Book: 20220711 to 20221123, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert M. Pirsig
20220712 - CHAPTER 1 - Minneapolis
Is motorcycle better than car for tour? How about a car with glass sunroof? What if the car can drive itself? We only have that much attention. If we can pay less attention to driving, then we can enjoy more about the view outside.
In modern society, we get way too much "new" stuff. ---"The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz"
We need to keep life style simple, so have time to go deep.
Can a doctor repair lawn mower? ---"The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck"
Normally, our brain is trained in one or a few specific domain areas. Everything is connected, so we can extend our skill to strange areas. But many people refuse to believe that.
Technology is a challenge to people. Not everyone can handle it. The lucky thing is that most of the technology is sealed in a black box, so we don't need to understand all details. With more and more devices electrified and computized, there is no way for normal people to understand the details. Is that good?
We don't need to understand everything, but it's good to be curious about technology. Curiousity means open mind.
20220719 - CHAPTER 2 - Minnesota
Physical discomfort is important only when the mood is wrong. p29Why a doctor cannot handle law mower? The attitude is wrong. In most of the cases, we care too much about how, but care too less about why? But our brain is built for pattern and connection. Without the why (pattern and connection), we cannot hard memorize the how.
However, things are getting more and more complicated. For example, big data analysis neural networks. Soon, we will not be able to understand many important things, and AI will be in charge.
Elon Musk said, the universe is the answer, but what is the question? Yes, that's correct, but what if the universe is too complicated that Sapiens can't understand it? What a tragedy!
Maybe we should not worry about this, as 99.99% of the problems are caused by wrong attitude.
20220722 - CHAPTER 3 - North Dakota
The author made a mistake: our mind has matter and energy, together with our emotion and memory.Is gravity theory ghost? Kind of yes. This reminds me of the thought-experiment "brain in a vat". We do live in vat, which is our skull. What we see and hear is just our imagination.
Our imagination is quite consistent with the real world, but we have no clue how close it is. Based on this, all physics theories could be wrong. Like the movie Matrix, the rule could be defined by computer, and the computer may just control the input and output of our vat/skull.
20220727 - CHAPTER 4 - South Dakota
I read a sentence or two, wait for him to come up with his usual barrage of questions, answer them, then read another sentence or two. p49This is amazing! Yes, it's much better when kids can paticipate!
Why people have feeling with machine but not tools? Machine is complex, and not too complex that we cannot understand it. Tool like wrench is just too simple. If we can understand it too easily or it is too hard to understand it, then we will not have feeling with it. Why?
If something is complex but we still understand it, we start to imagine that it's like a person with its own personalities. Then we start to treat it equally, and it start to attract us. So, more and more smart tools (controlled by computers), especially when it is controlled by AI, will be too complex to us. Then we feel awe about them. Is that the relationship between AI and human in the future?
20220730 - CHAPTER 5 - Into Montana
Why some people don't like technology? They have different perception of the world. They rely on their feeling to understand the external world, and so more likely to be good at art.But we don't have to choose between "the first principle" and our internal feeling. There is a source of our feeling, which is something we have to go through meditation to get it: "They should develop a mind which does not abide in anything", or "enlightenment comes when we do not attach to anything" from "The Diamond Sutra"
Am I attached to distractions, desires and temptations? Surely I am, at the moment.
20220802 - CHAPTER 6 - Miles City, Montana
Classic vs Romantic
I don't these two have to be separated and opposite. What we need is to go deep to the root. The first principle.
Zen is the ultimate form of the mixture of mechanism and art. It's what we get from the first principle.
Zen is the ultimate form of the mixture of mechanism and art. It's what we get from the first principle.
20220807 - CHAPTER 7 - Central Montana
We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world. p85Then we split the sand into different parts following infinite way.
The motorcycle maintenance and the journey is like our careers and our lives. Sometimes we get exciting stuff, but most of the time it's quite boring. We need to see more from our awareness, not just let our conscious keep wandering around.
20220811 - CHAPTER 8 - Wyoming
As long as the attack is upon effects only (rather than causes), no change is possible. p104Everyone needs this habit. Focus on the root cause to change the final result.
How to improve the children's academic study result?
1. Why we need to improve their academic study score? Really?
2. Compound effect?
20220815 - CHAPTER 9 - Western Montana
You think of as many hypotheses as you can, then you design experiments to test them to see which are true and which are false. p111Verify your perception and ideas!
20220819 - CHAPTER 10 - Bozeman, Saturday
There is no logical path to these laws; only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them.........there is no theoretical bridge between phenomena and their theoretical principles. p117The number of hypotheses grows faster than experimental method can handle, then it is clear that all hypotheses can never be tested. p118
Can AI solves this problem? AI can efficiently verify those hypotheses, similar to the local neural network tree from Alpha Go. If it can, then we are going to get real knowledge explosion soon. Can that extend our lifespan?
There is only one anwser, but there are infinite hypotheses to explain it. How to find the right question? Can our intuition lead to the right question? Why we haven't hit this wall? When are we going to hit this wall?
We don't try to verify hypotheses randomly chosen. We split big question into many small ones. For each small question, it's much easier to find the right hypotheses to check.
20220826 - CHAPTER 11 - Bozeman, Sunday
To knowledge system, Philosophy decides broadness, Maths decides the depth, Meditation/Zen decides the height.Hume is right. What Kant said about "priori" is actually a model in our mind. The model is the result of big data training, the result of analysis of huge mount of sense data. This is approved by modern neuroscience and psychology in the past dozens of years.
20220830 - CHAPTER 12 - Into Idaho
Zen thinks the whole world is one piece. This is actually Quantum mechanics.All our perceptions are illusions, like the world in Matrix. The motorcycle is the advance version of Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave". The world is the projection/interpretation in our mind.
Can we stay in concentrate state and then understand the world?
From the other point of view, mind wandering seems like the source of our creativity. Or, is it?
You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. p155
20220830 - CHAPTER 13 - Idaho
There are always two side of an organization: the material one and the meaningful one. Church, university, company, government, family, community, club, restaurant, etc. When we misconceive one side with the other side, problem appears. A family may have four members and a property, but the real part is the relationship among them.
20220907 - CHAPTER 14 - Western Oregon
When we calm down and check the details carefully, we can understand engineering. But how can we understand art?If we don't understand a problem, then there is only one way to solve it. If we understand it, then, there are many ways to solve it. How to live a good life?
It needs real courage to expand our edge of perception. 500 years ago, Columbus did the great exploration, knowing he might fall from the edge of the ocean. Is there any similar action after that? Nuclear power and computer give us more unexpected strength, but they don't need the inventors/explorers risk their lives. I think AI is the next one. We have no idea what is going to happen when AI reach certain level.
20220912 - CHAPTER 15 - Eastern Oregon
What is quality? My understanding: the properties which help gene to get better chance to survive. This include some properties which make people enjoy their lives, so they more desire to live and to reproduce.20220913 - CHAPTER 16 - Into California
One grain of sand contains three thousand worlds.I think most of people completely misunderstood it. What it means is that there is infinite information in a grain of sand.
Where does inspiration come from? Sometimes we don't know what to say and what to do, but when inspiration strike us, we got huge aload of stuff to say and to do.
Anything we can measure, we can improve it. So, degreeless and gradeless education system is not a good idea. But to life-long education, maybe it's not that bad. The purpose of adult learning is for the knowledge itself anyway.
Can we use this strategy a bit in high school or even in primary school? Maybe just encourage the students focus more on long term goal? Score is not that important. Score is just the measurement of our learning.
20220920 - CHAPTER 17 - California
To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here's where things grow. However, it's the top that defines the sides. There is no side without top. p208They are both very important.
Out illusion brings in incorrect quality judge, such as optical illusion. This proves that "quality" is associated with gene, which helps us to understand that quality is something helps us to survive. It's foundation is our gene and brain, which is forged by our past experience(data training).
The difference beetween ego-climbing and selfless climbing? The former doesn't live in the moment, and let subcouncious in charge.
20220921 - CHAPTER 18 - Pacific Coast
Quality is the shortcut of analysis. Just like big data analysis, our judgement of quality comes from all our past experiences. We don't need to go through everything to make a judgement. Actually, if we pay attention to details, we would lose the capability of evaluate the whole stuff.
Shortcut saves us a lot of brain power. It also creates illusions.
Quality is about feeling. It comes from our subconscious, just like art. Rationality is about details, which come from our conscious. Can we unify them?
Da Vinci is a real genius.
20220927 - CHAPTER 19
Is Quality subjective or objective? In my opinion, this is like the question: "Is pyramid subjective or objective?"
Normally we think it's objective, but in a donkey's eyes, a pyramid is just millions of rocks piled up. One rock is not a pyramid, add another one is still not a pyramid. But if we keep adding more rocks properly, in the end will get it. The key here is "properly". "Properly" is the "quality". It's not just one piece or one event needs to be done properly, it needs all relevant pieces and all revelent events are done properly.
Big data(AI) is similar. We keep feed the right data in, properly, in the end we get AI, such as FSD and Alpha Zero.
Quality created subjects and objects? Billions of years ago, there is only objects. When atoms and molecules are associated together properly, we get bacterias, which eventually evolved to human. That means, quality didn't create objects.
But Quality does created subjects, and it's NOT part of objects. Quality is patterns and interactions.
20220928 - CHAPTER 20
Awareness of quality? Maybe it's the randomness which fits natural selection.The one fits best can survive. That's how we get our vision and awareness.
Instead of "quality", I prefer to call it "Tao" or "Order". It's far beyond our awareness, so we cannot define it. Maybe only ASI can crack it.
Can Tao leads to the emerge of self-awareness of AI?
20221007 - CHAPTER 21
Religon, Art, Science. I guess that philosophy belongs to religon.
What is the problem of science? With the help of big data analysis, it's possible for science to crack art.
Can AGI crack philosophy?
20221008 - CHAPTER 22
Science is based on axioms and postulates, but axioms and postulates themselves could be wrong. For example, the discovery of the Theory of Relativity breaks the postulate of "Parallel".
Axioms are the result of big data training (which make it advantageous and convenient). Gene evolution means we will get more accurate result from big data training.
There is no object facts that we can perceive. We can only touch a small amount of perceptions which is filtered by millions of years of gene evolvement, then build the world in our mind, and sum up some rules from it.
20221008 - CHAPTER 23
From moutain to ocean. :-)
20221024 - CHAPTER 24
Care, love, curiosity. Yes, we need motivation, not just observe and analyze objectively.
There are infinite facts. We need motivation to find the rules and pattens effectively.
Then how about meditation? Do we need love to pay attention? Of course.
Love comes from our gene, it gives us motivation to act.
Stuckness is part of our lives. Death is the final stuckness. Can I accept it peacefully?
20221025 - CHAPTER 25
Personal transcendence of conflicts: flow status? Different people must have different level of flow status regarding same problem. Perfection doesn't exist. Flow is not really status, but moving to some direction as quick as possible.
"Style" means the too many choices in modern society. They bring us more harm than benefit, as they distracted our attention on useless minor issues.
Quality is the real useful features of goods/services/personalities/etc.
Physical quietness, mental quietness, value quietness. p298
Value quietness is like stay in mental quietness all the time during daily activities.
Time is a key factor of almost everything. We need to keep our mind at rest to break through. But our mind is not used to be at rest, which is a huge challenge. There is no other way to solve the problem.
物我两忘: the absence of subject-object duality. p300
The social values are right only if the individual values are right. p301
I don't agree with this one. Individual interest often conflicts with social interest.
20221103 - CHAPTER 26
Maybe we don't need to tell other people our opinion, when we don't agree with them. Instead, we should just ask them questions, so they have opportunities to elaborate their thoughts.
How to solve complicated problem?
External factors:
1. Information/knowledge
2. Materials and tools
3. Positive attitude/motivation
4. Finance/money
5. Time/patience
Internal factors:
1. Correct perception of external world (value trap)
2. Ego
If you have a high evaluation of yourself then your ability to recognize new facts is weakened. p318
If an investment advisor or banker or fund manager look pretty confident, that's a bad sign.
3. Anxiety
I believe that anxiety is based on laziness. Too lazy to let consciousness beat subconsciousness.
4. Boredom
Is it possible that always keep "beginner's mind"? Maybe just admit that I could be wrong. Everything I know could be wrong.
Is meditation mainly about boredom? Does it teach us how to accept boredom? Will we find something in extreme boring situation?
"science grows by its mu answers more than by its yes or no answers." p325
There are trillions of questions. We need to find the right ones. The answer is relatively easy to get.
Is it same to our lives? What's the meaning of our lives? What do we want? Maybe these are all wrong questions.
20221109 - CHAPTER 27
20221109 - CHAPTER 28
Excellent work conflicts with creativity. If you failed too less, then you are not trying hard enough.
This is the difference between objectivity and quality. Quality let us expand our understanding of the world. Quality leads to discovery and invention.
Quality is the railway, and human is the train. However, the world is infinitely large. The railway is not fixed. We may find better one if we put up with a certian extent of insanity. It's same to any individual.
20221116 - CHAPTER 29
What's the relationship between attention and quality? Attention is the first step, quality is the result.
No need to criticize/judge other people.It's better just ask them questions. There must be something wrong based on our perception and knowedge, but they didn't realize that. That's why we can ask them questions.
To put it simply, if I don't agree with somebody about something, I should ask questions instead of sharing my thoughts.
GORGIAS worth reading. Helps to understand how Socrates ask questions. Question after question, eventually we will reach the bottom, which is what "The First Principle" requires to do.
Quality/good/beauty/etc. is relative. The virtue 500 years ago may not be treated as virtue today, the beautiful secene in our eyes may not be that marvelous in dog's eyes. It's based on our gene, and also be affected by meme. Small feet, long neck, thin waist......are not attractive today to most of people.
So, Socrate and Plato are wrong about "Good".
The "horseness" Plato mentioned is a subjective concept. It's our perception of horse. Different people has different definition of "horseness".
I feel sorry for Socrate, Plato and Aristotle. They don't know Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and other philosophers. I also feel sorry for Mr. Pirsig, he died at April, 2017, just before the AlphaGo came out at September, 2017. Or else, it would be easy for him to understand quality.
20221122 - CHAPTER 30
The hero of this book "Phaedrus" seems get lost while searching for the meaning of life. There is no meaning, so he went insane.
I agree that Socrates, Plato and Aristotle underestimated the difficulty of discovering truth. Our IQ is quite limited, and the world is very complicated and it is a relative concept. These ancient philosophers have no idea about Molecular Biology, "the Selfish Gene", and AlphaGo(AI). AlphaGo can reach top quality, but the procedure is too complicated for our brain to understand the exact details.
So, we have to leave more and more stuff to AI. They can do much better job than us. For example, autonomous driving.
20221123 - CHAPTER 31
From neuroscience point of view, Phaedrus's brain got damage, and lost most of his emotion/desire. That leads to insanity.
Did Phaedrus use phylosiphy to cure insanity, or phylosiphy caused insanity? Can medicine help to prevent madness?
20221123 - CHAPTER 32
The world is always full of drawbacks and problems. It's still great, as it has so much wonderful things and people.
20221123 - EPILOGUE - San Francisco
Everyone is the representation of quality.
Our body is the tool of our mind.
Money is not part of the quality, after it pass some threshold.
To get better quality, we need to control our mind/attention.
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