In 1974, Robert Pirsag published the best seller “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” and in 1991 wrote a follow-on book called “Lila:  An inquiry into Morals.”

I read Lila a few years ago first after hearing about it on the Lex Fridman podcast with Robert Breedlove.

I tried reading Zen and Art  a few times but only recently finished it after getting inspired from  this Art of Manliness podcast.  It left me unsatisfied and led me to re-read Lila.

The technique of both stories is to use a story or journey and interlace with philosophy.  The story in Zen is more relatable as its a father-son journey but the more clear philosophy of Lila has had me thinking for days.

The Lila story is about an older man sailing his boat and he picks up a troubled woman so the premise is a bit more “r-rated” and probably less relatable.

Few things that really struck me:

Insanity is in the context of culture.  

What one culture deems as insane another may be mandated to be part of the culture.

In the book, Lila treated a doll as if it was a real baby and was very protective of the doll as if it was a baby..  She was ”a culture of one” where that culture worshiped the doll. It was insane..    It wouldn’t be insane if the culture formed a religion around worshiping a doll as if it’s a baby.

In insane asylums – people just sit and think (or stare out a window).  Pirsig sees this as a meditative state where the “insane” person can either align to the current culture or at least pretend to; if they can’t do either then they can’t break out of the insanity.

The author himself had gone insane before either book was written.  He details some in Art and Zen.  The author became obsessed with the question of “what is quality” or “what is good” and became so obsessed that he couldn’t function and checked into a mental institution which he didn’t leave until he got electric shock treatments.  

Metaphysics of Quality

The essence of the Lila book is this concept of the metaphysics of quality or metaphysics of value.

First there are two major forms:

Dynamic quality – This is undefinable but it is the force that creates new values, objects, processes  (e.g. new ideas, music, ways of thinking, etc.)  Its closest to god like.

Static quality – These are the processes or things that currently exist and there are 4 levels with each emerging from the one below it:

Level 1 – inorganic

Level 2 – Biological

Level 3 – Social

Level 4 – Intellectual

Dynamic quality may lead to a new invention or way of thinking (or even new organism) and these items need to find a static latch to be maintained. 

So a dynamic quality creates and it lives by latching into a static quality framework.

As a human we experience dynamic quality when we experience newness such as a new insight or new experience.  The desire for freedom is the desire to experience dynamic quality.

So biological quality emerges from material quality.  Social from biological, intellectual from social.

We can rank the value (or quality) of a static pattern of value  by…

1.  Does it help enable those levels above it.  So a biological quality that leads (or protects) social and intellectual quality is better than one that doesn’t
2. Does it enable dynamic quality?  A static quality that restricts dynamic quality presumably is worse than one that does not.
3. All the static qualities can be defined as “patterns of value”  

He also goes on to say that values or quality is a better way to describe reality than subject-object.

He uses an example where a man sits on a hot stove and burns himself and shouts an oath.

This shouting is caused by the low-value experience.  The biological reaction (e.g. burnt bum) is a low value biological pattern.  So the value (of not being burned) causes the reality.

Or put another way… the pattern where a man shouts curses words and burns his bum values sitting on a hot stove.  Don’t say A cause B but rather B values precondition A.

He likes this construct because it works across all levels of quality..  That is, it works for social patterns and inorganic patterns.

Some quotes from Lila that I liked:

“Values are more empirical than subject object”

“The tests of truth are logical consistency, agreement with experience, and economy of explanation”

““Freedom” doesn’t mean anything.  Freedom’s just an escape from something negative. The real reason its so hallowed is that when people talk about it they mean dynamic quality.”

 “But with the metaphysics of quality, the empirical experience is not an experience of “objects.”  It’s an experience of value patterns produced by a number of sources not just inorganic patterns.”

“Sanity is not the truth. Sanity is conformity to what is socially expected. Truth is sometimes in conformity.”

“Cities have their own values separate from man” 

“If objects are the ultimate reality then there’s only one true intellectual construction of things: that which corresponds to the objective world. But if truth is defined as a high-quality set of intellectual value patterns, then insanity can be defined as just a low-quality set of intellectual value patterns, and you get a whole different picture of it.”