> dmb says:
>  If you deny free will, then by definition you are a determinist. If you then 
> deny determinism too, then you are simply incoherent. Call me a dick if you 
> like, but this is a real criticism and you have not answered it, as far as I 
> can tell.

Steve:
How can you say that I haven't answered? I've answered that charge
probably 50 times at this point. And the thing is, you deny free will
too! When I say what it is that I'm denying, you accuse me of setting
up a straw man. But that straw man is what pretty much everyone takes
free will to mean. Consult any dictionary on the subject. You've
insisted to Marsha that she use standard dictionary definitions, but
Pirsig's redefinition of free will as the capacity to respond to DQ is
not at all what is typically meant by the term.  Why can't you admit
that?

When Pirsig reformulated the question of freedom (and he quickly
dropped the term "will"), what he described is not some faculty to be
excessed or not. It is not the thing deep within each soul that
adjudicates between competing values. It is not the possession of a
person who can claim to have it. It is the groundstuff of reality.
This concept is so different from the SOM concept of free will that it
would be better not to use that term to avoid confusion. Let's just
call it DQ.

Why use a term when you can be nearly guaranteed to be misunderstood
when you use it? Who outside of the handful of people participating in
this forum would think you were defending the capacity to respond to
dynamic quality when you say people have free will? How is that
shorthand helpful even around here?
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

Reply via email to