[MD] Chairness

[Carl Thames]

Okay, I've read probably a thousand messages, and still have another thousand to go before I catch up completely, but I've got a nagging questions that's bugging me. I have read both ZAMM and Lila, and still have the question.




Specifically: I think I understand Pirsig's concept of quality. It's not a value judgement, it's a state of being. That thing you sit on is a chair. We know it's a chair because we've all gotten together and agreed that it's a chair. It's inherent quality is that of a chair. I has chair-ness. That is a static quality, as I understand it. It won't change. If we break it, it's still a chair, but it's a 'broken' chair. 




A human has the same quality, in that a human is a human. We've all gotten together and agreed that what we call human has human qualities. What we call human has inherent qualities that we identify as human. 




Then comes metaphysics. That, by definition, is beyond physics. Physics exists to describe or define those materail objects that exist in our reality. Meta is supposed to go beyond that. Okay. Here's the problem. No matter what we do to a chair, short of destroying it completely, it's still a chair. How do we get beyond that quality of chairness? How do we get beyond that quality of human-ness? Is it possible?




I guess what I'm really asking is whether or not the term "meta" logically applies here. Is it possible? Are we applying a value judgement to something basic? Granted, we can differentiate between a throne and a camp chair, like we can differentiate between Ghandi and a street thug, but aren't those simply value judgements that have nothing to do with their inate quality?




I'm trying to get beyond the linguistics here. Is THAT possible?