Hi Mr. 8, or can I call you 1?
> Hi Steve, if I may: Yes, you may. > [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. Not I. I have said that the MOQ does not posit an extra-added ingredient above and beyond the patterns of value and the possibility for patterns to change that are collectively referred to as "I" about which it could possibly make any sense to ask, "do I have free will?" This question gets dissolved in the MOQ to the extent that it needs to be unasked or at least reformulated. This question at classically asked presupposes that there is such a thing as "I" that has important ontological status that transcends those patterns of value to which it also refers. The MOQ makes no such fundamental postulate. Instead, in MOQ terns we can reformulate the question where "I" could refer to the static patterns (small self in Zen terms) or the "I" could refer to the capacity for change, emptiness, the nothingness that is left when we subtract all the static patterns that is also the generator and sustainer and destroyer of those patterns (big Self in Zen terms). That's what Pirsig did with the question. We can identify with our current patterns of preferences and the extent to which we do so we are not free. We are a slave to our preferences. Rather we ARE our preferences. Or we can identify with the capacity to generate, sustain, or destroy existing patterns in favor of (we hope) new and better ones. To the extent we do we are free. Cultivating practices such as meditation that help us be open to change, which is the death and rebirth of small self as old patterns evolve into new patterns, is striving to be more free from the bondage of current value patterns that may be improved. If we succeed in improving them, we still ought not identify with the new and improved small self but rather with improvement itself. That is, if we want to be more free. Best, Steve 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
