[MD] Free Will

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Craig,

On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 9:50 PM,  <craigerb at comcast.net> wrote:
> [Steve] > This is sufficient for will, > but what are you adding when you attach> the word "free"?
>

Craig:
> So: what is the difference between exercising your will & exercising
> your free will?  When an amoeba backs away from acid or a philadendron
> turns toward the sun, it is exercising its will, but it is not FREE to dive into
> the acid or turn away from the sun, so it is not exercising FREE will.

Steve:
In the MOQ, Pirsig used that example to talk about the amoeba's
response as an exercise of preference based on Quality. Pirsig points
out that there is no empirical difference between describing such
events as causally linked or as a stable pattern of preference. The
difference between an amoeba and a human in the MOQ is that the amoeba
does not have any social or intellectual patterns. Is the metaphysical
entity known as "the will"  one of these types of patterns?


>  [Craig, previously]
>> Once we form an intention/decide, we can consider
>> the consequences of doing/not doing the action & then are free to change our mind based
>> on this feedback. Animals that cannot do this, do not have free will.
>
> [Steve]
>> I agree that humans can consider past events and project into the
>> future, and animals probably can't. But why think this ability is more
>> free than a bird's ability to flap its wings and fly
>

Craig:
> Because it is the basis for your choice.

Steve:
Humans have freedom to choose because they can deliberate and
deliberation is free because it is the basis of choice? This is
circular.

> [Steve]
>> You assert that we are free to change our minds upon reflection. How
>> do I know that we have any choice but to change our minds upon
>> reflection and to reflect in the first place if conditions dictate?

Craig:
> I feel I am free to change my mind, so the burden of proof is on someone who denies I am free to change my mind.  That person is going to have a very difficult task.
> Of the millions or billions of people who for thousands of years felt they free to change their mind,
> every one of them would have to be wrong every single time.  The odds are staggering.

Steve:
We can both try to claim the burden of proof is on the other all we
want, but isn't the burden of proof always on anyone who wants to
convince another of something? We share that burden equally. I am as
skeptical of your claim that you have free will as you are of my claim
that free will is an unnecessary extra-added metaphysical ingredient
with no empirical basis and no legitimate explanatory power.

Like yours, many of my actions also follow deliberation and then a
decision and are accompanied by the felt intention to do the act that
I did. Given those empirical facts, how do I know that a metaphysical
entity called "my will" is what caused the act and further that this
entity is free in some meaningful sense?


> [Steve]
>> I can't simply decide by force of will to
>> prefer 2+2=5 over 2+2=4  Some things we decide, some things we prefer. That we can't
> always decide our preferences is irrelevant.
>
> [Steve]> In the MOQ, what type of static pattern> "the will"?

Craig:
> The will is the interaction of different spovs.

Steve:
That answer is not available in the MOQ. That interaction is either
itself a pattern, a collection of patterns, or DQ.

Best,
Steve