Hi dmb, I forgot this important part...
> Steve said: > What people are seeking in their hope that science and philosophy can support > the concept of free will is not freedom in the DQ sense at all but rather > control. They want to be able to say that it is "I" who is in charge. This > "I" refers to the conscious self, which again, is not the part of the self > that is associated with DQ which is pre-conceptual awareness. It is the good > that comes before being conscious of the locus of goodness to the extent that > we can make conscious choices about it. > > > dmb says: > Pre-conceptual does not mean unconscious. Pre-intellectual does not mean that > either. Where did you get that idea that the capacity to respond to DQ is > unconscious? Do you have ANY evidence for that view and how could that > possibly work? The students who learned to see Quality in writing weren't > unconscious. The motorcycle mechanic who follows DQ has not lost his mind. > The MOQ does not deny the existence of conscious self. It denies the > Cartesian self, the subject as a metaphysical substance or entity. To deny > the existence of ANY KIND of conscious self would be ridiculous because > denying it entails employment of the very thing you're denying. In other > words, it's logically incoherent. Steve: Here as usual it depends on what you mean by "conscious." I don't just mean that that someone is awake. I'm talking about self-conscious deliberation. If you mean that consciousness it what rocks and trees and people all have, then it makes sense to say that DQ is a _conscious_ response, but that is not what is sought in the notion of free will. An internet dictionary defines "will" as "The mental faculty by which one deliberately chooses or decides upon a course of action." (Is this an acceptable definition to you?) As Pirsig said in LC annotation 24, "We must all use terms as they are described in the dictionary or we lose the ability to communicate with each other." It makes sense to call such an act as hopping off the hot stove as in a sense "free" because of its association with Dynamic Quality as the quality of freedom, but to call it free _will_ or _any_ type of will is in no way what anyone ever means by "will." This sort of deliberate volition is NOT Dynamic Quality. Dynamic Quality is what gets you off the hot stove before you ever _decide_ to get off the hot stove. There is no "willing" involved. This isn't a volitional behavior. So how in the heck can that example of responding to DQ be an act of free will when it is not even willed? Sure its free, but it's not free _will_ by any standard definition of the term. And this is not just any example. This is THEE paradigmatic example Pirsig uses to show what it means to follow DQ. I submit that this is what we ought to think about in unpacking "to the extent that one follows dynamic quality...one's behavior is free." 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
