[MD] The Quality of Free Will

[david buchanan]

Steve said to dmb:
You are bending over backwards to disagree with me. I most certainly did NOT say that questions about freedom and constraint don't make sense in the MOQ. ... It reformulates the question in terns of sq and DQ rather than in terms of the will of an free subject. ... You have just snipped out from the above quote that you are responding to where I said back in April, "...We can identify with our current patterns of preferences and the extent to which we do so we are not free. We are a slave to our preferences. Rather we ARE our preferences. Or we can identify with the capacity to generate, sustain, or destroy existing patterns in favor of (we hope) new and better ones. To the extent we do we are free."  And then, as if you were teaching me a lesson, you quote this to me "In Zen, there is reference to "big self" and "small" self. Small self is the patterns. Big self is Dynamic Quality." Now isn't that exactly what I just said???

dmb says:
You're still not getting it, Steve. The part of the quote that you put back in does not help you. You're making the same crucial mistake in that part too, or rather it's just another way to assert the same position that I'm complaining. I think "value determinism" is a good name for it. 

Your reasoning goes roughly like this: 1) The small self is made of static patterns. 2) We are not free to the extent that we are controlled by static patterns. And then the invalid leap is, in your words, 3) "we are not free. We are a slave to our preferences". 

The assumption behind this leap seems to be that since the small self isn't anything above and beyond the patterns, then the extent to which we are controlled by static patterns must be 100%. That's why I call it "value determinism".

Then there is the Big Self, right? Apparently, you're taking the Dynamic self as something completely separate from the preferences to which we are slaves. Apparently, you seem to think there would be no overlap if the small self and Big self (sq&DQ) were represented in a Venn diagram, as if it's all slavery and control in the little circle and it's all freedom in the big circle. As I imagine it, the small self exists entirely within the Big Self and there is nothing but overlap. We are both at the same time and these are conceptual distinctions, not distinct metaphysical compartments. Quality is what you like, what you prefer and static quality are stable patterns of preference, not a prison to be escaped from. These patterns are what increase your capacity to respond freely. DQ and sq are both Quality, after all.  


Steve said:
"Dependent self" means that it depends on something. It doesn't mean "controlled like a slave," but it does mean "not free," i.e., not DQ.

dmb says:
But Steve, you JUST said, to put it in your own words, that "we are not free. We are a slave to our preferences". You seemed to think that both things were true five minutes ago and both sentences mean the same thing anyway. Why do you want to backtrack on your own words AND assert what is plainly nonsense anyway. I mean, is there any important difference between the claim that "we're not free" and "we are slaves"? Isn't that just what slave means, not free?