[FRIAM] "ZAMM"

Fri Aug 20 14:49:11 EDT 2021

Dear Steve,

You attempt to find ANYTHING of value in ZAMM is touching … no, I mean that.  

I still have not finished rereading the damn book so will hold off on that.  On mysticism, what the hell is it?   I see it as a kind of giving up on the intellectual project, a hugging of the question without any interest in the answer.  I see those who talk about the “hard problem” as mystics, at least in sofar as they take pleasure in calling the problem “hard”. 

I am interested in Pirsig’s idea that all experience arises from an experience of quality.  In the final years of my teaching and in those coffee house seminars I organized I operated on the assumption that one did not have standing to judge a text until one was thoroughly familiar with it.  So when people arrived at a seminar saying that they had loved or hated it, I would try and postpone those discussions until we had examined the text closely.  If the quality-experience is at the core off all experience, I was terribly wrong to do that.  We needed to examine these quality-experiences FIRST and let them lead us to the text. 

Nick 

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Friday, August 20, 2021 2:23 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "ZAMM"

Nick -

I think your observation here hits a head on a nail...  it matters as much what our expectations are (the proto-model we have?) as the facts/data we fit to them?   

Certainly my two readings were *very* different, though neither was terribly positive (if that even matters?) 

As if to say *everything* is in the eyes of the beholder.   Which is perhaps another way of saying "everything is subjective"?   Which is NOT to say (I don't think) that there is or cannot be any objectivity in a matter (observation, ingestion of another's storytelling, etc.)...    though in the sense that "context matters", objectivity  it does seem fundamental that the cascade of implications of context is unbounded.   I suppose this is the allure of Mathematics, that it is based in a (small) finite number of axioms.   Ultimately, physics (and even moreso the more complex sciences) *must* assume a "spherical cow".   

Our (FriAM itself and the larger conversation in the first world?) recent hubbub about COVID and it's range of interventions/preventions/treatments and the roughly bimodal distribution of opinions/beliefs/actions seems to beg this question over and over again.   Both extremes seem to devolve into a tautology in some sense.

I don't know if this furthers/resurrects DaveW's thread of "the ineffable" in any way,  but I keep returning here NOT because I want to believe the myriad anti-this-n-thats or conspiracy-styled beliefs but because when I try to understand what drives that kind of thinking, and by extension what differentiates it from my own (or more aptly, that which I aspire to or elevate when I see/hear it such as what both EricS and GlenR seem to manage most if not all the time).   IN a typical-of-me tangent, I was just at my Feed Store and their display of Ivermectin jumped out at me...  I knew of it as a horse-dewormer, but didn't connect it to the latest crackpot conspiracy that has lead (apparently) to several deaths (ingesting horse-dose/grade Ivermectin)..

Back to Pirsig:  IN 197x when I might have had a worn paperback copy of ZAMM in my back pocket, curled from leaving it there while riding my own motorcycle, I was looking furtively/askance for "elders" to look up to whilst being a bit too full of my own juice, thinking I didn't want to just become an acolyte to others, even if I didn't myself want to be a prophet (at least not in the sense of having followers).   I was acutely disturbed by the main character's declared mental illness, his (Phaedrus') role as a teacher of writing who presumed to have a corner on "what means quality?"   

I was in college myself and while I was pleased to have a range of professors who had more going on than 99% of my small-town HS teachers had, I was also offended by their often self-declared status as "holders of the truth".     While I'd signed up for as many Math/Physics courses as I could, the liberal-arts nature of the University seemed to think I'd do well to take a few courses like Philosophy, Creative Writing, Anthropology, and even Fencing.   What I didn't factor in was how compelling those courses of study would turn out to be for me *in spite of* their obvious subjectivity.   My math/physics profs got a pass from me on the "holders of truth" thing because at the introductory level, and the way math/physics *works*, there was little if *any* room for me to imagine I might know more/different than they did.   The *really good* profs in the other disciplines really impressed me *because* they had to be thinking all the time, not only about their subject material but the responses from the class.  A lot of our discussions/questions/feedback *was* trite and I am sure boring to them, but occasionally there would be spirited (and I believed fruitful) discussions that I *never* had in my (hard) science/math classes.  

Trying to dredge up something more positive to say and perhaps, more to the point, relevant to your specific experience with ZAMM, I found the "Gumption Trap" a fairly trite thing, BUT by pointing at the question of "Quality" I think it is a good place to spend some time.   I look forward to  the possibility that this diverse group (FriAM) of broad/deep thinkers will thrash this one at least one more time at your prompt.

I do believe that Pirsig was the one who introduced me to the concept of "The Tao" at a deeper level than I had read/heard it before.   I subsequently found Ray Smullyan's "The Tao is Silent" which was easier for me to swallow as he came with his Mathematician/Logician credentials and then the "I Ching" (Wilhelm-Baynes 1977 edition) which I eventually adopted as a ritual "Oracle" to joggle my brain/soul/heart a little now and then.   I also think that despite my quarrels with Pirsig/Phaedrus (judgments of?) this work did soften me up and introduce me to the kinds of questions best considered from a Taoist perspective (thus the I Ching)?    

I am also much more comfortable with Mysticism as an approach to apprehending the world (not explaining, it, apprehending it) than I was "back then".   I never liked the "there are no Athiests in Foxholes" but I do think that age and experience and perhaps most importantly awareness of mortality does increase one's appetite or receptiveness to "the mystical".    Where I get hung up with Conspiracists and Woo Peddlers is that they mistake "a good question" for "an answer" and try to run with it as if there is actually a "thing" for them to try to carry across some imagined "finish line".   

mumble,

 - Sieve

Dave,

Not harsh at all, Dave.   Just the kind of variation in reading that I was interested in.  For you, apparently, the book was read for its possible insights into eastern thought, and for that purpose, it wasn’t anything special;  I read it for its insights into philosophy generally, and for that rather more naïve purpose, it was more useful. 

I am trying to finish up my second reading.  I am in Oregon reading about Gumption Traps.  Do you remember gumption traps?   The meme stuck in our family for years, long after we had almost forgotten the book itself. 

We are working on a possible cat three hurricane for Sunday, here, so I may go silent for a bit. 

Where is Roger C?  I worry for those in peril on the seas. 

Nick 

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam  <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Friday, August 20, 2021 11:17 AM
To: friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "ZAMM"

Nick,

my last response was kind harsh.

Although, I see little value in Pirsig's books, I am very interested in the ideas or the inspirations you may have found in them, and would welcome a discussion of those things and perhaps the discovery of shared ideas/values/philosophies that are common even if derived from different roots.

davew

On Thu, Aug 19, 2021, at 7:50 PM, Prof David West wrote:

Nick,

Like Steve, I was gravely disappointed in the book. I had been studying Eastern philosophies for nearly thirty years when it was published so one level of disappointment was the lack of anything new, even a new perspective.

The whole mental illness / introspection / Phaedrus persona / son as mirror aspect elicited the same reaction as Steve - what indulgence.

The book does echo some philosophical ideas — of which I doubt Pirsig was aware — with regard Kata: the correct way of doing things, of being, of interacting with the world. There is Kata in Zen. and that is why it is not the Ch'an Buddhism that was imported from China. I guess that Pirsig resonated with this element, and that informed his writing and his selection of title.

The subtitle with regard 'values' has no grounding, as far as I can remember, in any aspect of Zen or other Eastern mystical philosophy.

Hope others have more positive things to say, as it sounds like this book was valuable to you.

davew

On Thu, Aug 19, 2021, at 2:16 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

Nick -

I read it when it was fairly new and I was very young.   The interwebs (I mean, whatever vapid popular culture rode on top of in those days) was aflutter and I was a voracious reader, a motorcycle owner/rider/maintainer, and I was enamored of the idea of eastern mysticism in spite of the harsh and distorting filters Western pop culture shoved it through before it could get to me.  So of course i read it.  And of course I was disappointed.

I was hugely disappointed and annoyed by Pirsig/Phaedrus.   I did not ride motorcycles for the reasons or in the way he did, nor did I maintain mine in his fashion nor did I hold it up in the way he did.  Of course, Pirsig (and his character) were somewhat older than I was and had had more time in life to F* up...   he just seemed like a self-indulgent F*-up to me, dragging his son through the worst of it along with him.    I was also offended by all the hubub about the book... for the most part I "just didn't get it".   It just seemed like more of our pop-culture's need to elevate a quite base neopatriarchy: (e.g. Hemingway, Kerouac, HS Thompson, Abbey, etc)

When Mary moved here about 4 years ago, we (re)read ZAMM together.  In the intervening years I had learned a lot more about mental illness including having direct experience with people who had endured a great deal of it, up to and including Electroshock Therapy.   I had also grown out of my motorcycle riding identity (in my 50s) but still held onto fetishizing the spirit of something as simple and "easy" to maintain as a (classic) motorcycle (or auto).   I had also read a lot more Greek (and other Western/Eastern) Philosophy in the intervening years and had my own ideas about "Quality" including Christopher Alexander's ineffable "Quality Without a Name".

I appreciated ZAMM/Pirsig/Phaedrus a lot more the second time but still felt like it was somewhat self-indulgent.  To the extent that I know of Pirsig's subsequent unfolding of a life (including his son's death) I felt more sympathetic to what I had judged as F*up.  It also helps that I went on to F* up my own life repeatedly and sometimes even recursively (yet I am still here, being self-indulgent and judgemental).

this was a nice obituary blog entry:

https://douglastoft.com/robert-pirsig-on-coming-to-terms-with-the-death-of-his-son/

Another couple of (re) reads we did together were:

    Moby Dick

    A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

On 8/19/21 1:46 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>  wrote:

Dave:

As usual, my [conscious] motives were not so high falutin’.  As usual I am trying to get others to think with me because I cannot think alone.  To the extent that I am a philosopher, it probably is because of that book and I am really interesting in the role it played in the lives of others.   For instance, one friend told me that his response was to go out and buy a motor cycle.  Also I am interested in what a second reading, 40 plus years would be like for each of you.  It was quite a revelation to me.    So, as general, you give my conscious mind too much credit.  I can’t speak for the unconscious one. 

Stephen,

If you mean, the original Greek figure, no I don’t.  He’s briefly described somewhere in zamm as a sophist, but that’s already more than I know. 

N

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam  <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Stephen Guerin

Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2021 3:26 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group  <mailto:friam at redfish.com> <friam at redfish.com>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "ZAMM"

Nick, 

do you know Phaedrus? 

On Wed, Aug 18, 2021, 7:46 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:

Colleagues,

I wonder if Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was a thing for any of you, and if you would be interested in pursuing a thread about it and, if so, if you would be willing to get it down off your shelf and flip through it, looking for the parts you loved and the parts you hated. 

N

Nick Thompson

ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> 

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

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