Ms. Albahari's project is to examine self/non-self, but she offers a way of
looking at the issue that is very interesting. She addresses the self in terms
of 'self' and 'sense of self'. She happens to offers free-will as an example
of the way the problem can be approached.
"...Let us suppose that hard determinism is correct and that there is no
such thing as libertarian free-will (such free-will is incidentally a feature
commonly ascribed to the self that will star in later chapters). That is, we
are supposing that it is not the case that, given a situation where we seem to
exercise agency, we could have actually chosen (all other things being equal)
to do otherwise. Every action is fully determined by factors of which none
pertain to an agent's freedom to act otherwise. Libertarian free-will does not
exist. Yet we can still entertain the idea that many people do harbour a
deep-seated sense/belief/assumption/feeling that, given an identical situation,
they could have chosen to act otherwise. This assumption of being a free
agent, of having free-will, may well be real --- despite the fact that
free-will does not, on this scenario, exist. So while (on this given scenario)
the sense or assumption of free-will exists, libertarian freew
ill does not exist: the deep-seated assumption turns out to be a mistaken one.
The hard determinists will attempt to explain the common belief in free-will
not in terms of actual free-will --- which would subjectively seem to explain
it --- but in terms of cognitive and psychological factors that do not
include free-will...)"
(Albahari, Miri, 'Analytical Buddhism: The Two-tiered Illusion of Self
', pp.17-18)
I can also see this tying into what Lila says in Chapter 14. Anyway, it might
be interesting to look at 'sense of free-will' compared to 'free-will'.
___
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
