[MD] Free Will

[david buchanan]

Steve said:
Causality is of course a form of preference or a species of value as is _everything in the MOQ_. I get that. I really really do. This doesn't mean we need to throw out the word and are making use of the word in a radically different way when that others won't understand when, say, you use the word beCAUSE above.

dmb says:
NO, Steve. You're still missing the point. Causality is NOT a form of preference or a species of value. I'm saying that such a statement is logically impossible. Given the meaning of the terms "causality" and "preference", that statement is nonsense. It literally makes no sense. Let me make this point in an excessive pedantic way, okay, and then I'll get to your second point about throwing out the word. (Which I never suggested and explicitly denied at least once already.)

Given the meaning of the term, "causality" says that each event unfolds mechanically and in a law-like way. If we act on the basis of such causes our behavior is just a kind of mechanical obedience no different in kind from the behavior of a billiard ball or a tornado.
Given the meaning of the term "preference", actions are always a matter of some choice, even if the range of options may be very, very narrow at the inorganic level. 
Given the meaning of these terms, causality and preference are mutually exclusive and that's why causality is REPLACED by preference rather than being a form or species of it. To say that preference is a species of causality is like saying what I "want" is a form of what I "must do" regardless of what I want. It's like saying choice is a species of obedience to the law. Like I said, it literally makes no sense. 
This is why I keep saying that "preferences" REPLACE "causality" in the MOQ. This is not a request to strike the term from the english language. It's about getting rid of a metaphysical concept BECAUSE of the way it denies freedom and substitute it with a term that does not deny choice or freedom. I'd also point out that causality in this sense refers to the laws of cause and effect. It's a physicalist concept but there are other kinds of "causes" that do not operate in such a law like way and so there is still plenty of room for the word. We could say, "I did it BECAUSE I felt like it." "I loved the book BECAUSE it was richly rewarding and yet I read it without too much difficulty". These sorts of statements have nothing to do with causal relations and there is no implication of determinism.
Very often the word simply refers to the reasons or motives for our choices. And in that sense, we do this or belief that "because" it expresses our preferences. But there are no laws of "because" and effect. 

Steve:
 ...Why not follow Pirsig in dropping all talk of will and instead just talk about freedom re-described in terms of  DQ as you did in the above? Why keep insisting that I am wrong in thinking that the MOQ denies free will when it is clear even from what you wrote above that the ancient notion of "free will" is no where to be found in the MOQ as it is based on the SOM premise that the MOQ rejects?


dmb says:

If it's clear from what I wrote that the MOQ rejects the ancient notion of free will then obviously I'm talking about a different kind of free will and there is no need to keep bringing up the metaphysical entity that nobody is defending. I'm simply talking about the ability to express preferences, to make choices, to decide. The MOQ says man is the measure of all things, a participant in the creation of all things and the passage we're looking at is about whether or not chemistry professors can act independently or if he is determined by the same laws that govern the atoms in his body. This is about people and their everyday experiences. Freedom and restraint aren't just abstract concepts. We meet resistances every day, all day, and we overcome them or we are defeated. This can including anything from moving rocks to writing on metaphysics. One can't even make toast in the morning without knowing both freedom and restraint. According to the MOQ, static pattens don't change by themselves. It takes a living being to do that. To take the person out of this equation would leave us with the absurd claim that nothing in particular is responding to DQ, nothing is migrating toward freedom. I mean, the MOQ's rejection of the Cartesian self is not meant to deny the existence of people or their freedom. The whole idea here is that philosophy should serve life, that ideas that do not serve life are not very good ideas. And determinism does not serve life. It's a moral nightmare precisely because it denies freedom and morality. The MOQ presents a very different picture wherein everything is an ethical activity and a march toward freedom.