Geoff said:<br><br>&gt;Bo, I find how you said
that society and &gt;technology has advanced
interesting. <br>&gt;Vegetable-like Humans without the
technoloy &gt;currently available would not be able to
survive &gt;and in a way this is intefering with God's
(if &gt;you beleive in him/her/it) or Natures natural
&gt;path. It is in fact inhuman to keep a person &gt;alive
that has no possiblilty to recover.<br><br>Hi
Geoff.<br>My opinion is that it should be possible for the
individual to make up a last will to the effect of actively
putting an end to one's life (not merely as it is in this
country to ask for the treatment to stop), but for those
who refuse it should not become a rule.<br><br>
************<br><br>Hi Sara <br>You had so many good and subtle points
(a true philosopher)that I better answer in a
roundabout way. Yes, in LILA Pirsigs says that society has
no moral right to use capital punishment, but that's
not exactly the point here. <br><br>I agree that
nothing human is "natural" (except our biology) and can
hardly be a measure. The above (for Geoff) is my opinion
on the issue: if no written consent is available no
general "killing off", but in my opening piece I used
Netherlands' law (proposal?) as an example without really
knowing what it implies. Can you tell? Re. the MoQ slant
on it all is that this issue is the "social value"
at work. What (in Norway) is called "life's
testament" is an heroic act. I have done so myself and
regard it as my DUTY - a dominant social pattern!
<br><br>Finally you said: <br>&gt;Looking from a more cosmic
angle, I think God, &gt;or truth or beauty or Good or
universality or &gt;oneness or QUALITY (whatever you call it,
but &gt;dont be fooled, we all believe in something!)
is &gt;an all-encompassing wider notion than even
&gt;nature. <br><br>Yes, definitely, the very Q idea is that
all existence is based on "belief" (though not in
SOM's "subjective" sense)which is another word for
value-perception at distinct levels. Inorganic belief, Biological
belief ..etc. At the evolutionary top floor - Intellect
- the beliefs become rather complicated - yet
...<br><br>&gt;And though we are part of the universe, and have
&gt;glimpses of beauty, etc, we cannot ever 'know it &gt;all'
as we are just small, fallible, bits of a &gt;wider
'truth' which is allways there and outside &gt;of the
mortal or transient. <br><br>Er..well the notion of
truth is THE major Intellectual pattern - Q-intellect
that is, in the subject/object world one is forced to
alternate between subjective (beliefs) and objective
(knowledge) and both leads into blind alleys. <br><br>&gt;I
dont find it useful or meaningful to attribute &gt;a
'will' or a pre-defined 'way' to this notion &gt;of
God/QUALITY.<br>&gt;I dont see this universal concept as attributed
&gt;with answers for precise human quandries.<br><br>May I
add a very general and perhaps irrelevant note on
your God/Quality "aggregate" which is most apt IMO.
The gods of the myths, be it Greek or Norse or
whatever, were persons with wills of their own, but then
everything in their universe was WILL, they simply had no
notion of any objective realm beyond the subjects. This
is so horribly important in the understanding of the
Quality idea. My - um - belief is that even the mosaic
God was such an universal will, but that the emerging
intellect (which in Greece gave rise to the
truth/false=objective/subjective)resulted in the God/World split of
Christianity. This is
of such enormous proportions that a cultural history
could be written on it, but this is the limit that the
Yahoo demon allows. <br>Thanks for reading.<br>Bo