[MD] The Quality of Free Will

[david buchanan]

Dan said to dmb:
The phenomenal level of concrete experience must refer to inorganic/biological patterns of quality. Abstract ideas are not concrete! And again, she seems to be saying experience is reduced to the activity of brain cells.

dmb says:
Oh, no. Please read that post again. But this time, as I should have pointed out, think of the phenomenal level of concrete experience as equal to Pirsig's "direct everyday experience" or "primary empirical reality". James doesn't use "concrete" in any materialist sense of the word, like "cement". He means experience as it's actually felt and lived, and so he's talking about "concrete" experience as opposed to "abstract" thought. Please read that post again, but this time realize that when James is talking concrete and abstract, he's basically talking about DQ and sq. I think you'll find that it does address your original question. Where is the will?

Think about what James is saying in comparison to what Pirsig was saying about Karma and the negative face of Quality. I'm saying the will is the name for that striving and suffering and so the idea refers to something concretely lived and felt. It's not meaningless at all. And it's only an illusion, I think, to the extent that this idea stopped referring to actual experience and instead becomes some kind of metaphysical entity or ontological category. That's what reification is. You know, like when subjects and objects are taken as the starting points of reality rather than concepts derived from experience. For James and Pirsit, ideas can only come from experience. That's what ideas are about, that's where they are tested and tried and where they function. The abstract always has to come back down to the concrete, to experience as such. 

I think you'll find that you mostly agree with James and Seigfried, if you re-read that post with this stuff in mind.