[MD] Free Will

[Matt Kundert]

Hey Dan,

Matt said:
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.

Dan said:
"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:
Yes, but you aren't awful and good at the same time (at least, I don't 
think that's what Pirsig is saying here).  Pirsig at that moment has 
moved to talking about providing a structure that accommodates DQ.  
And, he says, the only way to do that is to allow the good and the 
awful (and hence, New York).

What Pirsig doesn't answer is how _you_ know for sure _you_ are 
being Dynamic and not Awful.  I don't think Pirsig has an answer that 
gives that certainty, I think giving an answer that gives that certainty 
would be antithetical to Pirsig's project, and so therefore I codified 
that thought as "the indeterminacy of Dynamic Quality thesis": in the 
moment, there is no certain way to be sure whether you are acting 
Dynamically or degenerately (i.e. tending toward chaos).

Your answer (which is my answer) is "the narrative of life."  This, 
however, is a not a good answer to the question "how do you _know_ 
you are a savior and not a degenerate?" because it is a 
_retrospective_ answer.  It says that experience gives you your idea 
of when you are behaving well or awfully.  It says that only after 
you've found out the consequences of your actions can you be in a 
position to tell whether it was good or awful.  I think this is the right 
answer, but it is also consistent with the indeterminacy of DQ thesis.

Dan said:
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:
I don't have any more readily explicable thoughts about the dangers 
of metaphysical primitivism.  In your reply, I didn't understand how 
you were hooking up with any of those thoughts, so I have no sense of 
what more should be said.  I also don't know what it means to 
disagree with a "primitivistic notion" and at the same "lean in that 
direction."  For "primitivism" to be a useful polemical concept, I would 
not want to confuse it with the value of simplicity.  You might say that 
primitivism is what you get when you start with the (laudable) value of 
simplicity and (riskily) make it your only value.  Something like that.

The main thing that I avoid is the rhetoric of "delusions" and 
"garbage."  It's those pieces of your vocabulary that make me think 
something bad is going on (e.g., perhaps primitivism).  I don't see 
the point in calling history/evolution/karma delusory or garbage.  
There might be delusions and garbage floating around _in_ history, 
but I don't understand the point of calling all of reality an 
illusion/delusion (much like the concept of maya seems to).

Matt said:
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 said:
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.

Matt:
These are odd responses, Dan.  The sense of "justification" you're 
talking about is, yes, of course others decide whether one is justified 
in what they believe, but if the others don't think so--for a "talking 
about" to count as conversational inquiry--they push back by pointing 
to the places that need more/different justification (from their lights).  
Pointing this general fact out about "whether anything I say is 
justified" is a non sequitor in our focused conversation.  As is 
whether you've "explained your position adequately."  It seems from 
both of our standpoints, now, after a few turns of the email-exchange 
wheel, that we both think that we agree with what each other is 
saying but each of us is using different words.  However, above just 
now in this email, and in the previous email's "But I also don't think 
anything you said here justifies the description of (karmic) history as 
a 'delusion,'" I've pressed you on a _specific_ item that I happen to 
think calls for more justification _even given our agreement_.  
_Those_ words, so I think, require more to be said about why one 
would use them to make the point we agree on.  You are largely 
saying the same thing as I would want to say with different words, 
but part of what you're saying I wouldn't want to say at all.

It's perfectly fair not to have any more conversational justification at 
this moment.  That's kind of what I just said with respect to 
primitivism.  I don't use a strong version of "justify what you say" in 
my conversations with people.  I think one of the oddities of this 
discussion group is that people use stronger versions of "justify what 
you say" requirements on _other_ people than they do on 
_themselves_.  (So it seems to me after having watched the 
discussions for these many years.)  I try (try!) largely to hold myself 
to stronger requirements than I do my interlocutors, and that way at 
least avoid looking like a hypocrite.  I think the best use of this 
discussion group is just making as much explicit as you can at the 
moments that you can.  I don't think we need to make rhetorical 
flourishes like "I'll leave others to decide" because I think everyone 
should just be taking that as a given.  If we took each other seriously 
but lightly, I think people would get a lot better thinking done in the 
confines of the MD and it would look a lot less like a bloodbath.

Dan said:
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?

Matt:
I'm not sure anymore what I was asking.

I'm not saying there is a "correct" narrative.  However, I think we 
should be able to agree that there are better and worse narratives 
(by Pirsigian lights), right?

Given that there are better and worse narratives, I think I was talking 
about changing from a dysfunctional narrative that uses a notion of 
free will to suggest to people that changing everything about one's 
life is as easy as waking up in the morning--to a functional narrative 
that doesn't do that (options being Pirsig, or Dennett, or Hegel, etc.).

So, even if one grants that "the narrative of my life is grounded" in 
the community one finds oneself (a preeminently Hegelian point of 
view), that still leaves open the question about whether one can 
change their narrative.  All your story did was punch up that it is 
harder than Tony Robbins sometimes would lead you to believe to 
change your life (though Robbins, in a reflective "off" moment would 
probably agree, but respond that--in his "on" moments--his job is to 
instill in his audience the _confidence_ that change is _possible_).  
That you failed, when you got home, to become a mouse-like 
vigilante just means that you were unwilling to break the (large 
volume of) expectations other's put upon you by thinking they know 
who you are (it could mean other things, too: like that you forgot 
all about the fact that in Hawaii you desired to be Mighty Mouse).  
That doesn't mean that you don't have the practical freedom to 
choose to be someone else.  It just means that, on reflection, you 
weren't willing to break all of those social proprieties.

Dan said:
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?

Matt:
Oh.  I guess I don't think causation implies certainty.  You might say 
that in my set-up of how stuff works, I incorporate "the uncertainty 
of life" at a different level.  A causal relationship itself doesn't imply 
certainty, because certainty only comes up for persons attempting 
to adjudicate questions of causality.  "Hey Bob, did Sally cause 
Steve's death?"  "Oh, yeah, I'm certain of it because I saw her do 
it!"  The causal relationship itself doesn't establish certainty, but 
rather the certainty of a causal relationship is established by 
something else (e.g., observational evidence).

Matt said:
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 said:
Well, again, only the wording is different. I wouldn't want to press 
the point further than that.

Matt:
I'm confused by what we've concluded about our conversation.  It 
sounds like you've just suggested that you knew all along that we 
are _just_ and _only_ using different wording, different vocabularies.  
But if that were the case, why were your pressing any point at all?  I 
assumed, because you were initially pressing a point, that there was 
a difference somewhere, or rather, that using the vocabulary of 
preconditional valuation wasn't _only_ different wording, but a 
different wording that _makes_ a difference (to something).  I was 
probing to see where that was.

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

Matt:
Well, I guess two things: 1) I don't think Pirsig _has_ abandoned the 
vocabulary of causation (which was what I meant before about "I 
think it's a mistake to think that the MoQ 'does away with cause and 
effect'").  I think he's merely shown an ingenious way of redescribing 
causation in terms of value to help ease us out of a bad 
substance-metaphysics.  But I don't think rejecting 
substance-metaphysics entails rejecting the vocabulary of causation, 
nor do I think Pirsig thinks so.  However, if I'm wrong about what 
Pirsig thinks (particularly given that I haven't really studied him in a 
long time), then I'd have to say that Pirsig is wrong, because I don't 
think there's anything wrong with the vocabulary of causation once 
one does away with SOM.  And, on top of this, if you really do think 
that "only the wording is different," then you too functionally have 
not abandoned the vocabulary of causation: you've simply given it a 
different name.

And 2) my point wasn't that Pirsig's notion of preconditional valuation 
was bad because it was different, but that it doesn't seem to be the 
case that one _needs_ an alternative to the vocabulary of causation 
to understand that we are not only individuals, but 
individuals-grounded-in-communities.  That's why I don't see the 
expansion.  If "only the wording is different," then the vocabulary 
functions the same as before, does the same things, and hence 
doesn't really expand anything.  There needs to be a difference that 
makes a difference for a vocabulary-change to expand our range of 
possibilities, and it's that difference I'd still press for.

Dan said:
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:
I guess I get to easily caught up in thinking that freedom is a 
commendatory term, given how closely people generally want to ally 
"freedom" directly with "Dynamic Quality," which you appear 
(thankfully) unwilling to do.  (I also didn't mean "going against the 
grain" in the narrow sense of doing the opposite of expectation, but 
in the expanded sense, as you roughly put it right before, of "not 
doing what's expected," which is more than just the opposite.)

Dan said:
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.

Matt:
One determines competence by hopefully competent methods.  I'm 
not trying to offer a method for any of these meta-determinations, but 
make distinctions between different pieces of an equation (if you will).  
For example, the distinction between how one lives their own life 
(e.g., monogamously, polygamously, etc.) and how one thinks the 
course of cultural history charts how people have thought about how 
they should live their lives.  I was talking about cultural history and 
you brought up asking Tiger's wife.  I'm suggesting that's a non 
sequitor, because that merely tells us a little something about the 
present and I want to talk about the present's relationship to the 
past.

As for my own justifications for my claim (which one could judge me 
incompetent), it is a vague assessment based on reading about the 
past and talking to people (much less on mainstream media outlets, 
which I have a slim intake of).  Amongst younger folks, it appears 
that people care less about marriage than older generations do now, 
and have in the past.  Here are my credentials: As a teacher, I 
hobnob with a range of 18-year-olds.  Then there's my friends 
(though that's a pool of limited generalizability).  But probably best 
in my corner about the present is the fact that I've recently gone 
through the process of getting married, and in talking to the (limited 
number of) marriage industry people I encountered, they seem to 
add evidence to the claim of less concern (based on trends they've 
seen in couples getting married, particularly how they are getting 
married).

How much justification is that about my perception of the present?  
Well, not nearly enough compared to a sociologist who does 
research on that kind of thing.  And I can't recall reading anything 
about present-day marriage practices that might have impacted my 
from-the-hip-ish claim.

However: say we make the entire 20th century one, big static block 
of nothing-has-changed-in-the-last-100-years-about-marriage.  I 
have read a few books on marriage and related social practices 
about a few different cultures before the 20th century.  (Most 
importantly, Georges Duby's Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages.)  
This was never work done _for_ the discussion of marriage, but 
rather research that was to impact in an acilliary way my real 
objects of inquiry (most recently, Sir Walter Scott's The Bride of 
Lammermoor).  But based on what I've read, I feel comfortable in 
making the broad generalization that "people today are less 
concerned about the practice of marriage than they used to be 
(e.g., 2500 years ago)."

Matt