> Steve: > We agree that in the MOQ our behavior is free to some extent and not free to > some extent, but what does this mean? If reality is Quality, then I wonder > "Free from what? Controlled by what?" I think Pirsig's reformulation cashes > out to, as Matt said months ago, "when you be static, you be static. When you > be dynamic, you be dynamic!" It doesn't tell us how to tell the difference > and give us a basis for culpability and praiseworthiness in the sense you > have been punching up. > > > dmb says: > > Pirsig's formulation cashes out to what? I do not get what you're saying and > the way you're saying it - between questions that seem to express a general > bewilderment - makes your vague claim seem even more vague. These basic > questions seem to be very much at odds with the certainty with which you've > been making claims on this issue too.
Steve: These weren't questions that I was asking because I didn't know the MOQ response. I asked these questions because I thought perhaps that you didn't know the answers given your position. dmb: > Why does the equation of Quality and reality make you wonder what we are free > from or what we are controlled by? If reality is Quality, then freedom and > constraint are both features of reality. What's the problem. You can't be > saying that freedom and constraint can only come from outside of reality, so > what are you getting at? > > If we are controlled to the extent that we follow static patterns, then > freedom is just freedom from that control. What's the problem? I mean, aren't > both of your questions "free from what?" and "controlled by what" already > answered in the Pirsig quote? That's how I see it, so I guess I don't even > know what you're asking. Steve: I agree that the only thing he could be talking about with regard to freedom is static patterns and DQ. I think the problem here then ought to be obvious. Pirsig's statement then just translates to this: to the extent our behavior is controlled by static patterns of value, our behavior is controlled by static patterns of value. To the extent that we are free of static patterns, we are free of static patterns. That's just not an answer to ANY question let alone the answer to the questions of moral responsibility and agency. That's just a tautology. Just like when Pirsig unpacked "survival of the fittest" as survival of those most fit to survive, it doesn't say anything. It most certainly does NOT assert some version of "freedom to choose" or autonomous agency that could distinguish a human being from anything else in the universe. It says our behavior is one or the other--static or free in the MOQ senses of the terms, but it doesn't say we get to decide which it will be in any given situation as autonomous agents. To explain this important distinction, I pointed out previously how moral agency is usually thought to come from our capacity to deliberate--to reason about the best course of action. But in the MOQ, intellectual patterns come after DQ which is "pre-intellectual awareness." In Pirsig's terms, freedom is a matter of following DQ which is also defined as a matter of not consciously choosing. So again, this is just not what anyone ever means by free will. What people cherish about their belief in free will is their (they hope) power to freely make conscious deliberate decisions. The MOQ doesn't offer anything _like_ that. The way Pirsig defined freedom, it has absolutely nothing to do with making conscious deliberative decisions. How could it when free will is following DQ and DQ is pre-intellectual? You keep saying that I am offering a too narrow definition of free will, but I never heard of anyone asserting a definition of free will that does not associate free will with freely making conscious decisions after rational deliberation. You are certainly free to use the term any way you want just as someone who says, "when I use the word cat, what I mean is dog." You just won't be understood. Further, I think you ARE still trying to associate free will with conscious decision making, but that is entirely incompatible with freedom as DQ--as coming BEFORE thinking. dmb: > Pirsig's formulation doesn't tell us how to tell the difference? Well, that's > a much broader question and answering it is just a matter of understanding > that particular formulation within the larger context of the MOQ. That's one > of the reasons for reminding you that Pirsig has reformulated the issue on > the premise that value goes all the way down and that the evolutionary > unfolding of the levels is a matter of growth toward ever-increasing freedom. > This could just as right be put in terms of evolution away from control. In > fact, Pirsig discusses the preferences of atoms and the origins of life > itself as a movement toward undefined betterness right there in the same > passage where we find the reformulation. It's very much part of the > explanation. Steve: Here you are getting at the MOQ answer to the question of moral responsibility. If reality is a moral order, then we don't need to try to ground morality in agency. If it is morals all the way down, morality doesn't depend on asserting that humans possess something called free will. Saying that doesn't give us anything with regard to moral responsibility that isn't presupposed in "the premise that value goes all the way down..." 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
