[MF] What are people?

[ian glendinning]

Kevin, Matt (K)

Matt you said of Kevins point "absolutely right".
Is it not more a matter of being necessary but not sufficient.

Anything in Pirsigian terms is just a collection of relationships, so
that's correct enough. But surely a "person" is a special case of
that.

I think the sculpture photo Kevin provided is closer to the whole truth.
Some living independence (mental as well as physical) from the continuum.
Ian

On 1/2/06, Matt Kundert <pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 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
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
> http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
>
> _______________________________________________
> moq_focus mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_focus-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_focus-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_focus_archive/
>