMM, when Pirsig is coming up with his answer to SOM, he talks about
being impaled and the horns of a dilemma. He traces out a long trail of
reasoning to the conclusion that to resolve the conflicting horns of the
dilemma he should take a path straight through the middle. He claims this is
a first in Western thinking. I think that's a bit grandiose. I don't think
he is the first to do this in the West and in the East it is certainly old
hat among Taoists. It is also interesting that in focusing on the points of
the horns, we ignore the cows head in the center.

In any case I don't think I am talking strictly about mathematics or
measure. Mathematic is a form of symbolic manipulation that emerges from the
use of writing. Having said that, I suppose an argument could be made that
the opposite is true. In either case the point is that writing as symbolic
manipulation is a technique, an invention, an artifact. As a technical
practice it changes the way a people think and process information. It is a
skill, that like all skills, changes the way the brain works. It causes a
primarily irrational mind to become rational. It is the invention; an
imposition of the digital onto the analog.

But rational techniques do not change the fundamentally irrational nature of
our being. Rhetoric is a good case in point. Effective rhetoric is the
intertwining of Ethos, Logos and Pathos. It ought not rely on any one of
these exclusively. However, in the modern rhetoric of advertising, for
example, the focus is on the Pathos of sex and humor; which like all Pathos
are irrational. Very little attention is given to Ethos and Logos which
demand the use of the rational. The same applies to political debate were
the reliance is on the Pathos of fear or pride or love of country. In
religion, especially fundamentalist religion the rhetoric again aims
primarily at Pathos; fear of death and the fires of hell, love of God and
the hope of eternal salvation. There is in fact a field of neuromarketing to
looks for ways to formulate a Logos that appeals to Pathos to stimulate "the
reptile brain." Which in the logic I have been attempting to explain is the
transduction of the irrational into the rational and back again.

When you say, "I also see reason as providing that aim and goal, when it
asks 'what does it mean?'" I have to reply, "Well kinda, sorta but not."
Reason can never provide meaning. That just isn't what it is or what it
does. It can speak to issues of, who, what, where and when but never why?
The irrational is the voice of why. The why question must be answered
emotionally, spiritually. It is not expressible through reason except
through the feedback loops of the rational and irrational. But why answers
are experienced not thought through. Reason is a tool or  a technique for
assessing our irrational side. 

Everything you mention that reason aims at for its confirmation is
irrational. The good, the better, the aha, point toward the irrational as do
the bad, the worse, and the oh Shit!  Meaning is not rational or irrational.
Meaning resides in a kind of symbiotic harmony of their different voices.
One voice articulates the other sings.
Krimel