Steve asked dmb:
Maybe you can answer this as our master of logic. How can you still think it is
an interesting question to wonder about whether a DEPENDENT self has
INDEPENDENT (free) will?
dmb says:
How can I think it's interesting to ask about the DEPENDENT self's INDEPENDENT
(free) will?
Well, I don't think that is an interesting question at all. I think the
question is absurd. The question confuses and combines two completely different
conceptions of the self. In the MOQ, everything exists in relation to
everything else and, in that sense, there is no such thing as independence. But
you don't seem to understand that asserting a dependent self is not at all the
same as saying there is no self at all. In Pirsig's formulation, the "one" who
is free to some extent and the "one" controlled to some extent is not
independent.
Steve said:
You accuse me of changing the subject, but my point all along has been that the
free will determinism debate is an SOM problem which as Pirsig says, doesn't
come up in the MOQ. ...If there is no independent (free) self, then in the SOM
sense of the term (and "free will" is an SOM term) the MOQ denies the "free
will" horn of the ancient dilemma. If reality is Quality, the MOQ denies the
determinism horn of the dilemma as well. What we have here is not some middle
ground that says we have a little free will and are also a little bit
determined by forces external to the will (since the MOQ doesn't play that
internal/external subject-object game). Instead the MOQ denies the SOM premise
(the independent self in a world of objects) upon which it could possibly make
sense to ask the free will/determinism question. That doesn't mean we can't
talk about freedom, but in the MOQ we aren't talking about "free will" since
there is no independent self who could possess this faculty.
dmb says:
Yes, so you keep saying. You keep insisting that "free will" is superglued to
SOM and the independent self. That is just an arbitrary rule that you made up
and that's exactly why you keep re-inserting the Cartesian self into my
sentences, even the ones in which I reject the Cartesian self. That arbitrary
rule of yours is, in effect, a straw man factory. You're cranking them out by
the dozen. You are objecting to claims that nobody made. You're asking me to
defend the ridiculous nonsense produced by YOU at YOUR straw man factory.
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