From: ant.mcwatt@ntlworld.com
Date: Tue Jul 06 2004 - 02:30:04 BST
-CORRECTION for previous e-mail sent to Platt:
Platt stated July 5th: for instance, where did Pirsig say . . . [that] science dismisses "Quality of Life" issues?
Ant McWatt comments:
This is implied in the following section from LILA (Chapter 22):
‘Phædrus had no "cause" that he could explain to anybody. His cause was the QUALITY OF his LIFE, which could not be framed in the "objective" language
of the intellectuals and therefore in their eyes was not a cause at all.
He knew that intellectually contrived technological devices had increased
in number and complexity, but he didn't think the ability to enjoy these
devices had increased in proportion. He didn't think you could say with
certainty that people are any happier than they were during the Victorian
era. This "pursuit of happiness" seemed to have become like the pursuit of
some scientifically created, mechanical rabbit that moves ahead at whatever
speed it is pursued. If you ever did catch it for a few moments it had a
peculiar synthetic, technological taste that made the whole pursuit seem
senseless.’
‘Everyone seemed to be guided by an "objective," "scientific" view of life
that told each person that his essential self is his evolved material body.’
And, in LILA (Chapter 21) where it’s stated:
‘Science, the intellectual pattern that has been appointed to take over society, has a defect in it. The defect is that subject-object science has no provision for morals. Subject-object science is only concerned with facts. Morals have no objective reality. You can look through a microscope or telescope or oscilloscope for the rest of your life and you will never find a single moral...
[Apparently] the world is a completely purposeless, valueless place. There is no point in anything. Nothing is right and nothing is wrong. Everything just functions, like machinery. There is nothing morally wrong with being lazy, nothing morally wrong with lying, with theft, with suicide, with murder, with genocide. There is nothing morally wrong because there are no morals, just functions.’
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