[MD] Free Will

[Steven Peterson]

Hi dmb,

On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 11:15 AM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Steve keeps saying that it makes no sense to say we choose our values because we ARE our values. But this seems to assume that there are no conflicts between our values, as if we can follow biological values and intellectual values without any contradictions or tensions, as if we are monolithic or fully harmonized, as if we were determined by our values instead of the laws of causality.

Steve:
I don't assume that these is no conflict between our values. No SOMer
even thinks that. What I deny in denying the SOM notion of free will
is that there is something called "the will" that adjudicates between
values in such cases. In the MOQ, the only thing that can settle a
conflict between values is another value or DQ.

Again, in the MOQ, free will is NOT reinterpreted as the capability to
make choices. We DO make choices, but that's not what Pirsig means by
free will. He redefines free will in MOQ terms as the capability to
respond to DQ.

Best,
Steve