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Franz von Rabenau
Johnston
English-1B
February 11, 2013
The Ghost Concept in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
In a playful dialogue with his friends and son, Pirsig draws a parallel between two
apparently conflicting ideas, ghosts, emotional thought processes, and science, rational thought
processes. His overview pulls aside the veil separating the romantic from the classic, focusing
instead on the origin of these disparate belief systems, the mind. To fully understand Pirsig’s
concept of ghosts, the reader must accept the principle that imagination creates reality and belief
in an idea gives it life.
Pirsig says “The world has no existence whatsoever outside the human imagination” (42).
On the surface, this idea is easy enough to grasp. Experience and understanding are formed
through human invention limited by the imagination of the perceiver. The cultural norms and
belief systems of the individual shape perception of reality, defining it as only containing the
elements accepted within the belief system. As belief systems change, the understanding of what
is real mutates as well, incorporating new ideas and broadening the imagination and perception
of the individual.
Rational thought and the scientific method are also constructs of human invention.
Everything within the scientific belief system is based on questioning the perception of what is
real, testing it against what can be proven and either validating or discarding the results. Pirsig
points out, the laws of nature, the laws of logic, even mathematics are human inventions (42).
These truths, examined with science’s inscrutable eye, fall short in his reality test. Pirsig uses
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accepted scientific thought as his analytic knife: Anything lacking energy or matter does not
exist. Ghosts do not exist because they lack energy or matter. This concept is easy enough to
grasp until it is carried further: The laws of nature or mathematics have no substance, no energy
and therefore do not exist. They are ghosts.
For Pirsig, scientific laws exist only in the mind and are no realer than ghosts, and yet
these laws are fixtures of the scientific belief system. He is quite clear when illustrating how
belief systems are formed, calling it “mass hypnosis in the very orthodox form known as
education” (41). Every culture has a traditional form of education whether it is oral tradition, as
in the case of Native Americans, or a collection of methods like reading, writing and speaking in
today’s University system. Native Americans, according to Pirsig, lacked science in their
tradition allowing them to perceive ghosts as real (39). Science may dismiss Native American
belief in ghosts as superstition but primitive ideas have been taught as science. Aristotle,
esteemed philosopher and compiler of Western philosophy, believed the earth was flat which
modern science teaches to be wrong. Shortly after Aristotle’s death, Eratosthenes correctly
predicted the earth was round. Why would a culture cling to falsehood when the truth was
available?
Greek culture had access to the knowledge and the ability to understand the world was
round, but the spread of Aristotle’s belief through education shaped the imagination of his
culture and succeeding cultures for hundreds of years. Every culture at different times has
exchanged one idea for another, but their belief system and their ability to perceive reality are
limited by their imagination. Perception-shaping ideas may become conventional wisdom or
common sense and yet, their acceptance can still vary greatly among cultures. Belief in
apparitions, the eloquence of a poet, the dogma of a religion, or Newton’s Law of Gravity share
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one important feature in Pirsig’s mind: Without energy or matter, each exists only in the mind.
Ideas illuminate the world but they are merely part of a clamoring chorus of “ghosts”, entities
devoid of substance in the absence of belief.
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Works Cited
Pirsig, Robert M. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. New York: William Morrow &
Company, Inc, 1974. Print.