[MD] Free Will

[Dan Glover]

Hello everyone

On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 4:36 PM, Matt Kundert
<pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Dan,
>
> Matt said:
> I have trouble equating Dynamic Quality or freedom with the absence
> of patterns for the Pirsigian reason of the concomitant distinction
> between and ambiguity between DQ and chaos/degeneracy.
>
> Dan said:
> Yes, equating Dynamic Quality with the absence of patterns can be
> tricky. I think that was partly why RMP seemed to lean towards
> holding Dynamic Quality as a positive...
>
> Thinking of [DQ] as not this, not that, is rather confusing too, as the
> discussions here show. I know there are some parts in LILA that are
> ambiguous. ...
>
> Matt:
> That's not the ambiguity I meant.  I didn't mean a textual ambiguity
> on Pirsig's part, but an idea I've before called the indeterminacy of
> Dynamic Quality thesis.  I think Pirsig is more or less clear about the
> difference between Dynamic Quality and chaos.  What I meant is that
> the distinction between DQ and chaos _comes along with necessarily_
> the ambiguity between them in the present felt experience of a
> person.  That's how I've interpreted Pirsig's discussion of degeneracy
> on Lila 255-59.  Pirsig asks the question, "how do you tell the saviors
> from the degenerates?"  And then he moves back to descriptions of
> New York.  As far as I can tell, he doesn't give that question an
> answer, nor anywhere else that doesn't appeal back to the felt
> experience of betterness.  Nor _should he_: I think that's the smart
> move and it should be codified as a principle, as important as the
> principle that DQ is betterness.  Because if you combine the latter
> with a method for telling the difference between saviors and
> degenerates, you've hyptostatized betterness, encapsulated it like
> Plato.  If you don't, but say that if it _feels_ better, then it _is_ better,
> then you've licensed the first-personal point of view free reign to call
> itself a savior and be _therefore justified_.

Dan:

"It's the freedom to be so awful that gives it [New York City] the
freedom to be so good." [Lila]

I know he's talking about a city but he could just as well be talking
about degenerates and and saviors... the Zuni brujo, for instance. In
the midst of the darkness there is a Dynamic sparkle. What tells them
apart? I would posit the narrative of life; the stories they tell (of)
themselves. Isn't that what LILA is all about?

>
> Matt said:
> I have non-Pirsigian qualms about the ideas of "karmic delusion" and
> "evolutionary garbage of history" because they strike me as
> primitivistic responses to the present keyed at a metaphysical level.
>
> Dan said:
> I guess I don't see it that way. Karma is a tricky business, especially
> since we in the West tend to view it as cause and effect (paying it
> forward), and Eastern religions (at least in more modern times) tend
> to view it as a cycle of life and death. So it seems best to start out
> simple...
>
> Matt:
> I guess I don't see how what you've said here connects to what I said
> about primitivism.  To say one should avoid the primitivist fantasy isn't
> to say anything about the evaluation of simplicity qua simplicity.

Dan:

You seemed to be saying karma (karmic delusions, evolutionary garbage)
plays as a primitivistic notion. I tend to disagree. But at the same
time, I see a need to at least lean in that direction, at least in the
beginning. But of course I am not privy to your "non-Pirsigian
qualms." I was rather hoping you might expand on that.

Matt:
 Also,
> I don't see the difference between "cause-and-effect" formulations
> and "preconditional valuation" formulations for what you say next--
>
> Dan said:
> Since the MOQ does away with cause and effect and replaces it with
> a valuing of preconditions, the definition of karma changes too.
> Instead of reaping what we sow (so to speak), preconditions give
> rise to patterns of value. By valuing certain preconditions we set
> ourselves up to be deluded into thinking we are free to choose, when
> in actuality our karmic history (the garbage we tell ourselves over
> and over again until we believe it implicitly) molds and determines
> the course of our life.
>
> Matt:
> I think it's a mistake to think that the MoQ "does away with cause and
> effect."  I don't think that's exactly what Pirsig meant (much more
> about that below).  Also, I don't see how cause-and-effect thinking
> impedes our ability to reach the (smart) position of seeing how our
> (karmic) history "molds and determines the course of our life."
> That's essentially the historicist standpoint Hegel helped into
> Greco-European philosophical thinking in the 19th century.  I don't
> think what I said about primitivism clouds anything you said here
> about karma.  But I also don't think anything you said here justifies
> the description of (karmic) history as a "delusion."

Dan:

I am sure you are much more familiar with Hegel than I. And whether
anything I say is justified, well, I leave others to decide that. If
you don't think I have explained my position adequately, then I
haven't. But it seems as if you agree with what I am saying, but are
using different words to do it.

>
> Dan said:
> Well, I think it depends on what kind of Buddhism you are talking
> about as well as the translator who is interpreting the texts. As long
> as it is understood that karma is linked to the motives behind actions,
> not to the consequences of actions, I think it is easier to see what
> RMP is saying in LILA.
>
> Matt:
> Perhaps that's where you misunderstood me.  I was talking about a
> particular formulation you made, and what cautions me about it.  I
> was not talking about the interpretation of Pirsig at that moment, nor
> especially the proper interpretation of Buddhism, which I am not e
> quipped to discuss or adjudicate.
>
> When someone talks in a certain manner about an object of inquiry
> held in common, and particularly if precisely what is said is
> underdetermined (largely because of space constraints and not
> being able to say everything at once), I think it is sometimes apropos
> to forward one's own reasons for not talking in that manner (if one
> has reasons).  Such a comment is not meant as accusation, but as
> explanation (for why one doesn't talk in that way) and as request
> (for assent to the picture of why not, or denial that that is what is
> meant).  What you've suggested about understanding karma from
> your point of view suggests that we agree in avoiding what I called
> primitivism.

Dan:

Yes, that seems right.

>
> Dan said:
> It appears to me that one of the narratives that is dysfunctional is the
> notion of having the ability to choose what we do and who we are.
> We make up stories and then we come to believe those stories are
> true.  In fact, though, they are constructs, built up out of social and
> intellectual quality patterns.
>
> Matt said:
> The first sentence sounds like thing Steve's been pressing, what I
> also pressed when I talked about Nagel briefly: the amount of free
> will we have in our lives seems to disappear the closer we look at
> situations.  Were the second two sentences just glosses on how,
> because our truths are embedded in stories that are constructed out
> of the cloth that makes us up, we can change this dysfunctional
> narrative?
>
> Dan said:
> Of course we can change the narrative. But I think that is beside the
> point, isn't it? We simply change one narrative for another. That
> doesn't mean we are making a choice freely.
>
> Matt:
> Is it?  I think we're talking past each other here a little bit.
>
> I thought there was a narrative according to which this is true: "free
> will allows us the ability to choose what we do and who we are."
> You called this narrative dysfunctional.  I think that calling this
> narrative dysfunctional suggests that we ought to look for a
> functional one: which makes narrative change the point.
>
> You however respond by making a point _in_ the
> metaphysical/epistemological debate about free will: we change from
> one narrative to another, but what makes that choice free?  I thought
> we already agreed that neither one of us cares about that debate.
> That means whatever freedom I'm talking about is not that kind of
> freedom, but whatever kind of freedom needs to be supposed so that
> it is possible to change one's narrative about how the world works
> (e.g., the freedom to reflect on one's narratives: one practical form
> of this is money enough to afford free time to do so).
>
> Does that make more sense?  Did I accidentally imply the
> meta/episte debate we want to eschew?

Dan:

On changing narratives in real life: some years ago when I first got
into real estate, my Broker (boss if you will) gave all us agents the
chance to go to Hawaii to engage in a seminar with Tony Robbins, who's
whole spiel is changing narratives. It was a pretty awesome
experience... the man is energy personified, morning until late at
night.
We did and said things we'd never normally do, all in an effort to
change the narrative of our lives.

Then we came home and (quite naturally) slipped right back into the
old narrative. It wasn't something anyone chooses to do. We just do
it. We are compelled to be who others think we are. So if a man like
Tony Robbins calls me up on stage and says, be Mighty Mouse! Say it
like Mighty Mouse says it! I go ahead and bellow out: Here I am, to
save the day! Just like Mighty Mouse says it! I don't choose to do it
though. I am expected to do it, so I do it.

Whatever you think I am, or wish me to be, I am. I am defined by
family, friends, co-workers, everyone I know. Or better, who knows me.
That is how the narrative of my life is grounded.

It is  important to understand that I am not talking specifically
about me as an individual or you as a person. I am talking about
social patterns of quality and how those values inform us on who we
are and our place in the world.

That there is a dysfunctional narrative that informs us that we are
free to choose who we are and what we do doesn't mean that there is a
"correct" narrative, however. Is that what you are asking?


> Dan said:
> It is the causal chain that bothers me. The act of A throwing a
> baseball values preconditions set in place by inorganic, biological,
> social, and intellectual patterns of quality working at motivating a
> preference to throw a baseball. A is no more responsible for
> throwing a baseball than the coach who taught A to throw, or the
> manufacturer who made the baseball. The preference A gives to
> throw a baseball instead of, say, a rock, is the result of preconditions,
> not causes.
>
> Matt:
> As an extension of my comment about preconditional valuation above,
> I guess I don't really see how Pirsig's redescription of causation really
> expands our minds in a way that's unavailable for causation-thinkers.
> It seems strained to say that Pirsig opens up a whole avenue of
> thinking about conditions that precede actions when its the "chain"
> quality of _both_ preconditional valuation and causation that allows
> one to go backwards (or forwards).  I couldn't see any line of thinking
> about the example of murder you posited that a person thinking
> causally couldn't follow.  As far as I can tell, a "precondition" is a
> "cause."  Pirsig's redescription doesn't seem on its face to change the
> structure of the chain.  It seems just as easy to say that "A is a causal
> nexus of training from coaches and the economics of industrialization
> plus professionalized recreations" as it is to say "A is a preconditional
> valuational nexus of coaches, manufacturers, etc."  A is not
> responsible for throwing _a_ baseball, especially in a cosmic sense,
> but I can understand that from thinking about causes, too.  And A
> _is_ responsible for throwing _that_ baseball, unless you want to be
> like Clarence Darrow and argue that because we are the set of our
> preconditions/causes, you should exonerate everyone from
> wrong-doing.  But that strikes a blow at the heart of normative
> activity, which is to say evaluative activity, which is to say Value,
> where one thing is better than another.  So, we still judge A
> according to A's preferences, and we do that whether we're thinking
> causally or preconditional valuationally.

Dan:

Well, yes. The only thing that changes is the wording we use. I
thought that was a given so perhaps I glossed over it. Value implies
preference while causation implies certainty, and if we are looking at
philosophy as predicated on every day life, nothing is certain. So to
use a causal chain of events to explain that philosophy lacks the
necessary grounding in what we are seeking to explain, doesn't it?

>
> Dan said:
> [previous example from my paper: "Person C with a gun to their
> head is forced to kill person X: we do not hold person C
> responsible."]
>
> If we say Person C causes the death of Person X, we would be
> technically correct. Yet, you are saying Person C isn't responsible. I
> beg to differ. A court of law may exonerate him/her but morally,
> they are still responsible. They valued the precondition of their own
> life over the life of someone else. This isn't to say that they actually
> had a choice in the matter, however.
>
> Matt:
> I think you misunderstood the gist of my paper on that point.
> Remember, I made a distinction between moral and causal
> responsibility, and that causal responsibility is a (dare I say)
> precondition of moral responsibility.  The example of Person C was
> intended to illustrate--not _correct_ moral reasoning--but the general
> theoretical point that causal responsibility isn't coextensive with moral
> responsibility.  In fact, if someone _does_ think that causal
> responsibility is coextensive with moral responsibility, that _still_ goes
> to reinforce the point there because one has still made/understood
> the distinction between causal responsibility and a moral standard
> that grafts onto causal responsibility.  To judge a particular case
> differently is to have a different moral standard, and it was the
> overall point of my paper to establish that moral standards adjudicate
> _what kinds of freedom_ may or may not be necessary for moral
> reasoning.
>
> Now, in the above, I don't think you _have_ actually quibbled with the
> moral reasoning stated in the example, because it seems you made
> the Pirsig value-first move in calling _all_ responsibility _moral_
> responsibility.  But that's besides the point for the issue I was
> discussing, I think.  After the "everything is value" move, if you are
> going to make any sense of real life moral reasoning, then you're
> going to need to start making distinctions between different forms of
> culpability (e.g., legal, physical, societal) within the overall sense
> that we are all morally responsible for every action we make.
>
> You have to understand the precondition of that paper: it was written
> for a class _on_ the free will vs. determinism problem, a problem
> that you, I, and Steve all think is lame and a nonstarter when cast at
> that metaphysical/epistemological level.  I apparently thought it was
> back then, too, in 2002.  For the best way to read the thesis of that
> paper is as a giant "mu."  It was to say that if determinism is the
> thesis that we are caught up in causal chains, then it is not
> destructive of moral reasoning because moral reasoning is
> something that occurs partly _because_ of causal chains.  Moral
> reasoning _needs_ causal chains.  And if that's the case, why on
> earth would determinism destroy moral reasoning?
>
> Now, given that's the case about that paper, it is also the case that
> all of the reasoning is in the vocabulary of causation.  And you want
> to press the point that using a vocabulary of preconditional valuation
> would open up new lines of thinking about moral reasoning.  I'm still
> not sure what they are, but the above at least serves to set straight
> what I was trying to do with the vocabulary of causation.

Dan:

Well, again, only the wording is different. I wouldn't want to press
the point further than that. I thought it was an interesting paper,
though. Thank you for pointing it out.

>
> Dan said:
> Again, I think by replacing causality with the valuing of preconditions,
> we have a more expanded set of both questions to ask and answers
> to give. By understanding we are not "free" in any sense of the word
> when our actions are motivated by static dictates, we come to see
> that responsibility is bound up not only with us as individuals, but
> with social and intellectual patterns of quality that make up our
> culture... both self and atmosphere.
>
> Matt:
> The only way to articulate why I don't see the expansion is to say that
> Pirsig isn't the only person to have given us a vocabulary in which to
> talk about us as not only individuals.  The entire edifice of
> post-Hegelian philosophy is directed at understanding humans as
> culturally constituted, which is to say, as a set of patterns.  And none
> of them has had to abandon the vocabulary of causation to make
> sense of this expansion.

Dan:

Interesting. So are you saying RMP is original on this point? And if
so, why is that a bad thing?

>Matt:
> And by the way, how do you know when your "actions are motivated
> by static dictates"?  That seems like a bad question to me, but one
> forced on us by predicating freedom on "when" that is not the case.
> It seems just to call up again the free will vs. determinism debate.

Dan:

Actually, it seems like a good question to me. We know when we do what
we're expected to do. Or not.

>Matt:
> (And I caution against answering my rhetorical question with forms
> of "my actions are not motivated by static dictates when they move
> against the grain of current conventions."  Answers of that form are
> the only way to know that you _aren't_ being static, but because of
> the indeterminacy of DQ thesis, it also doesn't tell you whether it's
> good or bad freedom.)

Dan:

I wouldn't put it that way... good freedom or bad freedom. Freedom is
without patterns, good or bad. Going against the grain of convention
is just another way of following static dictates; it is the other side
of the coin. When we are told what to do, we are also informed as to
what not to do. Are we not?

>
> Matt said:
> And I do think it is a fact of the matter today that people are less
> concerned about whether other people get married at all, and in
> that sense lifetime-monogamous.
>
> Dan said:
> I suppose that would depend on just who one asked.
>
> Matt:
> That sounds like a non sequitor, Dan.  You can ask individual persons
> for what they think about themselves and how they wish to live their
> own lives _and_, additionally and separately, ask them what they
> think about the general movement of cultural history.  But the two
> are not the same, and I was _not_ talking about how I live my own
> life, but about cultural history.  And when you are talking about that
> object, you can be wrong or right about it, whatever one's individual
> opinion.  The correctness of my claim that "people are less
> concerned..." is something that's either wrong or right, not something
> that depends on who you ask.  You _will_ get different answers about
> whether that claim is right or wrong, but their (my) ability to justify
> that answer will determine the competence of their ability to answer
> that question responsibly.

Dan:

How is it right or wrong if you don't ask? You say: "people today are
less concerned..." but how do you know that? Is it something you've
read? Something you've come to understand by talking to others? And
how does one determine who is competent (and who isn't)?

I take it your claim rests on socially accepted norms reported in the
media. But the media is biased too. A website like Beliefnet is liable
to report differently than MSNBC. So I am unsure why you say my
statement seems like a non sequitur. I am not saying you're right or
wrong, mind you. I am saying yours is an opinion based on the opinion
of others who may (or may not) be right.

Dan