Hi Steve, if I may: On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 9:43 AM, Steven Peterson <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Craig, > > Please demonstrate your amazing ability to believe things by force of > will by willing yourself to believe that you didn't just write the > post below. You don't want to? So what? Just will yourself to want to. > > Best, > Steve On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 2:39 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > > But surely the test we need is not one where YOU decide what I choose to > believe, but where I do. > There are so many past examples to choose from, but the most striking one > was when I served on a jury and chose what to believe after hearing > evidence from both sides. > If you want a repeat demonstration, you can give me pro & con evidence > for some proposition & I will choose whether I believe it or its > contradictory. > Of course, beliefs aren't the only thing involved in free will. > You could simply ask me to raise either my right or left arm, > I would choose which to raise. > Craig
[Mark] While all has been said about Free-will, it is important to place the discussion in MoQ format. The collection of patterns is not different from the codependent arising that Buddha subscribes to. Now, Buddha gets around this concerning free-will, but I will not go into detail here. More importantly, you are pointing to a "you" or "I" which is not well defined. What is the "I" that has free-will? We can certainly point to an "I", but it gets messy when we put it to words. I have no doubt that I exist beyond the meat package robot. It is simply my personal awareness that nobody else has. So in a world described by patterns of value, and some entity which propels such things, we leave out an important detail. That is, what supports both DQ and sq? In my world, everything has free will, that's right, everything, whether it be a single atom, or a conglomerate. This is indeed consistent with Pirsig, by the way. Does this reduce such a notion to an equal level of everything being determined (since "everything" can be worked both ways)? This can be worked around by pointing to the interface of one thing and another. Something I have presented as Interactive Quality, or IQ. IQ represents the interface, which actually does not physically exist, but does exist, of course. We have the improbable notion of willing a thought, as you correctly point out. From a materialistic point of view, thought must have a basis in the physical, a physical that we cannot control mentally. Thoughts arise out of what has been termed in this forum as the pre-intellectual (a notion that I find more misleading than useful). The question therefore arises, where does the "I's" free will actually come in then, if it is not through thought? There are many answers, and I like the one of "attitude" serving such a purpose. While our thoughts may be kind of mechanic, our attitude towards them provides a critical Free interpretation of what is going on. We can have exactly the same thought on two different days, but they can affect us completely differently. Attitude can be learned (but, is such need for learning somewhat mechanical? I will leave that for another time). As with another current thread, it is possible to escape from the determined. Such are the teachings of Zen and other relevant philosophies. The question is, therefore, do you want to escape? Or would you prefer to use simple logic to lock yourself in? Cheers, Mark > 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 > 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
