dmb said:
Steve keeps saying Lila just is her values and there is no added metaphysical
entity beyond that. This is true enough as far as it goes, but this doesn't
mean that selves have no existence at all. Steve and I and everyone else exist
DEPENDENTLY within this larger evolutionary framework.
Steve replied:
To assert that the self "exists DEPENDENTLY" is to deny the free will horn of
the traditional free will versus determinism dilemma since the whole big deal
there was always about whether or not an INDEPENDENT self can assert itself,
i.e. exercise it's free will. Obviously a value-based metaphysics also denies
the determinism horn of the traditional SOM dilemma as well. ...
dmb says:
Yes, Steve, the existence of the DEPENDENT self denies the the notion of an
INDEPENDENT self. It is a rejection of the self as an independent entity.
Pirsig's description of Lila (and everyone else) as persons engaged in a
struggle with the patterns of their own life e is an alternative to the notion
of an independent self. I'm talking about the discussion of freedom and
constraint in terms of Lila's battle, in terms of Pirsig's evolutionary
morality. That's WHY the traditional dilemma doesn't come up. The MOQ sets the
issues of freedom and control into a completely different context AND thereby
re-conceiving the self so that we are NOT EVEN TALKING about the freedom and
constraint OF an independent self anymore. Instead, we are talking about the
freedom and constraint of the MOQ's dependent self. That is the "one" who is
controlled to some extent. That is the "one" who is free to some extent.
So what are YOU talking about, Steve, if not that "one"? Have we not already
agreed that there is no independent self? Have we not already established the
fact that the MOQ rejects that notion of the self? Have we not already
established the topic here as Pirsig's reformulation of the issue without the
Cartesian self figuring into it? Yes. Yes, we have. And so your reply is a
non-sequetor. Questions about the status of this independent self simply isn't
relevant because it does not exist in Pirsig's reformulation. You're not only
talking about a straw man that nobody is defending, you're changing the
subject.
Steve said:
...To the extent we follow static patterns we are not free, to the extent we
are acting in response to DQ, we are free. ..But to exactly what extent IS
that? What is interesting to me is that what we seem to have here is a whole
new MOQ Platypus after the SOM Platypi have been dissolved. Because Pirsig says
we cannot distinguish degeneracy from DQ until long after the fact we just
can't say to what extent we are free.
dmb says:
Platypus? Well, no. A platypus is something that doesn't neatly fit into our
conceptual categories. (Egg-laying mammals!? What!? A reptile with milk!?
What?!) The extent to which any given person is free or controlled may not be
easy to quantify but that doesn't mean that it defies our thought categories or
that it doesn't fit into the MOQ's evolutionary framework. And Pirsig makes a
case that it is SOM that prevents us from seeing the difference between saviors
and degenerates, between revolutionaries and criminals. It may be true that
Rorty thinks Quality is just a compliment we pay to sentences but that is
nowhere near Pirsig's position. According to Pirsig's metaphysics, Quality is
the source and substance of everything, the engine that drives evolution toward
ever-increasing freedom. It is the mystic reality from which the entire static
world was derived, including us.
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