Metaphysics of Quality

i feel like the screen on Tetris, and i'm doing ok for now. All these strange shapes dropping into place and forming a picture of their own, utterly unique. The pieces are ideas, concepts and facts, all seemingly unconnected and seperate, but ultimately having to fit into some sort of picture. Of the universe, my world, of me and you and how we share this place and time ... all very ... abstract.

The problem itself is age old, you have science and you have art ... and as per current thinking you cannot have both. But they are inextricably linked? The human experience ... on opposing ends, the look at the same "object" and give a totally different interpretation ... the chair as it is ... or as we understand it to be?

Enter Mr Robert Pirsig, a man who i am more and more beliving to be a true "prophet" of our times. His stories are surreal, more dreamlike than most, but here is the curious thing, his "novels" are so close to his life as to be indistinguishable from history. There are several investigations that have been performed on the book Zen, and everything reported, sights sounds places and so on are completely true to life. This is noteworthy i think, in a world where fiction is preferred, to have someone diguise reality as fiction.

There's a terrible sense of URGENCY in his books, of sincerity that is very often misunderstood, for sarcasm perhaps. Reading Pirsig, i can't help but feel his burden for us all, he cares, and that care was called insanity at one point. Obviously he was ill, manic, but that same mania that he lived, he used as a basis for both his major works. And probably the LEAST "woe is me" attitude of any other writers who have spoken of their experience as mental inmates.

His battle cries are QUALITY and VALUE, 2 words we've most come to associate with "discount shopping" ... and yet what an unfortunate place for two such grand words? Almost makes it appear intentional ... a conspiracy against quality. It would be silly, if it were not for this great dilema before us, of the differences between here and there, subject and object, that pervade everything from our daily interactions to atomic sciences and beyond. The problem is that we picked a pair of glasses, which worked well as a magnifying glass, but now we cannot see further than our hands. But when you try point out that the glasses are faulty, you are shown the last 500 years worth of innovation as proof that the glasses are not faulty.

The second part of the problem is that the scientific world cannot even conceive of taking the glasses off, as they argue that will render them unable to continue the last 500 years worth of innovation. Of course, the many things that science cannot perceive with the glasses on is said to be worthless ... when clearly it is not.

There is a serious problem here, and one that to scientific reality in NOT solvable. However, scientific reality is bound within certain laws of the glasses. The glasses being more than anything, a means of communication ... seeing the secret of the universe is worthless unless you are able to logically describe it to others. At some point both science and art have to touch us, otherwise it's like watching mental masturbation. And when they are both touching us, they are touching each other, and that is when truth and beauty become one ... and it not only makes sense, but beautifully so.

Subjects, Objects, Data and Values
by Robert M Pirsig

Print it out ... it's hard to read, as it's a presentation more than a book, and the topics are quite deep. But it nails exactly where the problem lies, and alo i believe, how to fix it. Not like a roadmap, more like a compass really.

It's something i'm going to dig deeper into ... there's so much here. It's also sobering to contemplate exxactly how far behind our philosophy is. Einstein warned of this, where the science is not balanced by morals, or values. We have almost reached that ... where science has no relevance to us past "convenience" and gimmicks, and science itself has forgotten it's own value systems, in the days of GLOBAL WARMING, no CLIMATE CHANGE, no, CLIMATE DISRUPTIONS, no ... the real worlkd vs our silly ideas of it.

peace and love