Hi John, all,
John: > I think we have to interpret the term as significant in indicating at once, > two differing levels. Social patterns exhibit competing wills, intellect > frees us from social constraints. Thus, the will that is free, is a 4th > level phenomenon and "free" is significant because it clarifies this freedom > from mere social patterns of predictability and control. Everybody has a > will. But free will, is something gained through intellectual/artistic > reflection which soars beyond. Steve: To summarize my conclusions from all the talk since the spring about the relationship between free will and the MOQ, I would say that we ought to distinguish between a (I) metaphysical and a (II) conventional use of the term "free will." I. The traditional dilemma between free will and determinism where the debate is framed around the self as a metaphysical entity is replaced in the MOQ with Pirsig's notion of DQ as a sort of freedom (as expressed in Pirsig's "the extent to which one's behavior follows..."). In this sense, both of the following seem like reasonable conclusions to me... a.) The MOQ denies both horns of the traditional philosophical dilemma since it rejects the premise upon which that dilemma rests. b.) Alternatively, one could take Pirsig as accepting the free will horn while redefining what is meant by free will to the extent that it is no longer what what originally asked about in the traditional dilemma. In this new Pirsigian usage of the term as the capacity to respond to DQ, even rocks and trees and atoms can be said to have free will as Pirsig said in LC. Further, this capacity is not a matter of will as a deliberate choice since DQ is said to be primary while concepts are secondary. (See Pirsig's "hot stove" talk.) II. In a non-metaphysical conventional usage of the term, free will can be taken to be the human capacity to deliberate over possible courses of actions and play out scenarios of possible futures to weigh the consequences of actions before acting rather than merely acting on biologically determined impulses or socially conditioned responses. Free will in this sense translates in the MOQ not as affirming the capacity to respond to DQ but as affirming the fact that human beings participate in intellectual patterns of value. (Such a conventional usage is not explicitly discussed by Pirsig.) Also important here is the MOQ's flat rejection of determinism in both its metaphysical and conventional forms. The MOQ denies that intellectual patterns are mechanistically determined by inorganic and biological patterns. In other words, the MOQ denies greedy reductionism where intellectual patterns are thought to be (even in theory) exhaustively explainable in terms of inorganic patterns. (See the stuff in Lila about a novel stored as variations in voltages on a computer not being a property of the voltages for the best example of Pirsig's critique on reductionism.) 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
