Steve said:
If we ARE our values, It simply could not make sense to say we CHOOSE our
values anymore than it makes sense to say we are DETERMINED BY our values.
...If we ARE our values, it just doesn't make any sense to ask if we CHOOSE our
values or are DETERMINED BY our values. These are just non-questions from the
MOQ perspective.
Ron replied:
Oh, if we use preference, rather than choice then you can chill. We can have a
discussion all day about PREFFERING our values but as soon as we use the term
choice it becomes meaningless. When we choose/follow the dynamic in our lives,
it's not the same as preferring it.. When we choose/follow the determined
static in our lives, its not the same as preffering it... ...Seems like you are
the only one hung up and haunted by the terms and their former implications so
much so, you can't even submit to the idea that when we speak about the
distinction of freewill and determinism we are talking about the distinction
between dynamic and static Quality sans the either/or "Dilemma". Taking away
the either/or Dilemma takes away certainy, absolute truth,, ect..all those
conepts you insist are still invoked with the usage of the terms, those terms
do not change the context, context changes the usage.
dmb says:
Yep. Steve is operating as if any word that has ever been associated with SOM
is permanently and irreversibly infected with some metaphysical disease - and
he does so regardless of how the terms are actually being used or qualified or
put into an entirely different metaphysical context. That's what the MOQ's
switch from causality to values and preferences does; it puts the issue of free
will and determinism into a completely different metaphysical context so that
they are no longer mutually exclusive choices. That's what "dilemma" means and
that's why we speak of dilemmas as having two horns. In a dilemma, you're faced
with getting gored by one or the other. In the MOQ it is not just one or the
other and so it's not a dilemma.
Anyway, Steve's hang up with these terms has actual negative consequences.
Because of his insistence that terms like "choice" and "will" are inherently
and irrevocably married to the assumptions of SOM, he has saddled me with all
sorts of claims that I never made or even explicitly denied. At various points,
he has construed my statements as advocating pre-destination, the divine soul,
a metaphysical entity called "Free Will" and as advocating SOM, just to name a
few off the top of my head. I really don't see how an honest person could
attribute such views to anything I've said. And so I denied it, of course, and
accused Steve of making stuff up. And when I complain about these wild
distortions, he calls me a "dick". That's called adding insult to injury. Plus
it's just confusing and it total frustrates any effort to gain clarity on these
issues. That's the real problem. A few insults and over-heated reactions are
just normal and they're no big deal. But to insist that ordina
ry words necessarily carry all the metaphysical baggage that's ever been
loaded upon them is to insist that we can't ever use them in any other way and
that just ain't so. Nobody has to assert the existence of an immortal soul in
order to assert human freedom. You don't have to subscribe to the metaphysics
of substance to believe that restraints are real. And since NOBODY around here
is saying any such thing, Steve's objections are meaningless. They're aimed at
claims that nobody made.
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