Quasi

About the Book

Quasi presents in simple terms a metaphysical concept which describes the origin and nature of our universe, and does so in a manner that should be comprehensible to almost any person of average intelligence.

Today most scholars and intellectuals in the various arenas of philosophy discourage any search for an ultimate reality that dwells beyond our universe and accounts for its existence.

But that doesn’t fly. No one, no skeptic or cynic of any age or time has ever escaped nor will ever escape the sense of something that dwells without or within our universe and is the source of its existence. English philosopher/scientist Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) puts it this way: The scientist knows that in its ultimate nature nothing can be known. But sense experience implies something beyond itself. It is impossible to get rid of the conviction of an Actuality lying beyond appearances, an ultimate cause that must remain unknown.

Quasi offers no excuse for its off-center approach. Several possible occasions suggest why. One such occasion: a person belatedly realizes he is in a one-way discussion with a firm-jawed pragmatist or utilitarian who turns beet red at any mention of the word “metaphysics.” They cannot imagine that science and metaphysics can co-exist on the same planet. So a lighthearted manner and quick glance at one’s wristwatch justifies a swift departure. To argue is useless, even though the simple facts is that the Quasian concept conforms to criteria shared by both science and common sense. According to scientist Thomas H. Huxley (1826-95): Science is nothing but trained and organized common sense… and its methods differ from those of common sense only so far as the skilled swordsman’s cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club.

It is Huxley’s definition that prompts Quasi’s choice of a caveman to illustrate the material nature of its metaphysical concept. It is from matter, and matter alone, that ultimate truth emerges.

The narrative format of Quasi involves a not always fictional cordial/hostile relationship between author Adam Dell and his friend Dane Weiss. Dane has agreed to act as devil’s advocate during Adam’s promotion of the “Quasian concept.”

The interplay between Adam and Dane also involves Emma, Dane’s barmaid lover. Dane’s jealousy is a factor that creates a series of often juvenile confrontations with Adam. Such scenes are deliberate distractions intended to render irrelevant the sniffs of those critics who will scorn the book’s “faux intellectualism.”

Quasi, in its evaluation of religion, philosophy, and science simply “goes for the gut,” meaning, it focuses on the final conclusion of any particular search for knowledge—not the ingenuity of the methodology or system used.

The caveman nods vigorously in defense of materialism. Pain hurts, water is wet, rocks are hard, birds fly, moles burrow, up is above, down is below—on and on. He agrees that matter is the sovereign of our world, and is enthroned by the very thing that challenges it: idealism, an abstraction, nothing more than the product of the material brain’s activity. The child denies the parent.

Quasi starts there. But as starkly realistic as Quasi begins, it cannot shield the reader from the utter strangeness (or “goofiness” described by one reader) that unavoidably accompanies its journey to a logical conclusion.

The following is an example of the strangeness referred to:

“Remember Boldfenger?” I asked Dane.
“Who could forget? What about him?”
“He got higher than a kite on our Quasian aphorism, ‘If it’s true that all things are possible, it is also true that all things are inevitable.’ Do you agree with that saying?”
“Maybe. Wh