Talk:Robert M. Pirsig

IQ?

This an answer to the request for citation for Pirsig's IQ of 170 at age 9.

   UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
   COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
   MINNEAPOLIS  14
   
   INSTITUTE OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND WELFARE
   
   June 14,1961
   
   To Whom it May Concern:
   
   Subject: Indices of the Intellectual Capacity of Robert M. Pirsig
   
   Mr. Pirsig was a subject in one of the institute’s longiudinal research projects and was extensively evaluated as a
   preschool, elementary, secondary, college and adult on various measures of intellectual ability. A summary of these
   measures is presented below.  
   
   Childhood tests: Mr. Pirsig was administered seven individual intelligence tests between the ages of two and ten.
   He performed consistently at the 99 plus percentile during this period.
   
   His IQ on the Stanford Binet Form M administered in 1938 when he was nine and a half years old was 170, a level
   reached by about 2 chilldren in 100,000 at that age level.
   
   In 1949 he took the Miller's Analogy at the Univer. of Minn.. His raw score was 83 and his percentile standing for
   entering graduate students at the University of Minnesota was 96%tile.
   
   In 1961 he was administered a series of adult tests as part of e follow up study of intelligence. The General Aptitude
   Test Battery of the United Statee Employment Service was administered with the following results:
   
   General Intelligence .......99 %ile
   
   Verbal Ability .............98 %ile
   
   Numerical Ability ..........96 %ile
   
   Spacial Ability ............99 %ile
   
   
   John G. Hurst, PhD   Assistant Professor

This would have worked better as an image of a document than a hand composed item. Removed "(vandalized)" from above at the end of 1st ¶ Although unsigned and undated it has apparently been here and progressing to its current state since at least 4704. Lycurgus (talk) 13:57, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Recognition: which book?

From the Recognition section: "This book is brilliant beyond belief ... "

Question: Which book -- Zen, or Lila? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.4.95 (talk) 14:51, 23 November 2006

Answer: Zen —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.96.194.8 (talk) 17:18, 27 November 2006

Divorce: who initiated?

Article states: "Pirsig divorced Nancy in 1978 ..."

But a 2006 interview article states: " ... his wife had divorced him while he had been in hospital"

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1951397,00.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.4.95 (talk) 14:51, 23 November 2006

Answer: His wife intended divorce while he was in the hospital but later changed her mind. The 1978 divorce was initiated by Pirsig. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.96.194.8 (talk) 17:25, 27 November 2006

Phil Jackson

Does the comment that "NBA coach Phil Jackson cites Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as one of the major guiding forces in his life," really belong in an article on Pirsig? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zyryab (talk • contribs) 01:46, 27 December 2006

No. I don't know and don't care who Phil Jackson is. He has little or no relation to Pirsig.72.73.216.122 18:40, 1 February 2007 (UTC)MartyMcFly

Pirsig's books have been the guiding force in many, many people's lives, including my own. It would be good to get a reference for it's widespread cultural impact, although the stuff in the article about the MOQ Conference is very interesting as well. --DreamsReign (talk) 22:33, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Minnesota Zen Center

I read that Pirsig provided funding for the Minnesota Zen Center with royalties from ZatAoMM. I am pretty sure this is right, but don't have any references—Preceding unsigned comment added by Mujokan (talk • contribs) 13:39, 8 February 2007

It is mentioned in part three of his unedited Observer interview at

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1952013,00.html—Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.30.48.36 (talk) 15:30, 20 January 2008

Books

"Pirsig's work consists almost entirely of two books." Yes, and it goes onto mention Zen & The Art of Motorcyle Maintenance and Lila. But it says almost entirely? Does anyone know of anything else he has published, or should it be mended to fix the ambiguity? Paul 13:56, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

He has other works (eg), so perhaps it would suffice to change the section title?

Wnjr 16:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I can't see anyone having any problem with the new title Paul 11:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I seem to understand that Mr. Pirsig was employed as a technical writer during the first years he worked on ZAMM. would there be any knowledge about technical manuals he wrote? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.177.54.25 (talk) 23:51, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Age he entered college

Every day now Pirsig seems to get younger when he entered college. He was 15 then 14 and now 13. Can anyone cite the actual age he was? Also, the cited source says he had a stammer and had difficulty socializing (his parents were working at a University so I got the impression this meant he didn't have a social group his age) another good source detailing this a bit might be nice. ChildofMidnight (talk) 17:18, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

15 is correct. It should be changed back. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.30.48.181 (talk) 01:50, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Clarification

What is meant by "was taken off psycotherapy"? Off drugs? Off treatment? Also is there a way to add more citations for the article?ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:51, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Belated thank you for photo

Hello. I removed the "needs-photo=yes" from WikiProject Biography, but seems a year late. Thank you for the nice photo. -SusanLesch (talk) 03:58, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

The timeless way of building

I've deleted the text after the link to The Timeless Way of Building link because I think that the reasons why a link is included should be apparent from the link page, and that it shouldn't need text explaining why it's been included written after the link. If the link's inclusion needs to be motivated on the article page, perhaps it shouldn't be included. Totorotroll (talk) 18:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Background...

The article says, "Pirsig became greatly troubled by the existence of more than one workable hypothesis to explain a given phenomenon, and, indeed, that the number of hypotheses appeared unlimited. He could not find any way to reduce the number of hypotheses, and to him it seemed that the whole scientific endeavor was fundamentally problematic."

I don't mean this to be harsh: I don't know anything about Pirsig's thought at that time, but I must presume that this is a silly attribution to Pirsig. If there were not more than one possible hypothesis to explain a particular phenomenon, then there would not be any need for hypotheses. If there is only one possible explanation, then it is not a hypothesis (it is a logical necessity). Further, why would multiple hypotheses make it seem that "the whole scientific endeavor is fundamentally problematic"? Science is, partly, the process of vetting hypotheses. We all know that Pirsig is a brilliant guy, and the jump to this conclusion from what comes before it (in the text) is unworthy of a college freshman in a first-year philosophy course--I sincerely doubt that is the way his thinking went. I hope this section gets removed, or else changed by someone who has information on what he really thought. Again, apologies to whomever wrote this if my remarks are too pointed, but this is how it strikes me. Chafe66 (talk) 06:07, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Definitely is would be a mistake to delete it; it's critical to the book. You're free to disagree with Pirsig's arguments here, though keep in mind Pirsig is describing what was going on in Phaedrus's mind as he began his descent into madness. Phaedrus never proved there would be an infinite number of hypotheses; he merely noticed that he could not seem to stop inventing new ones, and, in a pessimistic and unbalanced mental state, worried they would become infinite. So it's as much about Phaedrus's weak mental state as about the philosophy Pirsig is presenting.

Lots of people think Pirsig's book is malarkey, and maybe you agree. All I'm saying is the point belongs in the article. It could be better written, of course. I'd recommend reading the book and then revising the text. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 06:16, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I have no interest here in agreeing or disagreeing w/Pirsig's ideas, nor do I think they are malarkey. That seems to me to be way off-topic for this article. (BTW I read Zen about 30 yrs ago, when my thinking was not particularly disciplined, but I loved it then.) Anyway, my point is to question whether he really thought the way this article says he did. The text of the article makes it sound as if P concluded that science is unsound because many hypotheses can be proposed for a given phenomenon, and I was incredulous that, even in his younger days, he would draw such an unthoughtful conclusion. If indeed he writes it that way in the book, then I stand corrected, which is just fine. Could you point to the passage in the book you're alluding to? Or if you have a quote handy, I'd love to see it. You may be right in the end, but if so I'm perplexed that he would be the thinker he became with that as an early foray. I suspect it was more nuanced than that, but again, I could well be wrong and have no stake in being right here. Chafe66 (talk) 06:39, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

This topic comes up repeatedly in ZAMM.

Chapter 9 has an outline of the classical scientific method, applied to motorcycle repair. This builds to Phaedrus' indictment of hypothesis formation.

The formation of hypotheses is the most mysterious of all the categories of the scientific method. Where they come from, no one knows. A person is sitting somewhere, minding his own business, and suddenly -- flash! -- he understands something he didn't understand before. p. 99 (Bantam paperback, 82nd printing 1985)

He then quotes Einstein saying that hypotheses come not from nature, but from man's intuition and imagination.

Phaedrus' break occurred when, as a result of laboratory experience, he became interested in hypotheses as entities in themselves. He noticed again and again in his lab work that what might seem to be the hardest part of scientific work, thinking up the hypotheses, was invariably the easiest. The act of formally writing everything down precisely and clearly seemed to suggest them. As he was testing hypothesis number one by experimental method a flood of other hypotheses would come to mind, and as he was testing these, some more would come to mind, and as he was testing these, still more came to mind unitl it became painfully evident that as he continued testing hypotheses and eliminating or confirming them their number did not decrease. It actually increased as he went along.

At first he found it amusing... (p. 99-100)

He goes on with this critique for several pages. It's one of the central arguments of the book, but it's clearly framed within the conceit that Phaedrus was both a genius and a madman -- the narrator finds him fascinating, and thinks Phaedrus was on to something, but also knows Phaedrus was off his rocker.

Chapter 11:

I talked about Phaedrus' lateral drift, which ended with entry into the discipline of philosophy. He saw philosophy as the highest echelon of the entire hierarchy of knowledge. Among philosophers this is so widely believed it's almost a platitude, but for him it's a revelation. He discovered that the science he once thought of as the whole world of knowledge is only a branch of philosophy, which is far broader and far more general. The questions he had asked about infinite hypotheses hadn't been of interest to science because they weren't scientific questions. Science cannot study scientific method without getting into a bootstrap problem that destroys the validity of the answers. (p 109)

In chapter 16, there is the episode where a dull and unimaginative student is unable to write 500 words on the topic of the United States, so Phaedrus suggests just writing about Bozeman. She can't do it, so he suggest just main street, and still she couldn't do it.

He was furious. You're just not looking," he said. A memory came back of his dismissal from the University for having too much to say. For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses. The more you look, the more you see. She wasn't really looking and somehow didn't understand this. p. 171

He overcomes her block by having her write about just the front of one building, starting with one brick.

Chapter 22:

Poincare proceeds to examine these cryptically. Which facts are you going to observe? [Poincare] asked. There are an infinity of them. There is no more chance that an unselective observation of facts will produce science than there is that a monkey at a typewriter will produce the Lord's Prayer.

The same is true of hypotheses. Which hypotheses? (p 237)

Chapter 24:

Traditional scientific method, unfortunately, has never gotten around to say exactly where to pick up more of these hypotheses... (p. 251)

Perhaps it shouldn't be so much that science is unsound, but rather limited. Philosophy is broad enough to explain where hypotheses come from, and how to create them, but science can't. And -- ultimately for Pirsig -- it is Quality that lets you choose hypotheses. I'd need to re-read the whole book to do an accurate characterization, but as I say, the issue should not be deleted. It comes up too many times in ZAMM to be left out. And then there's Lila... --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:48, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, good, relevant passages. But we need to stick to the point: what you're calling "the issue" is not specifically what I'm criticizing. What I said was, I'd be surprised if RP concluded that science was unsound (or let's use the article text--"fundamentally problematic") based on the fact that a large (or infinite, doesn't matter) number of hypotheses are consistent with some phenomenon. The passages you cite do not refute that. What you have provided are passages that show that he 1) was surprised by this multiplication of hypotheses 2) did not know what to do with them 3) determined that the question of multiple hypotheses is neither of interest nor accessible to scientific examination (naturally), 4) discovered that science is a branch of philosophy (well known to philosophers, but irrelevant to our point here) 5) realized that science does not say how to "pick up more of these hypotheses."

So, here is what I consider a reasonable attribution (based just on these passages, which I assume you have selected based on their special relevance): Pirsig/Phaedrus thought that science is not capable of examining or defending the sources of hypotheses, and further, that this is something of a mysterious element in the scientific process. He did not understand the relationship between hypothesis generation and the machinery of science. He cannot quite see how science comes about/proceeds, given this unarticulated relationship. One might even say that it is a lacuna in his/our understanding of the basis of science. And, I agree, he would say that science is "limited." (But this is banal--of course it is limited. Its subject is limited!) One might say, "he became acutely aware of the limitations of science, and this was something of a revelation to him." I could totally get behind that. And it *is* a profound revelation in the Age of Science, so to speak.

Here is what I consider not to be a reasonable attribution (based on these same particularly relevant passages): Pirsig/Phaedrus found science to be fundamentally problematic because there are many, many (perhaps an infinite number of) hypotheses consistent with some particular phenomenon.

I think it is a small disservice to RP's thought to make the simplistic conclusion implied by the text--sorry not trying to be insulting here, but clearly it is simplistic in light of these passages. I stand by my original feeling (again, could still be wrong if there is a passage in the book or elsewhere that establishes it); indeed, the passages you quote show that his thinking was, as I suspected, more nuanced than what (I think) is implied in the article. I still think the phrase in the article should be removed or reworked such that it represents better the subtleties of the author's thinking on the matter.

But this entire thread is such a minor point in the grand scheme that it hardly merits more debate. If I'm wrong, it hardly matters, likewise if I'm right. :) Chafe66 (talk) 06:05, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I have changed the wording of the text to be more in accord with the sentiments in the quoted passages from the above discussion thread. At least, this seems to me to capture better the subtlety on this point that his thinking deserves. 99.33.85.12 (talk) 23:33, 18 February 2012 (UTC)