Hi dmb,
> Steve said: > ...If we subtract the metaphysical baggage from BOTH free will AND > determinism, then how could the idea of determinism render your actions inert > and your life meaningless? If we are are considering determinism > pragmatically rather than married to SOM, then we aren't considering it as a > candidate for what is REALLY going on in spite of all appearances to the > contrary. > dmb says: > Like I've been saying for months, the only metaphysical baggage is the load > you keep adding. Ideas have consequences and that fact does not depend on SOM > or the appearance-reality distinction. You can drop both of those > metaphysical posits and still assert that ideas have consequences. You can > subscribe to the pragmatic theory of truth and still assert that some ideas > are not true because of those consequences. Steve: You are missing my point. Understand that consequences matter. I am asking what you or James could possibly see as devastating consequences of determinism understood pragmatically. I understand that under SOM determinism can be seen as rendering life meaningless, but how could a pragmaticized determinism possibly do that when we aren't viewing it as The Way Things Really Are? dmb: > That's what Seigfried explains in those quotes you keep ignoring. For the > millionth time, Pirsig and James are both saying that the issue is empirical > and practical, not metaphysical. Why do you keep talking as if I haven't > already said this 50 times? Read what she said, Steve. By refusing, you have > wasted 100 days already. Steve: I have read those quotes several times now. I don't see anything in those quotes that addresses the question I keep asking you. Again, what is it about determinism (when taken pragmatically rather than metaphysically) that has "devastating consequences" and will "render your actions inert and your life meaningless"? If we aren't looking at the choice between free will and determinism as a choice between two alternatives constructions for what is REALLY going on in the world, then why on earth would we get all suicidal wondering whether determinism is true? I can't fathom how as idea such as determinism held pragmatically true rather than metaphysically true could give you such existential discomfort. It is like saying you don't believe in ghosts but are afraid of them anyway. I can certainly see how the view that ALL WE ARE is JUST a bunch of atoms bumping into one another according to pre-defined mechanical laws would make life seem quite meaningless, but that is a metaphysical rather than pragmatic version of determinism. Pragmatism won't tolerate any ALL WE ARE's or JUST's in its descriptions of things. No description gets to claim that sort of privileged status above all others as what is REALLY going on. All beliefs are beliefs for a human purpose, and who ever said that all beliefs must satisfy all possible purposes? Determinism is not a belief we hold to give us a picture of the world that makes life meaningful. Not directly anyway. Determinism (pragmatically understood as the hope of explaining events in terms of causes and effects) is a belief held to fulfill our desires to predict and control things. As James described this hope, it is "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. How does that hope make you or James or anyone else suicidal? 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
