ROGER TRIES TO DELVE FURTHER INTO
THE FREE WILL ASPECT OF THIS MONTH'S TOPIC
Mark and Squad,
What an awesome post, Mark. Absolutely first class. Please allow me to give
some other thoughts on this topic.
In brief, I think the Free Will is an SOM platypus because it is an oxymoron.
It combines a term "Will", which is that which you value or desire, with
"Freedom", which implies an absence of influence. The one thing by definition
that your Will cannot be free from the influence of is your own values. If
it is free from your values, it is not Free Will, it is either compulsion or
fortuitousness. Or to use Mark's terms, nobody would describe going from a to
b without valuing b as free will. This is chance. Allow me to quote Radical
Empiricist Zen Philosopher Kitaro Nishida:
"We usually contend that the will is free. But what is this so called
freedom? We think we can freely desire anything, but that simply means that
it is possible for us to desire....... It is not so much that I produce
desires, but that actualized motives are none other than me."
A pattern is free when it is able to actualize its values. Free will is not
absence of value patterns, free will is the ability to follow your own values
and achieve congruence with your ideals. Isn't it?
Nishida's distinction that your values define you tracks closely with
Pirsig's statement that you are a collection of patterns. And Mark makes it
clear in his Post that these patterns are not always congruent themselves.
Your body can want to flirt with the intern, while your mind tells you it is
folly. One pattern achieves its goal, the other is repressed.
Now let me get to the quote in question......
"In the Metaphysics of Quality this dilemma [free will versus determinism]
doesn't come up. To the extent that one's behavior is controlled by static
patterns of quality it is without choice. But to the extent that one
follows Dynamic Quality, which is undefinable, one's behavior is free."
Like Mark, I see much that is obvious and correct in this quote. I would even
stretch so far as to agree that we can choose to follow DQ and hence gain
some degree of freedom from STATIC patterns. And this freedom is in no way
deterninistic. However, it is never completely fortuitous and alien or
separate from our will and our past patterns. For if it is, it is not WILLED.
Pirsig's freedom is the freedom to experience Pure Quality and to create and
discover new patterns and ideals that were never conceptualized or strictly
determined in the past. I agree with this concept completely. Let me
illustrate it again in Mark's algebraic style:
Free will in the MOQ is following DQ and finding new patterns of value. It
is A experiencing new patterns of D, E , F and G and first trying E, then
discarding it and trying G.
However, I also agree with Mark that Pirsig is mistaken (and completely
untrue to his own philosophy) when he states that this freedom to actualize
and extend your own nature is the exclusive property of living beings.
As Mark wrote:
>Free will/determinism is a continuum with intermediate values rather than a
>simple yes/no choice. The more dynamic the level of a static pattern, the
>more free will it shows. Dynamic Quality shows pure free will.
And Mark said:
>To sum this section up, I think that free will and determinism exist, but
>that they are simply yet another way of saying "more dynamic" and "less
>dynamic." In SOM, free will is just a way of saying that something "has the
>ability to choose" and it can only apply to subjects and man. In the MoQ,
>everything has this ability to choose to different degrees and on
>different, sometimes multiple, levels. This also means then that the more
>moral that an action is, the more that action shows free will as opposed to
>determinism, dynamic quality as opposed to static quality, and "higher"
>SPoVs as opposed to "lower" SPoVs.
Very well said Mark!
Input is valued. Everyone feel FREE to join in!
Roger
"Freedom means acting in accordance with one's character..... As our
knowledge advances, we become freer people."
K.N.
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Jan 17 2002 - 13:08:45 GMT