Hi dmb,
> Steve said to dmb: > ...You have held that if we strip the metaphysical baggage from free will, > then the MOQ can be said to support it. That's fair enough depending on how > far you are willing to go in re-describing free will in order to be able to lend MOQ support to it (i.e. as DQ/sq). But to whatever that extent is, you ought to be willing to do the same for determinism. We ought to be able to drop the "REALLY" from any ideas about what is going on with descriptions of the world involving BOTH free will and determinism.> > dmb says: > That's right. > > As I see it, the debate has always been about what views the MOQ does and > does not support. We aren't talking about anything so fancy as the ultimate > truth, whatever that is, we are simply talking about what Pirsig means. That > is something we can determine with a reasonable amount of certainty, > especially if we have a record of explicit statements from the author. In > this case, thanks to Andre and Dan, that's exactly what we have. Look, Steve, > this guy named Hugo said what you have been saying about "will" and "free > will" and Pirsig shot him down. Bang, you're dead. Checkmate. It's over. Why > can't you see that? Steve: What the hell are you talking about? I just said (as I have been saying all along) it is reasonable to think of the MOQ as supporting free will "depending on how far you are willing to go in re-describing free will in order to be able to lend MOQ support to it (i.e. as DQ/sq)." How is that claim _defeated_ by Pirsig's LC annotation that DESPITE the traditional definition of freewill the MOQ can argue against it in favor of a different view of free will??? Doesn't this quote just confirm what we both have already agreed upon from the start? I mean, I'm the one who initially brought this quote into the discussion months ago. Perhaps you'll be willing to go back and not only respond but first actually try to read and understand what I said in this thread about dropping the metaphysical baggage for BOTH free AND determinism... Hi dmb, Arlo, Horse, Dan, Matt, all, > Steve said to dmb: > The problem with this definition is that the MOQ agrees that "our actions are > not REALLY chosen by us" since "us" doesn't have any REAL metaphysical > status. Lila doesn't REALLY have the patterns, the patterns have Lila. > > dmb says: > No, the only problem is the one you are adding. You are drawing conclusions > about hidden metaphysical assumptions on what basis? You honestly think it's > reasonable to conclude that much based on the fact that I used the pronoun > "us"? > There's no problem with the definition. The problem is that you're an asshole. Steve: No, I thought I made it clear that I was taking issue with the use of the adverb "REALLY." If you are going to make the debate about whether free will or determinism is what is REALLY happening, then the MOQ rejects both horns of the traditional dilemma. You have held that if we strip the metaphysical baggage from free will, then the MOQ can be said to support it. That's fair enough depending on how far you are willing to go in re-describing free will in order to be able to lend MOQ support to it (i.e. as DQ/sq). But to whatever that extent is, you ought to be willing to do the same for determinism. We ought to be able to drop the "REALLY" from any ideas about what is going on with descriptions of the world involving BOTH free will and determinism. dmb quotes James: What does determinism profess? "It professes that those parts of the universe already laid down absolutely appoint and decree what the other parts shall be. The future has no ambiguous possibilities bidden in its womb; the part we call the present is compatible with only one totality. Any other future complement than the one fixed from eternity is impossible. The whole is in each and every part, and welds it with the rest into an absolute unity, an iron block, in which there can be no equivocation or shadow of turning." (James) Steve: That is indeed what determinism professes (excepting that some of what he is saying is fatalism rather than determinism), but only if we think that what free will professes is that there is a Catesian self that sits somewhere behind the scenes freely willing whatever it pleases. If we are going to consider determinism in its most absurd metaphysical form then we should do the same with free will. Likewise, if we are going to try to rescue the notion of free will by freeing it of its metaphysical baggage, we ought to do the same for determinism. This is precisely what James did in his "The Dilemma of Determinism" talk... James: "The principle of causality, for example,--what is it but a postulate, an empty name covering simply a demand that the sequence of events shall someday manifest a deeper kind of belonging of one thing with another than the mere arbitrary juxtaposition which now phenomenally appears? It is as much an altar to unknown gods [compare to Pirsig's 'ghosts'] as the one that Saint Paul found in Athens. All our scientific and philosophical ideals are alters to unknown gods ["every last bit of it"]. Uniformity [determinism] is as much so as is free-will. If this be admitted, we can debate on even terms. But if one pretends that while freedom and variety are, in the first instance, subjective demands, necessity and uniformity are something altogether different, I do not see how we can debate at all." Steve: If we are going to compare free will and determinism "on even terms," then we ought to see them both as "ghosts" (just as Dan and Horse dealt with them as illusions) rather than see one as making metaphysical demands on the true nature of things and the others as just a conventional view. They are both intellectual patterns of value. The MOQ denies both horns of the _traditional_ free will-determinism metaphysical dilemma, but as patterns of value they can coexist peacefully just as polar and rectangular coordinates do. They are both just paintings, and we don't need to decide which is the REAL painting. Now personally I see these both of these terms as dug so deep into SOM that wielding either one of them as though they had no metaphysical baggage will either require a lot of qualification or will result in a lot of misunderstandings (i.e. sneaking the Cartesian self or the Laws of Nature in the back door), so I think it would be far better to pick different terms in talking about freedom (such as Arlo's "agency" and "structure"). What I think we don't get to do (if we are playing fair) is to put up a metaphysically unladen version of free will against a metaphysically laden version of determinism to define free will as the opposition to such a version of determinism. We can equally come up with an metaphysically unladen version of determinism to put up against a metaphysically laden version where mechanistic cause and effect is replaced by an understanding of causality as patterns of preference emerging inexhaustibly from the well of DQ, or as James put it, a metaphysically "empty name covering simply a demand that the sequence of events shall someday manifest a deeper kind of belonging of one thing with another than the mere arbitrary juxtaposition which now phenomenally appears." A causes B can be understood as a value relationship where B has a stable pattern of preference for precondition A. I can see not wanting to use the term "determinism" at that point (I wouldn't), but I can't see how doing so does any more injury to "determinism" than calling the self an absurd fiction does to "free will." In short, I think both terms are better dropped as having too much metaphysical baggage, but I don't think you get to keep "free will" while denying "determinism" if you are playing fair and putting them both on even footing by re-conceptualizing them without the metaphysical baggage. 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
