[MD] The Quality of Free Will

[david buchanan]

dmb said:

Pirsig said, "To the extent that one's behavior is controlled by static patterns of quality it is without choice. But to the extent that one follows Dynamic Quality, which is undefinable, one's behavior is free."  It seems that a lot of the debate centers around the interpretation of these two sentences. Steve, for example, keeps saying that it makes no sense to say we are free to choose our values because we ARE those values. He also seems to think that rejecting SOM means all issues of freedom and control are rendered meaningless.

Steve replied:
Nope. Rejecting SOM means we reject the premise upon which it makes sense to wonder about free will and determinism, but it still makes sense to talk about freedom as I've said repeatedly. Pirsig had a lot to say on the subject and associated it with DQ.


dmb says:
I don't think you have any legitimate reason to keep bringing SOM back into the issue. You keep construing the difference between "freedom and "free will" as a metaphysical difference, as if the latter commits us to SOM and the former doesn't. Same thing goes for "determined", which is just another term for "controlled" or "caused" or "not free". The Pirsig quote in above talks about "one's behavior" using terms like "controlled", "without choice", and "free". Clearly, Pirsig is not using SOM as his premise when he says this stuff and the "one" whose behavior is both controlled and free to some extent is not a Cartesian self. It seems totally unreasonable - if not downright dishonest - to keep adding an SOM premise to my comments. It's very hard to believe that you don't know better.


dmb said previously:
...But in the quote Pirsig is saying that one's behavior is free to the extent that one follows DQ.

Steve replied:
Yep. But he does NOT say that one is in control of his behavior to the extent he follows DQ and not in control to the extent he follows sq. That dubious interpretation of Pirsig's statement as defending the traditional SOM notion of free will is all dmb's.


dmb says now:
See, that's exactly what I'm complaining about. All I did was paraphrase the Pirsig quote and so you have absolutely no reason to attribute SOM to it. Just look. Pirsig said "to the extent that one follows Dynamic Quality, which is undefinable, one's behavior is free," and I paraphrased that as "one's behavior is free to the extent that on follows DQ." There is no difference at all between the meaning of those two statements, let alone a metaphysical difference. It really seems like you are deliberately trying NOT to communicate. 

Steve said:
...I don't deny that we are capable of responding to DQ. Pirsig says people can respond to DQ just as rocks and trees and atoms can. No one thinks of atoms as having free will, but if dmb is willing to stretch the term that far he will be misunderstood by most as supporting the SOM notion of free will that the MOQ denies along with determinism. He is either deliberately or inadvertently trying to slip the Cartesian Self (that entity that either does or does not possess the little god known as "the will") in the back door of the MOQ.

dmb says:
Okay, now take a moment to think about which part of my claim you are so adamantly rejecting. Do you see what part of my statement you are objecting to? No? Well, I think you are jumping all over something I never said, the part of the statement I did NOT state. And that means you are disagreeing about nothing and talking to nobody. What's the point in doing that? Why not respond to the statements and claims I'm actually making rather than argue with your own fictional creations?

dmb said:
The capacity to follow DQ, Pirsig says, extends from inorganic patterns to his own philosophical creativity. The only question is, to what extent is the atom and the philosopher free to follow DQ. ... Not just life, he says, but EVERYTHING is an ethical activity. And without freedom there is no such thing as an ethical or unethical activity. If your activity is controlled, then you can't rightly be praised or blamed for what you do because you're not responsible for those acts.


Steve replied:
If by "without freedom" you mean "without DQ" then we agree, since all of reality depends on it, but I suspect that you mean the world would be different somehow "without 'free will'." I don't think we have to imagine such a little god inside each human being to make talk of moral responsibility coherent. In the MOQ, atoms have the MOQ retooled version of free will as "the capacity to respond to DQ" too, yet we don't regard them as morally responsible, so the link between free will as "the capacity to respond to DQ" and moral responsibility is not there in the MOQ. Moral responsibility in the MOQ comes from having social and intellectual patterns.

dmb says:

Again, the only part of my statement that you disagree with is the part that I did not state, is the part you added. Pirsig's point is that it is not any less metaphysical to explain the behavior of atoms in terms of their "preferences" than it is to explain it in terms of "causality". It seems weirder but that's just because we're not used to it, because it defies linguistic conventions but yes, Pirsig is extending one's capacity to respond to DQ all the way down and he is extending morality all the way down. But he's not saying that atoms are expected to follow the ten commandments or that we should put them on trial in the courts, of course. Morality is a much, much bigger idea in the MOQ. 


Steve said:
dmb without comment ends by quoting part of a quote ..as though it somehow helps his case:"Dharma, like rta, means 'what holds together.' It is the basis of all order. It equals righteousness. It is the ethical code. It is the stable condition which gives man perfect satisfaction. ...Dharma is Quality itself, the principle of 'rightness' which gives structure and purpose to the evolution of all life and to the evolving understanding of the universe which life has created." (LILA, Chapter 30) If Pirsig says that Dharma is duty and is beyond all questions about what is internal (free will) and what is external (determinism), then it seems pretty obvious that dmb errs in in asserting that this SOM question is so important to the MOQ and also in asserting that free will is necessary for duty (moral responsibility).



dmb says:
Again, you are in disagreement with nothing except your own ridiculous inventions. Dharma is Quality itself and it includes order and stable conditions WITHOUT reverting back into SOM's "external" restraints and it includes the capacity to respond to DQ WITHOUT reverting back into SOM's "little god inside each human being". That's what the Sophists were teaching, he says, not ethical relativism and not pristine Victorian virtue. They were teaching Dharma and the medium they chose was that of rhetoric, he says. He'd been doing it right all along. I have been making this point for YEARS. To pretend otherwise just adds another layer of dishonesty to the huge pile of bullshit you've already produced. Didn't your momma ever tell you that cheaters never win?