Dear Marsha --
Greetings Ham,
What do you mean by "subjective Self?" Are you suggesting
a subjective stream of consciousness as presented in the Steve
Hagen quote, or an independent, autonomous Self that is a locus
of control? AND Dynamic Quality isn't anything. Fatalism,
on the other hand, is an intellectual static pattern of value.
Or were you asking something different?
The question isn't complicated, Marsha. Dennett defined Fatalism as
"determinism with you left out." I'm asking if Fatalism is DQ's
deterministic movement to betterness as posited by Pirsig who rejects the
subjective "you". The purpose behind the question relates to the quandary
that Steve and dmb are mired in, largely because they're bound to the
Pirsigian position that DQ is the only "free agent" in existence.
Back in August, Horse gave us this summary of the 'self--agent of action'
disussion before it turned into the Free Will debate.
[Horse]:
What is the difference between an 'autonomous individual self ' and
an 'autonomous moral agent'? I'm having a hard time seeing any
difference at all given what's been said so far.
So given my current inability to see where there is an effective
difference in this discussion:
What is it then that has or expresses free will if not an 'autonomous
individual self '.
And if this 'autonomous individual self ' is illusory then the
conventional way of looking at free will is also illusory.
Marsha, you are one of those people who can't seem to accept selfness as
either real or proprietary to the individual. You say "the self is a flow
of ever-changing, interdependent, impermanent inorganic, biological, social
and intellectual static patterns of value." You have also been ambivalent
as to your belief in a subjective (individual) self, quoting the Buddhist
position that "One cannot say that the self exists; one cannot say that the
self does not exist," but you insist that there is no autonomous self.
Maybe you're willing to settle for the self as a "convention" or "illusion",
but I'm not.
My position is that a patchwork of value patterns cannot be a real identity
capable of forming independent judgments and exercising its own will. Yet,
that is what we all do as free individuals. Autonomy is the bedrock of
human existence. We rationalize Determinism from the cause-and-effect
precept that comes from our temporal experience of an evolving universe.
Determinism affords us a reliable foothold on which to base decisions and
actions. But it doesn't move us, create our thoughts, or tell us what to
value. We freely choose our actions--and our morality--based upon our
proprietary value-sensibility tempered by reason.
What the MoQers don't seem to understand is that without the autonomy of
free agency human life has no meaning. If morality and choice are imposed
on us by an "external agent" such as Quality, our existence is robotic and
superfluous. The universe will continue to evolve toward its determined
course, while our life is but a dream of scripted experiences. How can such
a world be considered "moral" when "immorality" is only a static
intellectual pattern?
But I've jumped the gun by offering a response before you've answered my
question. Why don't you absorb what I've stated above, ask additional
questions if necessary, and then give me your honest opinion. I'll simplify
the question for you: Is the MoQ a deterministic philosophy?
Thanks Marsha,
Ham
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