Hi, Jon and alii,
Back from the army, I'm catching up on this month discussion (with some
pain, as shown below). Hope you're all doing well.
In fact the beginning of this post is the same than the previous one
I've sent, but since something went wrong (I thought it had been
bounced), I worked some more on it. Here is the result.
[Cntryforce@aol.com]
>
> Hello Foci
>
> Sort of a dry, confusing topic this month.
>
Reading this month archive, I had the same feeling. I really couldn't
think about anything positive to say or add. I spent two evenings on a
post and finally deleted it : too off-subject. In fact it was about a
misunderstanding on my part of this month topic. I thought it went :
where does the MOQ find validation, since SOM does in the objective
realm ? When I saw it was *explanation*, my whole post went "poof" !...
:(
> So the MoQ rejects the SO division as fundamental, according to Bo. Then
> where does the MoQ look for an explanation?
>
> I'm not clear as to how the above question funnels into the nature vs.
> nurture debate that is seems to have turned into.
>
Same problem for me. The Nature/Nuture debate was closed as soon as it
started because the MOQ answer is so startingly simple and clear there's
really nothing to debate on. In fact, as Horse said, even the SOMists
came to a MOQ conclusion : it's both.
As Roger eloquently demonstrated, the nature vs. nuture debate doesn't
pose any problem to the MOQ : we are influenced by all four levels of
static patterns, of which we are a Dynamic confluent. If you want, you
can imagine yourself as the point were all four levels cross. A stream
of inorganic matter crosses a stream of biological information, another
of social mores and another still of intellectual notions. All four
streams mutate and change at this point, creating you, an ongoing
process of existence.
You're aren't more determined by your DNA than you are by your
education, their influences just intermingle at your level. Which one is
dominant ? It depends on you. Which values do you follow the most ?
> Because I am confused, I will keep this short. The MoQ looks to Intellectual
> (dynamic as well as static) Quality for an explanation. This may involve SO
> division, but only when the MoQ deems a SO division necessary.
>
This is where we disagree.I cannot see why a MOQ explanation would ever
deem a S/O division necessary. A S/O division means you're going to
categorize the phenomenon you're explaining as an objective fact or a
subjective one. People tend to like ice-cream ? That's subjective.
People fall ill in winter ? That's objective.
This kind of categorization and judgment of facts is valueless in a MOQ
framework. Instead, the MOQ will try to fit the facts under the purview
of one of the levels. That's were most of the fighting occurs in the MOQ
: which level should we fit this or that into ?
The DQ/SQ division is more something of a moral imperative than a useful
categorization tool : if it's DQ, you shouldn't be able to categorize
it, and if you can, then you've just transformed it into SQ.
The Free Will vs Determinism debate, since it isn't resolved to the full
satisfaction of all, is (in my view) a more promising example of how the
MOQ can give an answer to old unsolvable problems.
RMP has defined Free Will as 'following DQ' and Determinism as
'following SQ'. Problem is : what follows ? does *it* decides to do so ?
or is this process independent of our will ?
A few things cross my mind when addressing this problem. Following SQ
seems to be something we are 'programmed' to do : by Nature, by biology,
by society, by the educational institutions. As we can notice, it
becomes easier to escape this conditioning as we go up the level-ladder.
How do we escape this ? By following DQ says Pirsig.
I think we can sum the recurring problem of FW/D like this : Are we
determined to follow DQ or not ? Does it happens by chance, or do we
decide to do it ? Is evolution (at whatever level) predetermined, or a
game of chance, or an act of will ?
I think to solve the problem you must get a good view of its background.
Why has this problem ever occurred in Western philosophy ? Nieztsche
says that Free Will is historically a Christian invention. Were Adam and
Eve responsible for the Fall or not ? If God was all-knowing, couldn't
He foresee it and take steps to prevent this ? The answer was to say
that Man had been given Free Will, and was responsible for his action :
God couldn't be accountable for the evil wrought by Man. The crux of the
Free Will problem is this : how can Man be accountable for what he does
?
This notion of Free Will is hardly universal. Many cultures believe that
Destiny cannot be escaped, and that Man always walks the road he was
destined to follow.
The notion of 'Free Will' is also strongly attached to another SOM
notion : the notion of self. As I said in an earlier post, the self is
primarily a useful intellectual construct. Our 'teleportation
experiment' earlier this year tended to prove that (ideally) our
conscience could be reproduced by perfectly duplicating our body. At the
instant T of the replication process, our conscience would have a
perfect double. Why ? Because if all four levels of our selves are
replicated, then their interaction with the universe would create a
perfect double of our memories and opinions, which would then evolve as
a new 'me'.
But as I am writing this post, a part of my brain is taking care of my
biological functions : I breathe, blink, scratch my nose, take a walk,
get a gulp of water without having to switch my attention from the
elaboration of this post. You've all probably been in the situation of
having to relieve yourselves while writing a post : do you stop thinking
about what you're going to write while attending to your biological
needs ? Of course not.
So you have at least two 'selves', one intellectual self who spins
endless structures of thought (intellectual patterns) while the other
attends to your biological needs (breathing, flexing your muscles,
etc.). They coexist without problems, until a conflict arise (I want to
go and get something to eat, but I also want to finish this post). Then
one of them temporarily dominates the other.
The illusory unity of conscience is simply a useful intellectual
abstraction that has the same kind of value that the one you use when
talking about a knife of which both the handle and the blade have been
changed over years. The structure is the same, but none of the
components are. Likewise, when in a few years my opinions, behaviours
and the matter of which I'm made will have changed I'll still refer to
myself as Denis Poisson, even though I won't be the same person AT ALL.
So, since the notion of self is so divided under the MOQ, how can it
have Free Will, or even Will at all ? We can follow DQ at many levels :
our atoms sometimes follow DQ, our body does the same, our social self
searches for higher states of status within our community, and our
intellectual one tries to creates new thoughts and notions. What is
called Free Will under SOM is a mix of all those competing selves trying
to escape the level under it : our body fights Death for life and
reproduction, our social self fights our biological urges for higher
status, our intellectual self fights social conformity for creative
thought. There might also be a mystic self trying to integrate the
levels into a natural state of bliss where the fighting ends, who knows
?
I often saw people thinking that evil, the downside of Free Will, was a
pure human creation. At lower levels than the intellectual one, for them
no bad change ever occur. That's obviously patently false : stars
explode, comets fall on Earth, bodies develop cancers, some social mores
become harmful for their societies, and some ideas are just plain bad.
Whenever the coherence of something is put in jeopardy, it can be
described as a bad Dynamic event. The fact that at any level something
bad may occur is the proof that all levels, in their fashion, have 'Free
Will'.
As human beings, if Free Will is the reason we should be taken
accountable for our actions, we have to remember that a level
*dominates* the level that's under it. By action, we have to mean
whatever we do at the social level. Accountability means before Law, and
Law is a social PoV. We cannot be taken accountable for the fact our
bodies develop illnesses, or die, but we can be, and are responsible for
whatever our social behaviour is. The relative freedom our intellect has
must dominate our social behaviour. Our intellectual self must be
prevalent over our lower levels. Among our many 'selves', the
intellectual one is the one who has the greatest responsability. In this
the MOQ uphold the current moral imperatives.
But since we are also intellectually 'programmed', again how can we be
accountable for our actions ? Two answers can be (and have been) given
to this.
First, we can be accountable because the Intellectual level is where we
are most likely to encounter and follow DQ, where we are most likely to
be moral.
Or, we cannot be accountable, but we should be judged and condemned
anyway because the moral order of the world (dharma) demands it. It was
our destiny to do evil, and so it is our destiny to be punished for it
(Greek mythology is full of this kind of characters, especially in the
Atreides family). If this moral imperative isn't followed, it's the
coherence of the world that's in jeopardy.
Three guesses which version I prefer. ;)
At the intellectual level, DQ is encountered in judgment (assessment of
value). I prefer the 'accountable' version because it seems to me that
the old version is a way of telling us not to look for DQ, for
betterness. It is a passivity, a fatalism that springs from an old world
where the fact of evolution wasn't known, and where the world ran in
cyclic steps. The MOQ being an evolutionary metaphysics, it delivers a
message of careful judgment, of paying attention to the whole problem,
of paying attention to your feeling of Goodness before deciding the
value of something. In ZMM Pirsig states that becoming a good person,
"having the good attitudes" is what allows us to recognize Quality (by
extrapolation, I think he means DQ). Thus, I believe the intellectual
and moral imperative to 'become better' (an evolutionary way of life, if
there ever was one) beats SQ patterning whenever you 'put your mind and
heart' to it.
What or who arbitrates the conflicts ? I think we can predict that
whenever a conflict arise (whenever we have to make a choice), the
Quality of the answer is immediately *felt*. The mystical/rational
choice is to follow the road of higher Good, whatever the cost. This is
an intellectual decision (the higher level is/should be in control) fed
by mystic insight, so to speak. Unfortunately, shutting out our feelings
in favor of cold rational thought is what we've been taught all our
lives, and I am unfortunately aware that Lila's "rational morality"
tends to aggravate this trend. I said before that 'Lila' was good for
building a coherent world-view, but that if you wanted to lead a good
life, ZMM is the book to read.
If anyone has read the wonderful comics "V for Vendetta" by Alan Moore,
perhaps you remember when Evey asks V :
- "Is that the land of Do What You Like ?"
V answers : "No. All this is the land of Take What You Want. Anarchy
means 'without masters', not 'without order'".
A good analogy, I think, for Quality and Good Will (as opposed to Free
Will). Free Will means 'not constrained', but we are always constrained
by SQ, by the weight of the previous centuries. Freedom is a illusion
used to placate the Masses by telling them that all the sacrifices they
make, all the ugliness, all the injustices they suffer are necessary for
this pipe-dream : freedom, which doesn't exist. We are constrained by
dharma, the moral order of the world, which, contrary to old beliefs,
changes over time. Our duty as rational and feeling beings is to follow
the wheel. Not recognizing it is Free Will, the path of sorrow to the
land of Take What You Want. We cannot really decide until we recognize
Good, and no easy answer are forthcoming to do that. Following DQ and
recognizing it is the same. It is the highest moral code in the MOQ, the
fifth moral code, the code of Art. If you don't value it, then the most
important message of the MOQ has escaped you.
What is strange, but perhaps normal considering the nature of the MOQ,
is that any explanation is also a moral message.
Or perhaps I'm just preaching. ;)
Be good
Denis
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:37 BST