On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 10:40 AM, david buchanan <dmbucha...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > 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.
Steve: Causality is of course a form of preference or a species of value as is _everything in the MOQ_. I get that. I really really do. This doesn't mean we need to throw out the word and are making use of the word in a radically different way when that others won't understand when, say, you use the word beCAUSE above. I suspect that your pointing out of obvious here as though I disagreed is just a smokescreen to avoid responding to the part you snipped in explaining what I meant by "meaningless." Steve previously: To explain once again why in the Metaphysics of Quality this dilemma doesn't come up, note that it is just one more version of the question, is the Quality in the subject or the object? (as all of Pirsig's Platypi are). The dilemma of free will versus determinism is to wonder to what extent the locus of control for human action exists internally in the subject or is imposed externally by objects (or other subjects). Note also that Pirsig's reformulation of the issue in MOQ terms does not answer this question at all (nor should it since it is an SOM based question). Pirsig says that to the extent we follow DQ we are free and to the extent we follow static patterns we are not, but the original question is to know to exactly what extent that is! We already knew that the subject's choices are constrained by reality (so this is simply not the powerful insight that dmb thinks it is). But how far do these constraints go? The MOQ says, mu. It denies that the world is a collection of subjects and objects, and so denies the underlying premise of the original question. dmb: > > 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. Steve: Note that nothing in the above sounds anything like the traditional notion of free will, so it seems quite reasonable to say that the MOQ denies this old notion along with determinism. Why not follow Pirsig in dropping all talk of will and instead just talk about freedom re-described in terms of DQ as you did in the above? Why keep insisting that I am wrong in thinking that the MOQ denies free will when it is clear even from what you wrote above that the ancient notion of "free will" is no where to be found in the MOQ as it is based on the SOM premise that the MOQ rejects? 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
