[MD] Hot Stoves and What To Do About Them

[david buchanan]

If you want to believe the ignorant hacks who speak the english language,..

involuntary |inˈvälənˌterē|adjective1 done without conscious control : she gave an involuntary shudder.• (esp. of muscles or nerves) concerned in bodily processes that are not under the control of the will.• caused unintentionally, esp. through negligence : involuntary homicide.2 done against someone's will; compulsory : a policy of involuntary repatriation.


unconscious |ˌənˈkän sh əs|adjectivenot conscious : the boy was beaten unconscious.• done or existing without one realizing : he would wipe back his hair in an unconscious gesture of annoyance.• [ predic. ] ( unconscious of) unaware of : “What is it?” he said again, unconscious of the repetition.



unpremeditated |ˌənpriˈmedəˌtātid; -prē-|adjective(of an act, remark, or state) not thought out or planned beforehand : it was a totally unpremeditated attack. See note at spontaneous .


spontaneous |spänˈtānēəs|adjectiveperformed or occurring as a result of a sudden inner impulse or inclination and without premeditation or external stimulus : the audience broke into spontaneous applause | a spontaneous display of affection.• (of a person) having an open, natural, and uninhibited manner.




> Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 10:14:05 -0400
> From: peterson.steve at gmail.com
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Subject: Re: [MD] Hot Stoves and What To Do About Them
> 
> Hi dmb,
> 
> On Sun, Aug 7, 2011 at 1:19 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Steve said to Ham:
> > I wonder if Dennett takes determinism as the belief that natural laws are true as a metaphysical assertion or a pragmatic one. If the latter I agree with Dennett and in some weak sense a "determinist." If we take determinism to mean that there is a degree of predictability about the world, then few would deny it. But this is not how Pirsig defined determinism as the doctrine that "man follows the cause-and-effect laws of substance." I deny that sort of determinism along with Pirsig. Note also that reality is Quality, then even substances don't follow the cause and effect laws of substance but rather exercise preference.
> >
> >
> > dmb says:
> > These are the sorts of comments that make me think it would be reasonable to describe your positions as a kind of value determinism.
> 
> Steve:
> That's strange because I don't think I said anything above that you
> could disagree with. But I never should have brought myself into it
> with Ham in this thread to begin with. My purpose here is to discuss
> what Pirsig thinks rather than what I think (that includes what I
> think only as far as it concerns what Pirsig thinks about free will
> but excludes what I think about about free will).
> 
> back on track...
> 
> dmb:
> ...This Quality doesn't just get you off hot stoves. It is the source
> and substance of everything, the ongoing stimulus that created the
> world, every last bit of it, Pirsig says.
> >
> > Think about the meaning of "involuntary" action as opposed to action that is natural and spontaneous. I think you'd be making a mistake to a presume that our actions are either taken on the basis or rational deliberation or they are as automatic as the heartbeat or breathing. There are more than two options here, you know?
> 
> Steve:
> I agree that it is possible to define the terms in such a way as to
> make it a continuum rather than a dichotomy. My point is that either
> an intention to act arises in the consciousness before the act or it
> does not and consciousness only gets involved later  for telling
> stories about it as in the hot stove example.
> 
> 
> dmb:
> And I'm guessing that you want to frame the issue around the hot stove
> example because then you can sort of dismiss DQ as a biological reflex
> action.
> 
> 
> Steve:
> I'm just saying that this is one example among many that we need to
> come to terms with in understanding what Pirsig could mean when using
> it to describe what it means to follow dynamic quality while also
> implicitly defining free will as the capacity to follow dynamic
> quality. He hammered on the hot stove thing hard enough that I don't
> think we ought to sweep it under the rug.
> 
> 
> dmb:
> But when we pose the question in terms of Pirsig's most sustained and
> elaborate example, fixing motorcycles with artistry and writing
> excellent essays, this kind of physiological reductionism will get you
> nowhere fast. Being a slave to your biological impulses simply isn't
> the same thing as unpremeditated spontaneity. That's the mistake that
> the hippies made, according to Pirsig. They confused DQ with
> biological sq, he says. Because neither of them is social or
> intellectual, they were taken to be the same thing.
> 
> 
> Steve:
> Even if you want to call involuntary action "unpremeditated
> spontaneity" or whatever, we still have an important distinction
> between the volitional and the non-volitional, between willed action
> and unwilled action. If unwilled action can qualify as following
> dynamic quality, then Pirsig has a problem in calling following DQ in
> general "free will" since it is not necessarily willed at all. On the
> other hand, he didn't literally call it that. Perhaps he sidestepped
> the issue of free will in his discussion of free will by substituting
> human freedom as a matter of willing with freedom as something quite
> different, namely DQ. That is my view anyway--freedom as DQ is
> something very different from freedom as a matter of will.
> 
> Best,
> Steve
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