[MD] Free Will

[John Carl]

>
> Steve said:
>



>  Free will is also false (according to the MOQ - JC)  since
> though everything is preference (or value), it is meaningless to
> assert that preference is free.


John:  It's not meaningless, Steve.  Only redundant.  Preference implies
freedom of choice.  I can't prefer what is forced upon me.  What is
meaningless is to assert that preference is not free.  For "not free"
obviates the root meaning of "preference".

Steve:


> What could a person's preference be
> free of when all that a person is is a set of preferences?


John:

What does freedom mean when all we are is free?  It means everything, is
all.

Steve:


> This
> freedom to which the traditional notion of free will refers is the
> freedom of an independent agent that the MOQ calls a fiction.
>
> John:

In a sense, yes.  A fiction.  But then so is the law of gravity and the
stars and galaxies and earth beneath our feet.  It's all a fiction.  We
choose our reality from the whirling plethora around us, and the free choice
thereof is about as "real" as anything else.  More real, actually.

Steve:



> So in short, absolutely, "this topic...is all wrong."


John:

Well, something sure is.

Steve:



> But the notion
> of free will is such a cherished one that even MOQers who deny the
> existence of the fundamental reality of an independent subject
> nevertheless are horrified to think that this subject who does not
> exist lacks free will.
>
>
John:  The individual is a fiction, freely created and chosen.  Freedom to
choose comes before individual subjects.  That's what the MoQ explains so
clearly.  Quality and Freedom are synonomous.

However, the nature of freedom is such that individuals CAN choose to
obviate their freedom.  In doing so, they say the truth when they say free
will can't exist.  What is horrifying is why anybody would choose to do so.
 Escape responsibility for one's actions, seems the most common reason.
 This is the very essence of what moral culpability is and directly tied to
all the MoQ stands for, when placing value as the fundament of reality.

John