dmb said to Steve: ...You're still missing the point. Causality is NOT a form of preference or a species of value. I'm saying that such a statement is logically impossible. Given the meaning of the terms "causality" and "preference", that statement is nonsense. It literally makes no sense.
Steve replied: "Logically impossible"? Yet Pirsig says, "In the Metaphysics of Quality "causation" is a metaphysical term that can be replaced by "value". ... dmb says: Yes, logically impossible. As I keep saying, that's why causation is REPLACED by value, why value is used to describe the relationship between A and B INSTEAD of causality. Causality is dropped because it is logically incompatible with the choice-making that preferences imply. These two descriptions are opposed to each and mutually exclusive. They are only interchangeable only in the sense that they both describe the same event, but Pirsig's alternative description drops causality precisely because causality leads to determinism. What you've done is turn value into a determining factor. You've converted it back into causality by another name, which leads you to a very slightly modified version of determinism wherein values are the determining causes. What would be the point of this replacement if it only leads right back to determinism? Steve continued: ...A cause amounts to a stable pattern of preference. They are interchangeable. That's why Pirsig goes on to use the word "cause," "caused," "because," and "causes" all through Lila without bothering to replace them with the word "value" and without fear of being misunderstood. No one generally takes the word "cause" to mean "each event unfolds mechanically and in a law-like way." When they want to talk about such a phenomenon they qualify the word "cause" by referring to mechanistic cause-and-effect relationships or some such. dmb says: No one takes the word "cause" to mean events unfold in a mechanical law-like way? Right, no one except me, Pirsig, James, Siegfried, the Stanford Encyclopedia and the dictionary. Also, you cannot possibly believe that the word "because" is necessarily related to the metaphysical word "causality". If I say, for example, that I can't accept your point of view BECAUSE it is predicated on a logically impossible use of the terms, this has nothing to do with causality. The word "because" is about reasons and logical relations, not causal relations. Reason and logic may or may not convince and persuade but there is no maybe about causal relations, wherein A causes B every single time without exception. The idea that Pirsig accepts the metaphysics of causality BECAUSE he uses the word "because" might just be the dumbest thing you've ever said. Again, you are not using the operative terms properly and so your position is just impossible nonsense. Steve said to dmb: But what does your whole rant about "cause" have to do with this debate? Neither one of us subscribes to the notion that human beings or anything else for that matter follows prescriptive rules mechanistically. Again, for the umpteenth time, we both deny determinism. dmb says: Your denial is contradicted by your stated claims. And you have deleted my explanation - literally dismissing it as a "rant". Have you NOT said repeatedly that we cannot choose our values and haven't you repeatedly denied free will? Yes, I've duplicated your statements in my replies so you know exactly what claims I'm talking about. And you haven't even begun to answer my main question about your claims, namely "how are they NOT asserting a form of determinism?" Doesn't YOUR reading of Pirsig's replacement simply convert values into a different set of determining factors? The issue is whether it makes sense to replace causality with causality by another name. Instead of replacing causality with values, you've converted values into a causal force, one that determines our preferences. This makes our values into something that is beyond our control and external to our will. For the tenth time, how do you figure this does not count as a form of determinism? Just for the record, y ou ended this post by once again claiming that the MOQ denies freedom of the will. That's what the term "determinism" means. Steve said: ... I think that is a big stretch, and if you claim to the uninformed that the MOQ supports "free will" you will be taken to mean something that the MOQ does not support, but knock yourself out. dmb says: You deny determinism (even though you also say we are determined by values) and then immediately follow that denial by making a statement denying free will. And yet you do not see any problems with these blatant contradictions. How can you deny freedom and constraint at the same time? You're trying to overcome the dilemma by denying both horns but that's not a simple resolution at all. It's just a contradictory, logically impossible position. It makes sense to say we are not determined and we are not free. If you're not free, then you are determined and if you are determined then you can't be free. The only way, logically, to avoid one horn or the other is to say we are free to some extent and controlled to some extent. In other words, the resolution Pirsig offers is to say both sides have a point because freedom and constraint are both empirically known. Pirsig's solution is to unite the world of morals and the world of science so that neither are threatened by the dilemma. You say we are neither free nor not free, but that's a very bad, incoherent idea - if it counts as an idea at all. If you had a legitimate argument against these criticisms, you wouldn't have deleted those criticism. You would have addressed them point by point. I spelled it all out quite pedantically to show you how you're misusing the terms and failing to grasp the operative concepts. If you have any real answers to these objections, you must be keeping them under lock and key because they sure don't appear anywhere in your posts. > 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
