[MD] The Quality of Free Will

[david buchanan]

One minute, Marsha says:

In the MoQ, there is no subject and there are no objects.  If there is no subject - if there is no self - then there is no subject/self to have freedom of the will, and likewise, there is no subject/self who has a life that is determined.  The issue is meaningless. 

The next minute Marsha says:
For me, the MoQ's self is a collection of ever-changing, interrelated, impermanent, static patterns of inorganic, biological, social and intellectual value in a field of Dynamic Quality.

dmb asks:
So, which is it. Does the MOQ say there is no self or not? And if the MOQ does say a self exists, why is freedom and morality meaningless? 

Steve applauds Marsha's back-tracking contradictions:
Exactly. Well said. And we can add that this does NOT render talk of freedom meaningless. Pirsig obviously had a lot to say on the subject. In the MOQ, freedom is associated with DQ rather than with "the will."

dmb says:
As Marsha just construed it, the MOQ's self is a collection of static patterns in a field of DQ and as you have just construed it, freedom is associated with DQ rather than "the will", and by "will" I guess you mean the will of a Cartesian subject.

But why is Marsha's static self IN A FIELD of DQ? Isn't it true that DQ is not external to the MOQ's self? And since we are talking about the relative freedom and constraint of the MOQ's self, why do you insist that the MOQ's self can have a "will"? What sense can we make of the MOQ's "betterness" without some kind of will? 

Seems like it doesn't matter how many times I try to explain this but the problem with your position isn't really metaphysical or philosophical. It's just logically bogus, sometimes even to the extent of maintaining opposite positions.