Friends of James Willis

Friends of James Willis – Having finished my latest re-read of Lila, I’m back on to James’ “Friends in Low Places“. Compelling stuff. I didn’t pick it up until 1 am, and could hardly put it down. Needless to say I overslept this morning !

[Post Summary: Dr James Willis readings:
Friends in Low Places
– 
Paradox of Progress
– 
Scylla and Charybdis
James Willis on Psybertron]

Another Einstein Gem

Thanks to Rick Valence on the MOQ Discuss board for this one. Einstein’s more philosophical thoughts never cease to amaze me, and this one is particularly apt to my current agenda.
Albert Einstein [Quote]
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
[Unquote] Source ?

The Guide Book to ZMM

The Guide Book to ZMM – Paul has just loaned me his copy of the Guide to ZMM by DiSanto and Steele. (comes as a two book deal with ZMM from Amazon). In recent weeks I’ve independently compiled a detailed Pirsig Timeline, including both his life and the duration of the ZMM and LILA trips. I notice the Guide includes a chronology right at the start – which seems to tie in perfectly with times and locations of the ZMM trip itself. The guide also hangs the key Chautauqua points off the chronology (as I’ve done with my timeline too), but unlike mine, it doesn’t seem to link to or expand on his biographical details. All good grist to my mill though. (Though complete, note that the uploaded version of the timeline is a bit naff graphically and it’s links are incomplete – I’m working on a simpler version.)

Will The Real Chairman Please Stand Up

Will The Real Chairman Please Stand Up ? Another one for Pirsig research purposes, Richard McKeon, allegedly the “Chairman” in ZAMM. Interestingly the Chicago University pages show up many interesting Pirsig links.

This one includes the [Quote] From your point of view, they’re insane, and from theirs your insane. Let’s just admit it, we’re all crazy. Remember, all arguments against this are defensive, they’re just reason defending itself in its own terms. Even if we lose the rational discussion, it only proves the analogy to fighting. [Unquote] An interesting re-statement of the ubiquitous Catch-22.

Ambiguity is Good

Ambiguity is Good – Dave Weinberger in conversation with Esther Dyson [via Gurteen] about his speech at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conreference [Notes Here]. [Quote] Making something explicit is most often an act of violence. Something that’s implicit is inevitably contexual. We do violence to it when we lose that richness.[Unquote]. Dave is explaining why “social software” is important in preserving content and richness of true knowledge communication.

It fits my manifesto to a tee. Ambiguity is “good” because the real world is full of paradox and uncertainty, and rarely well represented by simply binary choices. A knowledge model which is capable of recognising this is clearly preferable to one supported by rationally-scientific, politically-correct mis-information, even though binary black-and-white choices seem to make for easier decision making.

More on Pirsig Timelines

More on Pirsig Timelines – Interesting pages from the English (Anglistik und Americanistik) Dept at Vienna University, which hosts an “Easy Rider Anthology” (complete with obligatory soundtrack – betcha can’t guess which tune) with a good analysis of ZAMM, including some detective work on dates. [See earlier timeline post.]

Recent (post ZAMM 1974 / post Lila 1991) output from Pirsig includes ….

SODV – Subjects, Objects, Data and Values – delivered to the Einstein meets Magritte conference in Belgium in 1995 (17:00 – 18:00, Plenary session 11, Thursday, June 1, 1995) . Paper maintained and annotated by Doug Renselle on the Quantonics site. Excellent paper much analysed by MOQites and the Lila Sqaud, which focuses on the connection between the Quantum world views and the Metaphysics of Quality. Worth a read [as I noted much earlier here]. Note also that Heylighen was one of the coordinators, the conference was at the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels (VUB). Illya Prigogine also one of the contributors.

Annotations to Lila’s Child compiled by Dan Glover from the Lila Squad dicussion board hosted on MOQ Focus since 1997. Compilation published this year including extensive comment and annotation from Pirsig miself. Pirsig’s comments are interesting but large parts of the correpondence suffer from the over-zealous disciples interpretion, and disagreement about interpretion, of the sacred scripture syndrome. One or two pragmatic views in there worth digging for. I certainly hold with the static & dynamic levels view, thought I’m less fixated with precisley how many levels since every layer is three layers ad-infinitum anyway. The emergence and evolution between the layers in the key IMHO. I wonder if the original four layers have some relationship to quantum processing as has been suggested for the four DNA bases in Quantum Genetics ? [and here]

Pirsig’s ZMM in Environmental Engineering & Science Newsletter

Vol 36 No.3 Presidents Letter September 2001

[QUOTE]
The historical bifurcation of technical and liberal education may result in technological “advances” that are not always well-informed or in the long-term, best interest of society. Pirsig in the neo-classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, points to a possible cause, “What’s wrong with technology is that it’s not connected in any real way with matters of the spirit and of the heart. And so it does blind, ugly things quite by accident and gets hated for that.”

Historically we have “trained” engineers in very narrow vocationally oriented disciplines ready to be “productive” on the job as soon as they graduate. Indeed, Woodrow Wilson relegated the “skilful servant of society along mechanical lines” to the non-ruling class. “We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class to forgo the privilege of a liberal education.”

Fortunately, history is not destiny and Pirsig provides a ray of hope. “The way to resolve the conflict is to break down the barriers of dualistic thought that prevent a real understanding of what technology is not an exploitation of nature, but a fusion of nature and the human spirit into a new kind of creation that transcends both.”
[UNQUOTE]

Domenico Grasso, President AEE&S, Sept 2001

Fortunately, history is not destiny
and Pirsig provides a ray of hope.

(Another engineer sees Pirsig as a ray of hope. See my plea about the “engineering” skills needed to get a planeload of anthropologists airborne in my review of Dawkins’ Devil’s Chaplain too.)