Hi Sara and Geoff and all.<br>Thanks for the
response. My messages aren't much of a dialogue rather like
a Moses down from the mountain so I understand that
Sara had trouble in finding anything to say, but would
you two forgive me if I try to finish my piece before
turning to special aspects of it? There will as usual be
some hefty jumping forth and back between the issue at
hand and philosophical observations. <br> <br>The
first instalment ended with my claim that our present
outlook becomes absurd when things are pursued to the
end. Absurdity usually occurs when the model one
thinks along doesn't match observations (ref. the Greek
physics and its famous absurdities/paradoxes) This
indicate that we have an outdated model of reality (aka
metaphysics), but let me return to the present situation.
Officially we - the Western world - holds up one dominating
value called "human rights" which for all practical
purposes means the individual's right at the expense of
the collective. Consequently the latter have become
something negative - if not outright evil and when the
question of a "death pill" comes up we alternate between
seeing it as the ultimate human right and a return of
the nazi "final solution". <br> In LILA Pirsig
despairs over ..a metaphysical argument has to be resolved
at the end of each sentence.. (when in the
borderland between two metaphysics) so there is no way to
tell if "euthanasia" is good or bad in SOM-land seen
from MOQ-land. I will have to return the basic and
present the Quality Metaphysics (as I see it) and go on
from there,<br> Obviously, values clash, but we have
no way of discerning between them, primarily because
values aren't objective and "dissectable", but also
because they operate in the same dimension; if one comes
another must go. But all this is changed by the new
reality model called "Metaphysics of Quality" (MOQ)
presented by Robert M. Pirsig. At the basic level because
value is existence itself, but also because there are
four static levels of which operate simultaneously and
interdependently. From bottom upwards: Inorganic, Biological,
Social and Intellectual. <br> Pirsig's account of how
the present valueless world view which he calls
"subject/object-metaphysics" (SOM) developed is too long to be repeated here,
but it started with the early Greek philosophers and
have continued off and on until the present time when
the Western world is so completely immersed in it
that it is "it all". Much criticism (of Pirsig's work)
is a denial of there being any SOM, but back to the
particular. <br>(the robot found my message too long so a
third instalment will follow immediately)<br>Bo