[MD] Free Will

[david buchanan]

dmb said to Ian:
It's actually a dispute about whether or not the term "free will" means something so specific that we cannot rightly use the term while talking about the MOQ's conception of one's freedom.



Steve replied:
This is a lie. ... what I have been doing is arguing that "the capacity to respond to DQ" is incompatible with those definitions. Following DQ is indeed a sort of freedom, but it isn't "free will" by any common usage of the term most importantly because following DQ doesn't necessarily include any willing.


dmb says:

Huh? What is the difference between my "lie" and your correction of it? I do not see any difference.
I said you are defining the term so that we cannot right use it while talking about the MOQ's version of freedom and you said the MOQ's version of freedom is incompatible with any usage of the term "free will". How is that NOT saying exactly the same thing. And even if they are just pretty close to the same thing, I still like to know how could that be considered a "lie"?  


Steve said:
That [Stanford quote] is evidence that free will has been defined in many different ways, and I completely accept that, but it is not a license to just use the term to mean whatever you want it to mean and hope to be understood. For example, it doesn't say that it is OK to use the term "free will" to describe situations where there is no conscious willing involved such as an amoeba moving away from acid or hopping off a hot stove before you even become consciously aware of the low quality. It seems quite reasonable to insist that "free will" must involve "will" to make any sense.



dmb says:
Use the term to mean whatever I want? That is ridiculous. The dictionary defines free will as "the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate". That basic definition works just fine in my sentences and in the MOQ. An example of both at same time would be, "To the extent that one follows Dynamic Quality, one is free to act without the constraints of necessity or fate". That sentence doesn't differ in any important way from Pirsig's assertion about "one's" freedom. It is you and your insistence on enforcing a fake, made-up rule that keeps loading the term up with all sorts of metaphysical baggage.