What goes on between the ears in the mind is not objective reality... It is wholly subjective. I know you think you gain an understanding of reality through science, but you only gain an understanding of some of the parts of the physical world... There is more than meets the physical eye.
Over the years, I started twice and stopped short both times. I know it's critically acclaimed, but it is one of the few books I picked up that I didn't finish. I will likely give it a go again this summer. Why? What is Pirsig's take on the matter?
Pirsig deals with a reality that is behind our perceived subject/object duality. He calls it "Quality". I suppose the Taoist's would call it "the mother of the ten thousand things". It is the combination of both a physical reality, and that reality's qualitative solution to some human purpose. For example, a good hammer. It is a physical reality, AND it's far better than a rock, for pounding nails by hand. It is because of that book that I agreed with the poster who thought to put Aristotle near the top of the list of most influential humans. Edit: Pirsig's "Quality" is capitalized, iirc.
Yes, sometimes there is, so for a full view of reality the physical tools of a cognitive therapist simply aren't enough... Look, let's make this simple. Computers can now be programmed to beat the very best human chess players, right? So just program a computer with all the understanding we have of cognitive issues and then send people with cognitive issues to that see that computer for diagnosis and treatment, right? Or is there something about being human that is more than just a computer style programming? Does a cognitive therapist with lots of experience and understanding beat the computer given the same task of helping someone with a cognitive problem? Replicants aren't human...
Good call. It's also a fascinating look at how a man with an IQ of 170 can destroy himself on the indescribable/unanswerable. He should have gone into the easy stuff, math and science. ; )
Real science and real scientists never ask the why questions... They ask how... Science never knows ultimate answers to why questions, they just go through a series of discovering deeper and deeper levels of how... Asking why is what makes us humans, and why science alone is not as great as science plus art, plus the humanities, plus philosophy, etc. As a generalization, card carrying atheists are terrified of the why questions, as they know their trusted science will fall flat and be reduced into a guessing game...