Hi dmb,
> Steve replied: > The point is that it doesn't have some _primary_ metaphysical status, so it > doesn't _really_ exist. > > > dmb says: > By your reasoning, Steve, Pirsig's reformulation doesn't work in the MOQ > either because the "one" whose behavior is both free and controlled to some > extent doesn't REALLY exist. By that reasoning, everyone who ever used a > pronoun is wrong about the MOQ. Clearly, this is one of those meaningless, > catch-all criticisms. In fact, it's downright stupid. Steve: Nope, I would just take issue with anyone who would try to emphasize the existence of their pronoun with a "REALLY." > Steve continued: > My concern here is not for the word "us," which is easy to describe without > unnecessary baggage, but with the word "REALLY" which calls up all that > metaphysical baggage--appearance versus reality crap. > dmb says: >...you just committed that error yourself in the previous lines, telling us >what Lila REALLY is. Steve: I am just giving my account Pirsig's idea about what descriptions get primacy in the MOQ. Quality has Lila is more valid than Lila has Quality in _Pirsig's_ philosophy. Remember that we aren't talking about _my_ philosophy or _your_ philosophy but about the implications of _Pirsig's_ philosophy. As you might recall, Matt and I both think that Pirsig should have been more careful to avoid doing this sort of thing because he seems to be back-sliding into an appearance-reality deal in certain of his phrasings, but that is a whole other topic. dmb: On top of that, the definition of determinism includes, by implication if not explicitly, a denial of free will. It entails a claim that what appears to be our volitional action is actually an illusion. But of course the MOQ is not asserting determinism and I am not making any such claim either. But determinism, by definition, does make that claim - and so do you. Steve: First of all, James said that "BOTH sides admit that a volition, for instance, has occurred. The indeterminists say another volition might have occurred in its place: the determinists swear that nothing could possibly have occurred in its place." If you are going to make it an issue of one side calling something an illusion, as I said in my "metaphysical baggage" post, you aren't playing fair here. You are unfairly insisting that free will CAN and determinism can NOT be divorced from its metaphysical crap. Determinism is only the position that volition is metaphysically nonexistent if free is taken to be the position that a Cartesian homonucleus of control can intervene to occasionally override causal laws. 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
