Craig asked Steve:
But how can the term be meaningless if it refers to a real experience?
Steve replied:
What I meant by that claim is that as Pirsig said in Lila, "In the Metaphysics
of Quality this dilemma doesn't come up." Likewise, as Pirsig says in LC, if
"...the MOQ can argue that free will exists at all levels..." then the term is
rendered meaningless for the function of distinguishing human beings from
animals as the term is traditionally used to do.
dmb says:
Yes, of course the MOQ breaks from traditional view of free will and
determinism but that not at all the same as saying the terms are meaningless.
It's just that the MOQ gives them a different meaning. He's saying that the
ability to respond to DQ goes all the way down to the inorganic level and this
freedom expands and evolves at each higher level. As the MOQ paints it, reality
is both static and Dynamic so that there is a constant tension between order
and freedom. That's why the MOQ can argue that free will exists at all levels.
Of course, by the time we get to the fourth level we get intellectual moral
codes that protect the freedom of thought, freedom of speech and religion and
the range of human freedom is so much wider than the behavior of atoms that
they can hardly be compared but that's only because there are billions of years
of evolution between the two.
Again - and I really don't understand why you can't see this - the dilemma is
avoided by REPLACING causality with preferences. If this seems like a small
thing to you, then you're not appreciating the implications of this move. In
one fell swoop all of reality is converted from a giant indifferent machine
into a sensitive, responsive form of life. Not just life, he says, but
EVERYTHING is an ethical activity. And it is in our activities that real
freedom and restraint are empirically known - as opposed to the overblown
metaphysical versions, which are derived from the actual experience.
Another reason why we shouldn't construe the MOQ's constraints as a new kind of
determining factor (to replace cause and effect as the determining factor) can
be seen in the way Pirsig corrects the 20th century intellectuals who let the
biological forces loose again. Remember Margaret Mead and all that? He says
that the intellectuals attacked the Victorian restraints on sexuality, not
realizing that those social level restraints were actually a form of liberation
from the laws of the jungle. The same thing goes for the static order all the
way up and down. You're not really free to write a song or a philosophy book
unless and until you practice, practice, practice. Paradoxically, it takes a
lot of discipline to be free. Freedom grows out of order and that's why we need
both static and Dynamic Quality.
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