Hi Arlo, Dan, all, Before we can compare and contrast "could have acted differently" and "the extent to which we follow DQ," I think the conditional inherent in "could" needs to be explicated. "Could've" if _what_ were true exactly? In what the two of you have said so far, it seems that we are all taking that condition to at minimum involve hypothetically going back in time. I agree since "could" is the _past_ conditional. But if we are to have acted _differently_ as we imagine hypothetically going back in time, something about the situation needs to be imagined to have been different. _Why_ might we have acted differently? Is it enough here to say, we could have acted differently if only we had _wanted_ to? Isn't that notion of "could have acted differently" pretty much the same as "to the extent we follow DQ"? It is as simple as saying that if we do what we want we are free. I think the issue ends there for the MOQ, but in the old free will determinism debate the original basic question remains: are we free to want what we want or is what we want to do causally determined? So while "could have acted differently if we had wanted to" seems sufficient for the sort of freedom you and I might care about as MOQers, it doesn't begin to address the old free will/determinism issue. Instead, the MOQ it puts it to bed. We can be content with the freedom to do what we will without needing to decide whether our will, what we want to do, depends on something else. Of course it does. It depends on values on top of values on top of values that never bottom out at a point where we need to stop to wonder where the freedom is.
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
