Hello everyone On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 8:49 AM, ARLO J BENSINGER JR <[email protected]> wrote: > [Dan] > Yes, I would say that free will and "could have acted differently" are both > static quality illusions in the MOQ. > > [Arlo] > I don't think they are illusions, I'd say they are patterns of value by which > we understand and mediate experience.
Dan: I would say they are both. > > [Dan] > You seem to be asking if there is some way of going back for a re-do. There > isn't. > > [Arlo] > I agree, but I think "could've" is a bit more powerful than after-the-fact > poetic rumination. What temporal abstraction allows us to do is to coordinate > our activity in the face of an oncoming stream of experience that we often > perceive as markedly similar to our catalog of symbolically represented > "history". > > "Could've" is a focal word with which we mediate our immediate experience by > contemplating past experiences. "Could've" gives us the power to anticipate > and > adapt, in ways many species lacking a temporal symbology cannot. > > In other words, "could've" does not just look "back", it looks "forward". Dan: That's a good point and if used properly a good tool. There is value in expecting future experience will coordinate with past experience. I think my point could be seen as more along the lines of when the future doesn't conform to our past expectations. > > [Dan] > Could have beens are truth for old men and old women sorrowing over their > drinks in the tavern of broken dreams. > > [Arlo] > And artists, where would art (music, painting, dance, literature, poetry, > etc.) > be without "could've" induced sorrow? Dan: True. It is human nature to sorrow over past mistakes. Artists use that emotion without wallowing in it. At least that's what I do, and I presume others might do the same. > > [Dan] > Please make mine a double... > > [Arlo] > I'll have what he's having... Dan: Bartender... another round.... Dan 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
