Hi Rog:
A great post, as usual. I hope you will take the following as a view from
another angle rather than a contradiction because in many ways I
agree with what you said.
You wrote:
The mystics take very seriously the warnings against engaging in
metaphysical explorations that Pirsig writes throughout the beginning
and end of the book. He tells us that Quality is the central reality of
mysticism. The fundamental nature of reality is indivisible,
undefineable and unknowable. Dividing, splitting or abstracting reality
into parts is a degenerate immoral activity that actually carries you
away from reality.
Lest we forget:
“But the answer to all this, he thought, was that a ruthless, doctrinaire
avoidance of degeneracy is a degeneracy of another sort. That's the
degeneracy fanatics are made of. Purity, identified, ceases to be purity.
Objections to pollution are a form of pollution. The only person who
doesn't pollute the mystic reality of the world with fixed metaphysical
meanings is a person who hasn't yet been born—and to whose birth
no thought has been given. The rest of us have to settle for being
something less pure. Getting drunk and picking up bar-ladies and
writing metaphysics is a part of life. (Lila, Chap. 5)
To which I add: Maps and map making are 1) part of experience and
thus real, and 2) vital to our survival. And keep in mind there are those
who are now seriously putting forth the idea that the universe is but a
manifestation of information, i.e., maps are more primary and thus
more real than territories.
What bothers me is the tendency to unthinkingly follow the scientific
paradigm of “realism” whereby what’s real is tangible (measurable)
and everything else, including consciousness and thought are mere
epiphenomena (not really real). The metaphysical division of
maps/territory reflects that paradigm as does the subject/object
division. But this sort of realism--the view that nature has an objective
reality independent of human consciousness and all we do is make
maps of it--has been called into question by quantum physics. But
more importantly, restricting reality to what scientists, engineers and
their fellow map and model makers can get the hands on (literally and
figuratively) leaves so much of human experience unaccounted for that
it’s a wonder so many have swallowed their story. Science can’t even
explain why it’s good.
I think Pirsig ought to stick to his division of experience (reality) into
static and dynamic values and not try to compare intellectual value
patterns to maps of reality because that comparison effectively tosses
his refreshing new metaphysics right back into the tasteless old SOM
soup.
Platt
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