Zen and the Art of Particle Physics.

In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig says, "...ghosts and spirits are quite as real as atoms, particles, photons and quants...the laws of physics and science ..these are ghosts..."

What he wants to do is develop an all-encompassing notion which allows for the transcendence of the dualities which have split humanity and being. Art and Science, Romantic and Classic, Induction and Deduction, Subjective and Objective, all ways of dividing the world analytically and breaking syntheses.

The Big Bang may have been an event from which perfect symmetry exploded leading to our reality through a series of symmetry breaks. The original connections of the primordial elements may still exist in the elements which make up ourselves and our world.

There may be a unity underlying the apparant diversity we face. Notions from mathematics and science like Non Locality, Entanglement, Fields, Probability Waves, Uncertainty, Complementarity, Exclusion, Fractals, Emergence, Quarks, Topologies, Groups and Spaces all point to the reality of an interconnected, holistic universe.

Philosophical structures like Platonic Forms, Baconian Idols, Kantian Categories, Sartrean Existence, Rousseauean General Will, Hegelean Spirit, and Smith's Invisible Hand, like Pirsig's Quality/Value speak of a transcendence pointing to a similar unity of being.

Lee

Zen and Harmonious Universe

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was concerned with what I would term "Local Quality". Quality in the way we look at work, play, and other life issues was the focus. When Pirsig talked of classic versus romantic perspective he emphasized a worldview which embraced the metaphysics of quality.

Harmonious Universe takes the notion of quality to the level of complex systems which determine "Global" quality. From the perspective of quantum mechanics and complexity science, Harmonious Universe shows how the universal qualities of beauty, truth and justice can emerge from a citizenry which embraces the interconnedtedness which is manifest in all being.

At the core of all being are the waves, fields and particles which interact in multidimensional space to become what we see, feel and are. The atoms of which all are made are composed of wavy electrons, connected quarks, and a sea of virtual entities. They are all part of a universal symphony which began playing at creation and will continue as long as we can imagine.

Lee