Hi Ian,

Ian said:
> Steve, I side with DMB.
> I can't buy your a-determinism / a-free-willist stance.
>
> Free-will is not irrelevant to morals in the MoQ context.

Steve:
That depends on what you mean by "free will." If you mean DQ, then
obviously it is very relevant.

Ian:
> By taking the a-stance I believe you are just denying particular
> definitions of free-will and/or determinism.

Steve:
Of course that's what I'm doing. I don't deny all _possible_
definitions of _any_ term. That would be absurd. What am I denying is
the common usages--what pretty much everyone means by the terms.



Ian:
> Sorry if I missed your underlying point, but it is getting hard to discern.
> I believed from earlier exchanges we were reasonably well aligned that
> free-will and determinism need not be in conflict, if one took an
> enlightened - balanced - MoQish view ?

Steve:
I think you have missed my point. Let's start here: what do _you_ mean
by free will? Let's also acknowledge that Pirsig's statement that to
the extent we follow Dynamic Quality we are free is a mere tautology
like "survival of the fittest" amounting to saying "to the extent we
are controlled by static patterns of value we are controlled by static
patterns of value, and to the extent we are not controlled by static
patterns we are not controlled by static patterns." It doesn't tell us
anything about the power to choose freely in order to control our own
destiny and anything about _how_ free that power is if we even have
it. It doesn't answer any of the usual questions that people want to
know in looking for support for the notion of free will. Instead of
associating freedom with conscious willing in order to _take control_
as in the usual sense of "free will," it associates freedom with
_letting go_. Instead of associating this freedom with a power of
conscious decision making, the MOQ version of freedom as DQ is
pre-intellectual and unselfconscious. My point is that that is pretty
much the _opposite_ of what is usually meant by free will.

Best,
Steve
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