The Idea of Knowledge

      It can be said for certain that we have gotten to the philosophical component of the novel. In all honesty, it is almost too philosophical for me. It is forcing me to doubt a lot of what I thought I knew which makes me really uncomfortable. I am not saying that Pirsig's words are making me think that my entire life has been a lie, but it is forcing me to be in a position where I am reconsidering much of what I have "learned". I put learned in quotation marks because one of the things this novel has forced me to think about is whether or not there is any actual learning in life.
     At one point in the chapter the narrator comments that "there is no real progress". I connect this quote to the idea that the more you learn the less you know. It seems that every time some one proves something or "learn" something new a bit of what was thought to be true before is disproved. It seems that scientific findings only pushes us further back while simultaneously pushing us forward. None of what we believe to be true is actually concrete because it has the ability to be disproved with the next scientific experiment. Even the theories that are so commonly taught in science classes fail to be concrete. I do not think that many people realize that even evolution is not something that is known for certain. It is called the THEORY of evolution and I think many forget that. Though it is intriguing that none of our knowledge is certain, it is quite unsettling at the same time. Actually, it is past unsettling, it is almost kind of scary to think that we actually know close to nothing. It is scary to think that we believe we know so much when we actually do not know anything.
     I am kind of conflicted in my views though. While I believe that science only disproves our knowledge I think that to be successful you do need to push boundaries. Here, I am measuring success in the things you know and how much "knowledge" you have. Obviously knowledge is not a quantifiable measurement, but for the sake of the argument it will be. Pirsig says through the narrator that "the harder you think... the slower you go." I found this to be highly connected to the class lecture we had this week. I think that the faster you go in knowledge the slower you really go is because the institutions do not want you to go that fast. The institutions are holding us back because their restraint makes us much easier to control. The only people to have really progressed in life are those that have gone past the restrictions of society. They go slower within the confines of society but as soon as they break through the barriers that society puts up as a control, they are able to progress at an alarming rate.

- Talia Akerman