Hi dmb, > Steve replied: > I didn't bring in any two-stage model. That was Boyle's idea that you brought > in. I brought the James essay in to show you ... > > > dmb says: > Oh. My. God. You're so lost that you don't even understand your own evidence. > The man's name is Doyle, not Boyle, and his lecture at Harvard is an > explanation of the the James essay you brought to the table. That is the > essay where James presents his two-stage model. Your denials only show how > clueless you are about your own words and deeds.
Steve: You are misunderstanding as usual. My point is that the Two Stage model is Boyle's suggestion for how James ought to be understood. To my knowledge James never used the term "two stage model" in that or any other essay. So, no, I did not bring any "two stage model" into the conversation. YOU did that through Boyle. > Steve said to dmb: > You keep saying that I ignored your long series of quotes which you presented > without explanation of what you think they mean or how they relate to the > discussion. I have no idea what you want me to say about them. The issue > for me is that you are slipping the traditional notion of free will in the > backdoor of the MOQ. ... > > > dmb says: > You don't see how the Seigfried quotes relate? They show that Jamesian free > will is a practical and empirical matter, that it doesn't depend on any > metaphysical claim. Drop the traditional metaphysical baggage, you keep you > saying. And so I'm showing you that there isn't any. Steve: I can see that in Seigfired's analysis. Boyle, in contrast, seemed to me to be finding room (enough indeterminism) for a Cartesian self to exert his will within an otherwise determined universe. His Two Stage model looks to me like a "God of the gaps" argument for the small god--the Cartesian self. So the Seigfried analysis seems a better candidate for being relevant to Pirsig's notion of freedom. As for your metaphysical baggage, it comes to light upon consideration of the determinism side of the question. When you insist that determinism stands for what is ultimately true being exclusively external control of behavior as opposed to free will being an assertion that internal control is also part of what is ultimately true about the world. When you think it is relevant to ask if we HAVE free will then you aren't talking about Pirsigian freedom. Freedom in Pirsig's formulation is DQ, and "It isn't Lila that has quality; it's Quality that has Lila. Nothing can have Quality. To have something is to possess it, and to possess something is to dominate it. Nothing dominates Quality. If there's domination and possession involved, it's Quality that dominates and possesses Lila. She's created by it. She's a cohesion of changing static patterns of this Quality. There isn't any more to her than that." If Lila doesn't possess static patterns then she certainly does not possess DQ. "To possess something is to dominate it." Nothing dominates DQ. > Steve said: > Pirsigian compatiblism which I think is best understood in terms of small > self (determinism)/Big Self (freedom) rather than "first chance, then choice" > or "first free, then will." Pirsig's notion of freedom is not a matter of the > will of a free agent. While the model Boyle is peddling may be an interesting > and helpful model for understanding James, I don't see this view anywhere in > Pirsig's writing. > dmb says: > James kept working and thinking after he wrote that essay with the two-stage > model. That's the advantage of listening to Seigfreid. She has the whole of > James's work under her belt. This fuller view of James is more compatible > with Pirsig, but now that I think about it the two-stage model isn't a bad > way to think about Pirsig's reformulation. We could say that the extent to > which we are NOT controlled by static patterns is the extent to which we are > indetermined (first free). And the extent to which we follow DQ is the extent > to which we can exercise choices or act on our preferences. Steve: Who is the "we" in this picture that exercises control or is controlled? That's why the Two Stage model doesn't work for the MOQ. That is the important question that my "Big Self/small self" formulation takes into account. 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
