With the conclusion of another two chapters in this novel I
must admit that I am still unsure of my feelings towards it. While reading the
novel I get terribly frustrated by the continual and repetitive rambling of the
narrator and his obsession with the confusing concepts of abstract thought. It
troubles me how simple the plot of the novel is and the novel is simple because
nothing can really happen with half of the novel spent in the narrators mind.
However, despite my frustration, I truly enjoy the beautiful writing of Pirsig
and find myself reading passages out loud because they are so eloquently
written. In fact the beauty of the writing almost makes me forget about how
repetitive it is and makes me interested in abstract concepts that usually
bother me.
This
week’s abstract concept is one that was introduced to us early in the year with
our first real lecture, the idea that “the more you know, the more realize you
don’t know”. In the novel it was introduced to us with Phedarus’ frustration
and admiration for the process of forming a hypothesis. These feelings came
from the fact that forming one hypothesis will, in some strange way, always
lead to a multitude of other hypotheses that are reveled once the other has
been discovered. This realization leads to the more disturbing realization that
with the cultivation of human knowledge and experience we, as a species, have
reached a point where the knowledge we have has brought about terribly abstract
questions that we are not equipped to answer. In other words, with what we have
come to know we have come across things that we may never know.
This
brings about the idea of the “high country of the mind”, a place where such
questions are explored by the select few who choose to explore them, a select
few including individuals like Phaedrus and our narrator. These individuals
realize that there is “no real profit to be made” from embracing abstract
questions that the current scientific method is incapable of answering, however
they explore it anyway because they find some sort of beauty in it. I think
that may be what bothers me the most about this novel, the numerous abstract concepts
that the narrator chooses to explore when it does not seem as though he is
reaching any answer.
I found your post this week was able to open my mind in a way that I had not previously be able to. It allowed me to see certain things that I have not previously seen in this novel by looking at what is going on through your eyes. You may not have known it but there is something profound that you were able to derivate from this week’s reading. That is the disgust from knowing that you are unable to know. That is something that is truly unique that I have not thought of until this very moment as I am writing this response. There is nothing harder than knowing that you will be unable to know.
ReplyDeleteNow I understand that this is latching on from this week’s reading and may be lost in philosophical thought but for me this just clicked. There is not an answer. While Pirsig may be searching for one and that is the point of this novel I believe there won’t be an answer to this thought because there truly is not one. Why we exist? Why you were chosen to be where you are? Are we really alive? I think that these are question that we must simply ponder and realize that we know that we cannot know. Science will not allow us with the scientific method and the formation of hypotheses will only lead to more questions like them. Philosophy attempts to answer but that is all, it attempts and that is its purpose. Certain things cannot be answered; this is a truth that needs to be accepted. You must learn to know that you cannot know. Thanks Monica.