diana@hongkong.com
Mon, 7 Sep 1998 15:59:45 +0100
Rog, Lorenz, squad
RISKYBIZ9@aol.com wrote:
>
> Pirsig's eighth chapter is where the magic of MOQ hit me with the sudden
> insight of Dynamic Quality.The shift from subject/object to value allows many
> of the following platypi of conventional thinking to disappear.
> Reality vs Scientific Theory
> Causation
> The discontinuity of substance
> Taking the Humanities beyond Relativism
> Mind vs matter
>
> However, I am not so sure I agree fully with the way he sweeps determinism and
> the purposelessness-of-life platypi away.
>
> On determinism, Pirsig states that if behavior is controlled by static
> patterns it is deterministic, but freedom is when you follow undefined Dynamic
> Quality.Do we choose to follow ? Could we choose not to? When do we see this
> to follow? Or is it some type of spontaneous value transition--yesterday I
> valued biological pleasure but today I value social harmony?
Pirsig's treatment of free will and determinism has never satisfied me
either. He deals with it in chap 12 and what he actually says is:
"Determinism is the philosophic doctrine that man, like all other
objects in the universe, follows fixed scientific laws, and does so
without exception. Free will is the philosophic doctrine that man makes
choices independent of the atoms of his body....
...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."
So what Pirsig is saying is that we have free will when we follow
Dynamic Quality.
I really hate to disagree with him but to me that's a contradiction in
terms.
The very notion of free will is inseparable from the notion of subjects
and objects. To even speak of it is to show that you've swallowed the
subject-object metaphysics whole. It is the subject that has free will
after all. You cannot be Dynamic and have a fully fledged subject
concept at the same time. "Man makes choices" is pure SOM. Who makes
choices? The little ghostly "me"s that live inside our heads apparently.
Lose the idea of subjects, on the other hand, and the question
evaporates; there's nothing left to have a will.
Lorenz wrote
> To give a concrete example from my own life I discovered some years ago that
> when I visit Louisiana I spontaneously begin to write and I sense that
> something important is happening for me and would label it Dynamic Quality.
> I have tried to dismiss it as 'impossible' 'impractical' etc. but the
> experience keeps coming back. As it happens I live in Australia so working
> out if indeed this experience is an intrusion of Dynamic Quality into my
> life is both difficult and expensive! This has been going on for over 10
> years and has proven difficult to fit into my life. I've tried to choose not
> to follow it and it has continued to pester me. I have chosen to follow it
> and it has proved difficult, but rewarding too.
>From the sound of this it seems more like free will is what you're
lacking. This experience just won't leave you alone. It's almost
inevitable that you will go to Louisiana. Dynamic Quality compels you
to. If you had free will why not will yourself to forget about it and
leave it at that?
What it all points to is that inevitability, fate, destiny have more to
do with Dynamic Quality than static and that free will is merely an
intellectual concept in the same way that the subject-object metaphysics
is. That's not to say that I equate determinism with Dynmic Quality. The
idea that everything follows fixed scientific laws is as static as they
come. I would suggest that both determinism and free will are static
patterns. This is a problem in the SOM because there can only be one
Truth, hence the platypus. The MoQ however allows for more than one
intellectual pattern so determinism and free will can coexist. Dynamic
Quality isn't either of them.
Diana
-- homepage - http://www.moq.org/lilasquad unsubscribe/queries - mailto:lilasquad@moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu May 13 1999 - 16:43:46 CEST