Category: Document Study
Date: 27 Jul 2008 10:34pm
Title: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
(mainly random notes and refutations)
An infinite number of hypothesis, means truth is ever-changing.
One can narrow the range of possible truth down to as small a realm as desired, with a finite number of hypothesis, of the form,
"Either X is A or B." and "Either X is B or C." such that X is clearly B. This limits the range of truth to B, which is clearly between A and C, a finite range. (If unclear, the point of distinction is poorly chosen.) Repeat this in any number of required dimensions, and truth is thereby confined within finite boundaries, of whatever size of smallness or exactness desired.
QUALITY
My definition: Quality is a measure of how well something performs the thing it is intended to perform.
Ergo, quality is not a primary attribute, it is an attribute of the attributes of a thing, a meta-attribute.
i.e. you cannot define whether something has quality until you define the task or thing it is intended to perform.
"If everyone knows what quality is, why is there such a disagreement about it?"
Simply stated, because people have different intents and aims.
Given the same object, book, etc, we have different tasks to perform, learn, etc, and so an object may have different measures of quality to different people.
This does not exclude the existence of universal measures of quality. A paper which communicates its idea intelligibly is always better than which does not (hello mr. fuller).
This does mean that universal measures of quality are not the only measures, and all attempts to measure quality universally will fail.
subjective or objective?
Quality must be primarily subjective, since it is dependant upon the intent of the one measuring it.
For quality to be objective, the intent of the object must also be objective, or obvious to any observer.
Undefined
Something which is undefined is indistinguishable from anything else which is undefined. Hence it is inevitable that "undefined Quality" should look the same as the "unnameable Tao".
The ocean of the unknown metaphor also comes to mind here. The vast ocean of unknown, undefined things looks very homogeneous compared to the solid land of that which is known.
Quality as source of everything
Placing Quality as the source of everything is like the first mover proof of god. Everything is moved by something else, until you get to the first mover, which is God. It is like a proof by contradiction, but where the contradiction is accepted as the true side instead of the false side.
Either everything is moved by something else, or one or more things are not moved by other things. Theists take these as dialectic counterpoints. They see that everything is moved by something else, but they believe that something is not moved by anything else. From these two viewpoints they produce the synthesis and call it God, and consider that a great dialectic step forward. Atheists, on the other hand, see that everything is moved by something else, and they also believe it. There is no conflict, and no need for a synthesis.
They are different viewpoints, based on different assumptions, but which is hypocritical? There is no conflict in the second. But in the first, we see that everything is moved by something else, but we believe something different. Our conclusion contradicts our premise. There is no logic here at all. It is mere sophistry.
A non-hypocritcal view of God must realize that God does not condescend to be proven by man. He does not submit to scientific proof like labratory rat. He speaks to man individually, and each person can experience God for himself. But there is no proof of God. Why not? God has given the reason himself. Man must learn to live by faith.
Enlightenment
The Taoists were probably right when they refused to name the Tao. Anything which you refuse to define does not deserve a name either. The vastness of the undefined, the unknown, is like vastness of the sea compared the solidity of the land. But we are only aware of that which we define. As Phaedrus became more and more aware of Quality, he gave it more and more definition, even while he was dogmatically refusing to define it.
What is enlightenment then? Can we become aware of the vast unknown in the same way we are aware of the known? Probably not in exactly the same way, but there must be some sort of awareness of it, since we know it exists. Quality. Harmony. Enlightenment. Tao. They are all essentially the same thing, but what sort of thing? Maybe it is an acceptance of the unknown, of our own inability to know. Enlightenment doesn't change the world, it only changes the self. The world will go on its merry way with or without our perception of Quality, and the result is not always harmonious or good. Lack of Quality is just as much a first mover as Quality. It could be that enlightenment is the ability to accept the other, the other self, the other point of view, as equally valid as the self.
Perhaps. But never dogmatically so. Acceptance does not imply agreement. Valid does not imply true. Our inability to know all things does not imply that we cannot know some things. Phaedrus' insanity was the result of his inability to see any other point of view. When he achieved enlightenment and understood the undefined Quality, he rejected everything else. The rejection produced the insanity. Only his connection to Chris pulled him back. But others (Buddha, et al.) have achieved enlightenment without rejecting reality. This hints to me that Phaedrus path was a false one, and therefore his conclusions are doubtful as well.