Dmb, Your claim to 'free will' is by right of static, convention only.
I am interested in the MoQ, NOT Contemporary Pragmatism, as such I am not interested in what dmb says that Charlene says that James says. I can appreciate that you have a great interest in W. James, but as far as I am concerned, you have not made anything (nada) quoted here the least bit interesting to me. I am here to explore the MoQ, so here are three quotes I find pertinent: On freedom: "To the extent that one's behavior is controlled by static patterns of quality it is without choice. But to the extent that one follows Dynamic Quality, which is undefinable, one's behavior is free." - (RMP,LILA: Chapter 12) On an ethical code: "Dharma, like rta, means 'what holds together.' It is the basis of all order. It equals righteousness. It is the ethical code. It is the stable condition which gives man perfect satisfaction. "Dharma is duty. It is not external duty which is arbitrarily imposed by others. It is not any artificial set of conventions which can be amended or repealed by legislation. Neither is it internal duty which is arbitrarily decided by one's own conscience. Dharma is beyond all questions of what is internal and what is external. Dharma is Quality itself, the principle of 'rightness' which gives structure and purpose to the evolution of all life and to the evolving understanding of the universe which life has created." - (RMP, LILA: Chapter 30) On morality: "Dharma, like rta, means 'what holds together.' It is the basis of all order. It equals righteousness. It is the ethical code. It is the stable condition which gives man perfect satisfaction. "Dharma is duty. It is not external duty which is arbitrarily imposed by others. It is not any artificial set of conventions which can be amended or repealed by legislation. Neither is it internal duty which is arbitrarily decided by one's own conscience. Dharma is beyond all questions of what is internal and what is external. Dharma is Quality itself, the principle of 'rightness' which gives structure and purpose to the evolution of all life and to the evolving understanding of the universe which life has created." - (RMP, LILA: Chapter 30) Marsha On Aug 9, 2011, at 12:37 PM, david buchanan wrote: > > Marsha said: > Free-will is a static pattern of value, a conventional belief, not something > ultimately real. So I neither accept 'free-will' nor reject 'free-will'; it > is irrelevant from a MoQ point-of-view. > > > The will is an idea, a concept derived from experience. If this concept is > NOT reified or otherwise turned into a metaphysical entity, then the idea > simply refers to actual, concrete experiences. As Siegfried puts it, "To call > this phenomenal experience of activity a MERE ILLUSION is to prefer a hidden > ontological principle, that can never experienced and thus never verified, to > an experientially verifiable level of investigation." > > As Charlene Siegfried explains it, "The first step in the investigation must > be to seek 'the original type and model of what it means' in the stream of > experience." She is telling us that concrete experience - as opposed to > abstract thought - is the only place to look for the meaning of our activity. > To find out what words like freedom and causality mean, the first thing to do > is return to the stream of experience to see what they are in the originally > felt and lived experience. That is where our concepts and abstractions come > from and that's where they are tried and tested. That's what our ideas are > about; life as it's lived. > "William James offers this concrete description of human activity: 'But in > this actual world or ours, as it is given, a part at least of activity comes > with definite direction; it comes with desire and sense of goal; it comes > complicated with resistances which it overcomes or succumbs to, and with the > efforts which the feeling of resistance so often provokes; and it is in > complex experiences like these that the notions of distinct agents, and of > passivity as opposed to activity arise. Here also the notion of causal > activity comes to birth." (ERE, 81-2) James points out that our ideas about > about causality and freedom are abstractions or generalizations about the > 'ultimate Qualiia' of lived experience. These ideas refer to experiences of > process, obstruction, striving, strain, or release' and James concludes that > we cannot conceive of it as lived through except 'in the dramatic shape of > something sustaining a felt purpose against felt obstacles, and overcoming or > being overc om > e'." (Charlene Seigfried in "William James's Radical Reconstruction of > Philosophy", page 319.) > > This are not questions about the number of angles that can fit on a pinhead. > This is about human life. Big time. > > As Charlene says, "...We want to know whether we are responsible for our > activities or are determined by events outside of our knowledge and control. > The phenomenal level cannot be superseded if we are even to ask the right > questions or frame the experiments correctly. The issue is precisely whether > events which we experience as ours are in fact so, or whether they should be > reductively attributed to brain cells. In returning to the metaphysical > question James defends the position that the nature, meaning and location of > causality can be determined only at the phenomenal level of concrete > experience (Essays in Radical Empiricism, 91). It it thus not a metaphysical > question at all, but a concrete one, or one answerable within the parameters > of radical empiricism. Not only does he show that the metaphysical question > must be dropped as unanswerable on its own terms, but taking activity at its > face-value, or as we experience it, we also discover 'the very power that > makes facts c > ome and be'. In arguing that facts are interactively constituted by us, he > has finally explicitly drawn the consequences of his break with the > empiricist assumption that our percepts passively mirror reality as it is in > itself." (Charlene Seigfried in "William James's Radical Reconstruction of > Philosophy", page 322.) > > "To the objection that our felt activity is only an impression and the facts > are to be found elsewhere he [James] responds with the principle of the > radically empiricist philosophy according to which anything, to be considered > real, must be located within experience. If creative activities are to be > found anywhere, 'they must be immediately lived' (ERE, 92). > > "To call this phenomenal experience of activity a MERE ILLUSION is to prefer > a hidden ontological principle, that can never experienced and thus never > verified, to an experientially verifiable level of investigation." > > > > > 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 ___ 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
