[MF] What are people?

[Matt Kundert]

Kevin said:
I think the depth of a person's connectedness with the people, things and 
events in their life is the measure of their own quality.  I would think 
that for any particular person, thing or event there is an infinite number 
of relationships and contexts for relationships.  The relationships that we 
end up with are not simply a matter of our choosing.  That perspective, to 
me, is aligned with Subject/Object Metaphysics.  I would say that 
relationships are more a matter of the giving and the taking, the flow, that 
is the relationship itself.

If I had to establish a bottom line on this I would say that relationships 
are the measure of all things and that apart from their relationships, 
people don't exist.

Matt:
I think that's absolutely right.  1)  There is no "thing" apart from its 
relationships (if a thing did have an inner essence, that would be the 
essentialism of SOM).  2)  Any particular "thing" can have an infinite 
number of relationships, and therefore change in an infinite number of ways 
(since a "thing" changes as its relationships change).  3)  Many of our 
relationships are not of our own choosing (call it Heidegger's "thrownness," 
Sartre's "facticity," or Pirsig's train of "analogues upon analogues upon 
analogues").  4)  The idea that we can _simply choose_ whatever relationship 
we want is a SOMic idea (the idea of an inner, though empty, self that we 
choose whatever we want to fill up is what leads to emotivism).  5)  A 
person's "connectedness" is the measure of their own quality of life; as 
Pirsig says, "care" is the flip-side of Quality.

Matt

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