[MD] "Could have acted differently" v. "the extent to which we perceive DQ"

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Dan]
I believe I said that free will and "could have acted differently" are seen as
static quality illusions in the MOQ. You seem to be twisting my words into
something that I did not say. 

[Arlo]
Totally not my intent, Dan. Your phrasing "static quality illusions" seems to
point to the fact that SQ=Illusion, and I was responding to that. I do
maintain, however, that "illusions" do not exist within a MOQ, illusions are
what emerge from the SOM that a MOQ seeks to overcome. 

[Dan]
If it feels better to make someone appear foolish, by all means do so.

[Arlo]
Dan, you know me. I think you're one of the most respected voices here. Even if
I TRIED, I could  not make you look foolish. And why would I??

[Dan]
What do atomic bombs have to do with free will and could have beens?

[Arlo]
My comments (about Nagasaki) were solely about equating "SQ" with "illusion",
my comments about "could've" were separate.

[Dan]
Illusions are a belief in that which doesn't exist.

[Arlo]
Right. "S's" and "O's" do not "exist". That is the trap of SOM the MOQ argues
against. But I don't think the MOQ would posit that the (again) the bombs that
exploded above Nagasaki didn't really exist. 

Alright, this is off the "could've" topic, but as I've said before the
"illusion" I am referring to is the "existential" reality of said "thing"... I
get that, there are no primary objects (or subjects) that precede direct
experience. And on that level to call the primacy of objects an "illusion"
makes absolute sense to me. But experientially? Wasn't this Pirsig's point in
ZMM? How can anyone say the bombs were "illusions"? How many dead, how many
wounded, how many sickened even today? How can "an illusion" do that???

[Dan]
Believing one could have done this or could have done that as a matter of free
will is an illusion. Once done is done. 

[Arlo]
I don't think so, Dan. The belief that one could've done something differently
has very high pragmatic value. It is a temporal symbology which allows a
significant alteration in mediated activity. How can this be "an illusion"? 

Seriously, how many people really think that "could've" in some way points to
them changing the past? How many people at our bar really are in woe because
they believe they can change what has been done? 

"Could've" isn't just that, it is about mediated future experience by the
symbolically represented archives we hold in memory. This has real pragmatic
value, and is highly significant in our ability, as a species, to act in all
the myriad and wonderful ways we do.

[Dan]
But the belief in free will could have beens is still an illusion... all in
one's head.

[Arlo]
Well, okay, I'd say that seeing "free will" as some existential "out there"
thing that floats around and controls experience is certainly an illusion. But
the concept of "free will" is an intellectual pattern of value, a way we
explain and make sense of our experience. 

Of course, I have said I don't think it is the best way we can explain this, I
personally think agency/structuration is a better metaphor than free
will/determinism.

But my argument is that "free will" is only an illusion when it is offered as
some existential "object" that exists independent of experience. But as a
mediating intellectual pattern of value, it can have high or low value based on
its success in not only describing experience but giving YOU the tools you want
to navigate the stream of experience.

[Dan]
Proost!

[Arlo]
Eins, zwei, g'suffa!