[MD] Metaphysics

[Mary]

[Ham]
While Robert Pirsig's 'Metaphysics of Quality' represents a novel departure
from materialism, its moral system is aphoristically defined as 'some things
are better than others' ... its metaphysics is theorized as a hierarchy of
values that is incomprehensible to all but its most ardent followers ...
"labels destroy the concept," which effectively rules out a fundamental or
primary Source for the reality he is describing. 
 
I maintain that no philosophy that identifies the Primary Source as a
relational attribute, such as Goodness, Beauty, Love, Energy, Being, Mind,
or Value, can be considered to transcend existence.  Such hypotheses are not
metaphysics but poetic euphemisms for the differentiated world of
experience.  A true metaphysics, in my opinion, is a cogent concept that
explains the origin and purpose of existence as it relates to ultimate
Reality.

Greetings to all in this thread,

If you require a primary source or an ultimate reality, then the MoQ is not
for you.  That's not what it's about.  Thinking in terms of absolutes and
ultimate causes is the basis for every Western religion, the entire value
set of the Social Level, and the answer every time we ask, "Whose fault was
that?".  Primary sources and ultimate realities are SOM staples.  SOM cannot
exist without "origins", "primaries", and "ultimates".  If your world
consists of subjects and objects, me and you, us and them, or in here and
out there, then everything _has_ to be reducible to a primary source (which,
by the way, will never be me ;) ).

The MoQ says (if you want to put it in these kind of terms) that the
"ultimate reality" is not fixed in space or time, has no predefined goal in
mind, and cannot even definitively say _in advance_ that any one thing is
"better" than any other.  There is no "ultimate reality" that is always and
forever True.  Quality makes it up as it goes along (or discovers it, or
acknowledges it, or notices it).  It is all relative, depends on your point
of view, and what level your point of view arises from.  That's the beauty
of it.  Things achieve the status of a static latch in a level because they
are _valued_ by that level.  They may be the best thing since sliced bread
for that level, but the worst thing ever for all the others - meanwhile,
_all_ the levels coexist within us and are all operating simultaneously.
How cool is that?  Personally, I prefer it to worshiping an ultimate
reality.

Mary