Hi all, Just back from the beach and catching up...
On Sat, Jul 30, 2011 at 9:58 AM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote: > > Marsha asked four questions: > > Have you dropped the words 'free-will' and 'determinism'? If you think > within the MoQ that free-will and determinism have new definitions, please > offer them... If you are using new words please define them clearly? Please > clearly explain the reformulation as you understand them? If you are not > using 'free-will' and 'determinism' as defined in the dictionary, than you > must agree that I was correct to neither accept 'free-will' and > 'determinism', nor reject 'free-will' and 'determinism'. They are irrelevant > within the MoQ. Of course, you are about to explain the new words to use and > new understanding. > > > dmb says: > No, I haven't dropped the terms. The MOQ framework but does not alter their > basic definition. ("free will. noun. the power of acting without the > constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own > discretion.") ("determine |diˈtərmin|verb [ trans. ]1 cause (something) to > occur in a particular way; be the decisive factor in") These terms are not > new and there are many ordinary words that can serve as alternatives, such as > freedom and constraint. The MOQ puts these terms in a new metaphysical > context wherein the laws of causality are replaced by patterns of preference > and the choice between freedom and constraint are no longer mutually > exclusive positions. Steve: Where I disagree with dmb is in that I think the MOQ reformulation of the question of freedom DOES significantly alter the basic definitions of free will and determinism. The MOQ rejects both horns of the traditional dilemma and reformulates the problem in a way that is incompatible with the traditional formulation rather than being some middle ground or saying that both sides are partially right. I don't see "the ability to act at one's one discretion" in Pirsig's definition of the MOQ version of free will as the capacity to follow DQ, and I don't see mechanistic cause-and-effect determinism in Pirsig's notion of behavior guided by static patterns of value. The only similarity is that we have freedom on one side and constraint on the other. As a concrete example, consider the choice I faced this week at a pizza shop. I wanted a slice of either pepperoni or sausage and both were available. In the SOM traditional version of the free will/determinism dilemma, I am either free to choose my topping or my choice is entirely determined by forces external to my will. It is one or the other. There is either an uncaused causer that stands over my physical being, or there isn't which renders us as nothing more than a cog in a machine-like universe. I think it obvious that the MOQ rejects both notions. In the traditional formulation, free will is exercised upon conscious deliberation. When we make unconscious decisions, "we" are not in control. But in the MOQ, DQ is said to come before intellectual patterns. We don't expand our MOQ version of free will by thinking more or better. We don't settle the question of a pizza topping by deciding whether sausage or pepperoni is the more dynamic option. We exercise our capacity to respond to DQ when we are NOT thinking just as the Buddhist monk is supposed to be quicker on a hot stove. So to say that the MOQ supports "free will" is likely to breed all sorts of misunderstandings or to slip the cherished belief in the small god--the uncaused causer--in through the back door. That is why I suspect Pirsig specifically did not use the term "free will" but instead talked about freedom in his statement: "To the extent that one's behavior is controlled by static patterns of quality it is without choice. But to the extent that one follows Dynamic Quality, which is undefinable, one's behavior is free." To deny free will is to deny the uncaused causer (see also Pirsig's dissolution of the mind-body problem). To deny determinism is to deny the mechanistic universe. There is nothing incompatible with doing both. We choose the pizza topping that we do because we WANT to. Is that desire itself caused by the laws of science? No, that idea depends on an upside down picture of how the laws of science function. They are descriptions of reality rather than the fundamental essence of reality. We choose what we want to choose. We ARE our desires, intentions, moods, and other static patterns, and we have the capacity to change. But there is no free will in the SOM traditional sense of the capacity to make free conscious choices (sure, we make conscious choices, but in what sense are they supposed to be "free"?), and SOM mechanistic determinism is also false by MOQ premises. Best, Steve 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
