USH'S MATRIX GAME 2006 FOURTH ASSIGNMENT (PHILOSOPHY)- 'The Door'

"The simple, and entirely subjective, value that I like things to be the way I want them."

Originally posted by General Zink
"Is it necessary for survival? I think so. The more advanced you are, the less threatened you will feel. A simple caveman would cower in fear of a saber-toothed cat, while it would take much more to scare, say, me."

"That may be helpful but it is not necessary. That implies it is the reason that it is done, but that does not correlate; much advancment has no function for survival, and the victor in a clash of societies is not always the most technologically developed, and in any case, you are only using the word in its technological sense. No mattter how culturally or morally developed the caveman is, the wild animal is a equal threat."

As for Azrael, Lo Qi will ask the same question he did of Berserker earlier.

"Purely selfish value?"

And will follow that up with

"And your continual statement of subjectivty is not particularly useful. it is your opinion I am after so effectively stating it is your opinion changles little. You are not really giving the underlying answer. Why do you like things that way? What is the reasoning behind it? Subjective does not mean random. There is still a justification."

"Is it selfish I don't think so because not all advancement deals with us alone. People advance and risk their lives for ideals despite harm to themselves. In the end though it gives us hope. Something to hold unto."

"Yes, purely selfish value, though I can't rationally justify why I like things in a certain way. I could probably point the finger at society, and the way I was brought up, but I'd rather not. My opinions and feelings on subjects are my own, and while it is possible and entirely fair to question their basis, there is simply no logically satisfactory answer I can give you for them."

"True," Heph says, arms still folded. "Well, perhaps mankind strives to build upon society because they want to feel that they can all have a shared purpose? Zion wants to end its war and obtain freedom."

"Zion is in a fight for survival and little else so it is not the best example. Societies look for survival first before all else, for reasons that I feel are obvious. When you talk of shared purpose, are you suggesting some higher meaning to it all?"

As for Azrael..

"So, you are saying that you desire things limke cultural and moral advancment, but cannot explain why? It just is so? If so... I feel you should consider these issues carefully. Understanding is difficult if you cannot understand yourself."

"Yes, possibly. Like becoming a world power, or ending disease and crime, and so on."

"That's not qhite what I was getting at, although I accept that ending disease might be seen as a higher goal. When I say 'higher', I mean something beyond the mundane. Something either philosophically or even spirtiually desirable, beyond material consequence."

"Like going to Heaven?" Sirin asks.

"That would certainly qualify as spiritual, and it is an underlying reason some would give."

"I would like to go to Heaven. I place where nothing bad ever happens to me and I can be free from all troubles."

"That is a desire rather than a belief,. Besides, this direct connection with 'Heaven' is misleading as that is a matter for an individual, not a society. But as I say, I am looking for the underlying reasons and justifications."

"The jsutification is that it gives us hope that there is somethingbetter than what we have now."

"Well, the intellectual and spiritual development is goal in itself. Usually people accept the answers given to them by society, and it gives them reasons. Though some never cease to seek."

"I see," says Lo Qi.

There are still one or two people I don't really have much information from, before we move on.

"I understand as a desire, one without a direct cause. There is nothing else to understand. It's just my instinctive reaction, but it is precisely because I cannot justify it that I am an advocate of libertarianism."

"Everything can be understood. To refuse to try and do that is a conscious decision, not an inevitable brick wall."

This is the Philosophy Path, after all. if you don't want to think and consider things, this isn't the place to be.

I need justification for opinions. "Because it is" won't do, and I believe lack of foundation was the downfall of some last time as well.

"Would a caste system be evidence of an underlying reason? Evidence of a religion that a society strictly follows, all together?" Klez asks. "Karma, even? Or would that just simply be examples of advanced society, rather than what the point is?"

"It's more of a symptomn. We are talking of matters of belief and purpose. I simply ask what you find laudable about the advancment of a society, beyond the merely practical."

"Hmm..."

Klez coughs while he tries to think of a proper response.

"How about the collection of knowledge? Mankind is ever eager to explain the world around them, so society hunts relentlessly for the answers that they seek until they have obtained them. Much as we do."