Hello everyone On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 2:20 PM, John Carl <[email protected]> wrote: > Ho Dan, > > On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 9:43 PM, Dan Glover <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> Hi John >> >> Good of you to take the time. >> >> > My Pleasure, I assure you. > > >> >JohN >> > You don't have to choose to care. But you can. It's an optional choice. >> >> Dan: >> But John, that isn't what you said: >> >> John: >> Me! >> I noticed that freewill is Quality. >> I've been saying it for some time now. >> Has anybody noticed? >> Ron noticed. >> Does anybody care? >> You have to choose... >> to care. >> > > Ah, I see the confusion. What I was trying to get across, is that choice is > a pre-condition for caring. You have to choose, in order to have "caring" > is another way of putting it. But choice is always so fundamental to make > belief in choice an option. So you don't have to care, if you don't want > to. > > Thus, "choosing" is a pre-condition for caring, but choosing to care is > optional.
Hi John I think the confusion is thinking that having a choice is freedom. Conventionally, that is so. But we are not talking conventionally here. We are using the framework of the MOQ. To have a choice is follow intellectual patterns of value and when we are dealing with static quality, we are without choice. > >> >> Dan comments: >> To the extent that we follow static quality, there is no choice. By >> following Dynamic Quality, we are free. > > > > Yes, but following DQ is like the ancients who listened to the wind. It's > what people call "spritual leading" Dan, because there is no fixed, static > thing or idea to focus upon, just a vague collection of directions conveyed > by various fingers. Any formulation of god, GOD or good or Good is confined > to some static meaning and only by shirking such distractions can one be > intellectually free. In fact, isn't one reason we value DQ this - that it > sets us free. Dan: Yes that seems right. I dislike the term "spiritual leading" but I understand what you're saying. And if you understand, then you can see where I am coming from. > > Freedom IS Quality and Quality is Freedom of choice. You can't have > betterness if there is no choice. This seems so obvious to me that if I was > a half-ass philosopher I'd put together some sort of ontological proof, but > I ain't, so I won't. Dan: If that is so, there is no choice but what is better. I think the term Quality might be misleading. If you're using it as a synonym for Dynamic Quality, then to the extent we follow "it" we are free. But they way you are using the term it seems you are defining choice, in which case you are following static quality. And though it may seem as if there is a choice, there isn't. It is predetermined by the static choices you make. > > > > >> This does not tranlate into >> freewill is Quality, however. Choosing is a static quality decision >> bound up within social and intellectual (cultural) constraints. Having >> to choose does not translate into free will. >> >> > > Well according to my formulation, if Freewill is Quality, it is equally with > Quality, indefinable. You can't pin what it means and how it's defined - is > it in the objective reality of the world? Or is it just an idea "only in > your head"? Can't say, really. It transcends subjects and objects. In > fact, even fundamental particles reveal the truth that choice is more > fundamental than substance! > > So "translating into free will" is tricky. Dan: Quality can be defined... we define it all the time. And in the defining we lose the freedom of Dynamic Quality. When we think there is a choice, there isn't. We've effectively ruled out freedom by defining the choices we have. You say, wait... I have a choice to care or not to care. But that doesn't translate into freedom. You've set up parameters, preconditions upon which to act. By following Dynamic Quality there are no preconditions. We are free. > > > John: >> > You have to choose caring, if you want life, but many people don't >> > particulary care about life, and they don't choose to care, nor do they >> > choose to believe in a cosmos where choice is possible. That's their >> choice >> > and they can't be argued out of it because it's a choice deeper than >> > intellect. >> >> Dan: >> You mean it is a social choice? I am not sure I follow. >> > > > Well the only thing deeper than the head, is the heart. And that's what I > meant by a choice deeper than intellect. Oft the intellect will work > overtime in the service of the heart - the felt emotional needs of the > individual. Intellect usually just works to fulfill these and thus an > intellectual argument constructed to follow a heart that hated the idea of > personal responsibility might very well stumble upon the hope found in the > argument that "there is no such thing as free will." And then guided by > this over-weening need for a conclusion, it would make selective use of the > available facts (which it refuses to see as choices in observation) and from > these facts conclude that freewill is impossible - thus any consequences of > choice are meaningless and there is no guilt. Dan: Freedom isn't impossible. It just can't be defined in a static quality way. Once we start intellectualizing, freedom is lost. That is what I see the MOQ telling us. Take the hot stove example... there is no intellectual choice made getting off the stove. That comes later, along with the oaths and pain. And an intellectually oriented person will have the hardest time understanding that. A more mystically oriented person just acts. >John: > That's the heart leading the mind astray, if you ask me. But hey, it's the > mind's fault anyway because it's the minds job to figure this stuff out. > > Can you follow *that* Dan? You're a good man if you can. Damn confusing, I > can be. Dan: Well, I follow yet disagree. > > > > Dan: >> Okay. I can go along with this. Both free will and determinism are >> seen as correct within the MOQ. >> >> > > Whew! What a relief. Dan: This is true. Dan Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
