Andre said to Steve and dmb:
...I had hoped however that it would clarify some issues and perhaps that it
would 'settle' the seemingly months long debate between you two but...it seems
not. Excuse my own intellectual shortcomings but I am confused. ...Place this
[Lila's battle] in the context of the evolutionary value continuum, the
struggle between preference and probability. ...the MOQ posits that the
evolutionary process is a process where all static patterns of value are moving
towards Dynamic Quality. "Lila, individually, herself, is in an evolutionary
battle against the static patterns of her own life." (LILA, p 367) Can we still
speak of determinism or free will here? Of course I argue No. Preferences and
probabilities. ..Was Lila's action somehow 'caused'. Are preferences 'caused'?
Could she have acted differently? ... My confusion comes in when the debate
still involves 'causation' and 'determinism' because somehow Lila 'could have
acted differently'. ...Am I wrong or is my confusion unfounded
?
dmb says:
I boiled your points down quite a lot here, Andre. The aim is to focus and
clarify, but if something important is missing please feel free to put it back.
Here's how I understand the operative terms. "Determinism" is doctrine that
says our actions are not really chosen by us, that we are not in control of our
actions. There are various kinds of determinism, depending on what those
controlling factors are. Causal determinism is a particular kind of
determinism, the kind that says we are controlled by the laws of cause and
effect. There are theological forms of determinism, wherein God is (or the gods
are) the controlling factor. That's where we get our word "fate", in fact. The
Fates were gods that knew and controlled your destiny. Determinism of any sort
denies free will, although there are a whole range of reasons for this denial
and so there is a whole range of determinisms. It's just that causal
determinism is the most common among today's philosophers and scientists (like
Parfit and Harris) and that's the kind involved in Pirsig's description of the
classic dilemma.
Compatibilism says there are determining factors but not to the extent that
free will is denied altogether. There is free will, but within the limits of
those controlling factors. I think the MOQ is obviously a kind of
compatibilism. This is based on Pirsig's original reformulation into a tension
between the static and the Dynamic, of course. "To the extent that one's
behaviour 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
behaviour is free". (LILA, p 160) One's behavior is without choice to some
extent and one's behavior is free to some extent. In this formulation, one's
behavior is not being controlled by the laws of causality because they have
been replaced with patterns of preference, but there is still a determining
factor here. The "one" whose behavior Pirsig is talking about is not an
independent entity that "has" free will. That's just the way SOMers would frame
and qua
lify the notion. We can reject that particular version of free will without
also rejecting the basic idea that one does have the freedom to act at one's
discretion, to make choices and decisions.
I think your confusion is well founded, Andre, precisely because Steve agrees
with none of this. I'm pretty sure that he and I are still NOT on the same page
even with respect to the basic meaning of the terms "free will" and
"determinism". He simply isn't moved by dictionaries or encyclopedia entries.
He insists that they are superglued to a particular metaphysical framework
(SOM) that's incompatible with the MOQ. I'm simply saying the meaning of the
terms is much broader, that we can reject that particular conception of free
will and determinism without also rejecting the MOQ's version of them.
Let me put it this way: causal laws are one particular way to conceptualize the
empirical facts. Restraints and resistances are known and felt and lived
through. That is the empirical reality to be explained and causality is an
elaborate and well developed explanation for the regularity of those felt
resistances. The MOQ explains this empirical reality too but it posits patterns
of preferences as an alternative explanation, as a rival concept to replace
causality. This move has huge implications but one thing it does NOT do, is
dismiss the resisting factors that are empirically felt and known. The MOQ
offers a different intellectual description of those empirical facts so that we
are not controlled by blind mechanical forces but we are still controlled to
some extent. That's why Pirsig says the difference is philosophic and not
scientific; because both conceptions purport to explain the same empirical
data. And so it is with free will. There are various ways to conceptualize
this human agency and the MOQ has it's own particular way to construe that
freedom, but the idea has to answer to empirical reality. We feel ourselves
striving against and overcoming these resistance. We act to achieve some goal
or purpose and sometimes we succeed. Those are the empirical facts to be
explained. That's what the idea of free will is about. In fact, following
Dynamic Quality (the primary empirical reality - undifferentiated aesthetic
continuum) is all about being in touch with the immediate flux of life, with
direct everyday experience. Bringing yourself closer to this empirical reality
is the name of game. If our ideas only ever refer to other ideas, we remain
aloft in abstractions but the main idea here is to bring these concepts back
down to the earth of things.
We can all agree that the law of gravity is just a ghost. But apples still fall
to the ground and the moon is still in orbit, you know? In the same way, we can
all agree that human action is not controlled by the laws of causality, because
those laws are ghosts too, but we know from experience that we are controlled
to some extent. Obviously, empirical reality does not bend to our wishes and
whims. That's where the idea of object permanence - and by extension the whole
idea of an external physical reality - came from in the first place. These
concepts are always secondary, like subject and objects, they are derived from
experience and their meaningful only to the extent that they can be put to work
in experience. Without that relation, that marriage if you will, they are
meaningless abstractions.
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