David, Bo and Horse:
Hope you don't mind me (Risky) jumping in.
I agree with Horse's views on nature/nurture. The MOQ agrees with
conventional wisdom that we are products of our genes and our environment.
As with any good theory, our old theories are not all invalidated, they are
often re-explained in a new light. The MOQ does this with the aforementioned
issue.
I also agree with Horse that the determinism/free will issue is the more
interesting causation dilemma. Especially since so many of us have long
scoffed at Pirsig's feeble attempt to kill this platypus.
This issue has come up a half dozen times or more in the Squad's history, and
in my opinion, the best solutions have gone against the very meaning of the
words 'Free Will". From a conventional standpoint,' free will' is an
oxymoron. Your 'will' is that which you are 'determined to do', yet
'freedom' is that which is 'not determined.' Put these together and you have
'undetermined determination.'
>From the opposite angle, will that is not caused or determined is not
'willed,' it is chance or random or fortuitous. And nobody considers chance
as a sign of volition. Do you see how convoluted the expression 'free will'
can be?
My guess is that you already see what is wrong with the above twisted
definitions. There is an undefined term that is implied with 'free will.'
The key unstated ingredient is a subject. When we speak of 'free will' we
speak of a subject's freedom in an otherwise separate, objective world.
Subject/object definitions are emasculated from solving this issue due to
this fundamental schism..
The MOQ can come to our rescue though, for we are no longer just 'subjects',
we are better defined as 'patterns of value'. Interestingly enough, I think
you will agree that 'will' is a value pattern as well. Free will is hence
defined as agreement between patterns of value. Free will is the consistency
of our definitions of self and desire.
Have I lost you? Let me give examples:
1) "I don't want to eat that chocolate cake, but I just can't resist."
2) "I try so hard not to gossip, but...."
3) 'I want to go to the movies, but my parents told me to clean the yard
first."
In all of these cases, we are defining our 'self' differently from the
dominant value pattern. In the first, I (my social image-conscious self)
doesn't want to eat, but the biological self (which I have defined away from
my 'true' self) does. In the second, the social gossiper differs from the
intellectual abstraction of myself. In the third, I am defining myself as
separate from the will of my parents (a reasonable distinction in a
subject/object metaphysics), yet at the same time, I am willingly choosing to
follow their guidance. I could also give examples of where my biological and
social self want something, but an inorganic value pattern interferes.
The point is that we are our values. To paraphrase Kitaro Nishida ......" It
is more accurate to say we belong to our values than to say our values belong
to us." The definition of YOU is determined by those values which you choose
to define yourself by. When your definition of you matches with the
predominant value pattern, it is 'free will'. When it doesn't, it is
'against your will.'
'Will' is a term for subjective patterns of value. "I" is a term for
subjective patterns of value. When the two agree , we call it free will.
When differing or conflicting, we call it determination, or chance or
'against our will'.
Risky
PS -- Has anyone ever read Raymond Smullyan's "The Tao is Silent"? He has
the best argument with God over Free Will that you could ever hope to read.
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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