[MD] The Quality of Free Will

[david buchanan]

dmb said:
Steve keeps saying Lila just is her values and there is no added metaphysical entity beyond that. This is true enough as far as it goes, but this doesn't mean that selves have no existence at all. Steve and I and everyone else exist DEPENDENTLY within this larger evolutionary framework.

Steve replied:
To assert that the self "exists DEPENDENTLY" is to deny the free will horn of the traditional free will versus determinism dilemma since the whole big deal there was always about whether or not an INDEPENDENT self can assert itself, i.e. exercise it's free will. Obviously a value-based metaphysics also denies the determinism horn of the traditional SOM dilemma as well. ...


dmb says:
Yes, Steve, the existence of the DEPENDENT self denies the the notion of an INDEPENDENT self. It is a rejection of the self as an independent entity. Pirsig's description of Lila (and everyone else) as persons engaged in a struggle with the patterns of their own life e is an alternative to the notion of an independent self. I'm talking about the discussion of freedom and constraint in terms of Lila's battle, in terms of Pirsig's evolutionary morality. That's WHY the traditional dilemma doesn't come up. The MOQ sets the issues of freedom and control into a completely different context AND thereby re-conceiving the self so that we are NOT EVEN TALKING about the freedom and constraint OF an independent self anymore. Instead, we are talking about the freedom and constraint of the MOQ's dependent self. That is the "one" who is controlled to some extent. That is the "one" who is free to some extent. 

So what are YOU talking about, Steve, if not that "one"? Have we not already agreed that there is no independent self? Have we not already established the fact that the MOQ rejects that notion of the self? Have we not already established the topic here as Pirsig's reformulation of the issue without the Cartesian self figuring into it? Yes. Yes, we have. And so your reply is a non-sequetor. Questions about the status of this independent self simply isn't relevant because it does not exist in Pirsig's reformulation. You're not only talking about a straw man that nobody is defending, you're changing the subject. 


Steve said:
...To the extent we follow static patterns we are not free, to the extent we are acting in response to DQ, we are free. ..But to exactly what extent IS that? What is interesting to me is that what we seem to have here is a whole new MOQ Platypus after the SOM Platypi have been dissolved. Because Pirsig says we cannot distinguish degeneracy from DQ until long after the fact we just can't say to what extent we are free.


dmb says:
Platypus? Well, no. A platypus is something that doesn't neatly fit into our conceptual categories. (Egg-laying mammals!? What!? A reptile with milk!? What?!) The extent to which any given person is free or controlled may not be easy to quantify but that doesn't mean that it defies our thought categories or that it doesn't fit into the MOQ's evolutionary framework. And Pirsig makes a case that it is SOM that prevents us from seeing the difference between saviors and degenerates, between revolutionaries and criminals. It may be true that Rorty thinks Quality is just a compliment we pay to sentences but that is nowhere near Pirsig's position. According to Pirsig's metaphysics, Quality is the source and substance of everything, the engine that drives evolution toward ever-increasing freedom. It is the mystic reality from which the entire static world was derived, including us.