[MD] Indeterminism

[Ham Priday]

Dear Marsha --


> Greetings Ham,
>
> What do you mean by "subjective Self?"  Are you suggesting
> a subjective stream of consciousness as presented in the Steve
> Hagen quote, or an independent, autonomous Self that is a locus
> of control?  AND Dynamic Quality isn't anything.  Fatalism,
> on the other hand, is an intellectual static pattern of value.
> Or were you asking something different?

The question isn't complicated, Marsha.  Dennett defined Fatalism as 
"determinism with you left out."  I'm asking if Fatalism is DQ's 
deterministic movement to betterness as posited by Pirsig who rejects the 
subjective "you".  The purpose behind the question relates to the quandary 
that Steve and dmb are mired in, largely because they're bound to the 
Pirsigian position that DQ is the only "free agent" in existence.

Back in August, Horse gave us this summary of the 'self--agent of action' 
disussion before it turned into the Free Will debate.

[Horse]:
> What is the difference between an 'autonomous individual self ' and
> an 'autonomous moral agent'?  I'm having a hard time seeing any
> difference at all given what's been said so far.
>
> So given my current inability to see where there is an effective
> difference in this discussion:
>
> What is it then that has or expresses free will if not an 'autonomous
> individual self '.
> And if this 'autonomous individual self ' is illusory then the
> conventional way of looking at free will is also illusory.

Marsha, you are one of those people who can't seem to accept selfness as 
either real or proprietary to the individual.  You say "the self is a flow 
of ever-changing, interdependent, impermanent inorganic, biological, social 
and intellectual static patterns of value."  You have also been ambivalent 
as to your belief in a subjective (individual) self, quoting the Buddhist 
position that "One cannot say that the self exists; one cannot say that the 
self does not exist," but you insist that there is no autonomous self. 
Maybe you're willing to settle for the self as a "convention" or "illusion", 
but I'm not.

My position is that a patchwork of value patterns cannot be a real identity 
capable of forming  independent judgments and exercising its own will.  Yet, 
that is what we all do as free  individuals.  Autonomy is the bedrock of 
human existence.  We rationalize Determinism from the cause-and-effect 
precept that comes from our temporal experience of an evolving universe. 
Determinism affords us a reliable foothold on which to base decisions and 
actions.  But it doesn't move us, create our thoughts, or tell us what to 
value.  We freely choose our actions--and our morality--based upon our 
proprietary value-sensibility tempered by reason.

What the MoQers don't seem to understand is that without the autonomy of 
free agency human life has no meaning.  If morality and choice are imposed 
on us by an "external agent" such as Quality, our existence is robotic and 
superfluous.  The universe will continue to evolve toward its determined 
course, while our life is but a dream of scripted experiences.  How can such 
a world be considered "moral" when "immorality" is only a static 
intellectual pattern?

But I've jumped the gun by offering a response before you've answered my 
question.  Why don't you absorb what I've stated above, ask additional 
questions if necessary, and then give me your honest opinion.  I'll simplify 
the question for you: Is the MoQ a deterministic philosophy?

Thanks Marsha,
Ham