Hi, MoQers
At the risk of being the last in a long chain of people foolish enough to
want to wrestle with that undefeated argument, I offer here a short essay
about the Free Will/Determinism issue. I know this has raised endless amount
of arguments in this forum and its sister, MF, but I thought it deserved
another go at it.
You see, I, from the beginning, thought that :
1) The question was a "mu" question
2) Pirsig had botched it, and should have recognized it for the platypi it
was.
Well, recently, I thought some more about it and recognized my stance for
what it was : hypocrisy. I could not understand what Pirsig meant, and I
could not think of a better answer, so it naturally became a non-question.
:)
I hope the following essay will rectify things.
-------------------------------------
THE SELF, FREE WILL AND DETERMINISM
THE SELF
The MoQ defines the human individual as a amalgam of patterns of value, each
with its own evolution, goals and desires. Our Inorganic PoV fighting for
existence, our Biological PoV trying to reproduce themselves before we die,
our Social PoV looking for recognition, and Intellectual PoV trying to make
some sense out of the whole mess... Among this cacophony of desires, we
built this fiction named Self, which depending on prefered theories does
possess, or not, Free Will. Supposedly, this enables the Self to freely
choose its goals and the ways of reaching them.
But still according to the MOQ, the Self isn't part of Reality, it's part of
the Map. The only thing that acts in this evolutionary dance of dynamic
leaps and static patterning is Quality itself. Nothing else. Therefore, by
virtue of that ole' Buddhist trick ("The Self does not exists, Little
Grasshopper") the question is dissolved.
Or is it ? The more I think about it the more I believe this to be the MOQ
mystic answer, but not the MOQ rational answer. And there *should* be a
rational one.
Because on the static side of the MOQ, the Self is a pattern of value that
is felt with as much force as the desire for social recognition, hunger or
gravity. Therefore, it makes no sense to talk about the other patterns of
value but ignore this one, only because it's inconvenient...
Our memory creates a sense of continuity from which we deduce our Identity,
which is no less real than the value of paper money (a strange comparison
seen from the SOM angle... ;).
The Self is an Intellectual Pattern of ourselves, to which we attribute
qualities and flaws, a past and a future. This image is partly constructed
from the ideas that influence us, parly from what images other people
reflect back at us, and partly from our biochemical makeup. This *creation*
then evolves with time, but in the end it's nothing more than the reflection
of the values which compose us in the mirror of the Intellect.
Nevertheless, in the jungle of pattern that make up an individual, this
IntPoV has a crucial role, since all of our patterns revolve around this one
: not because it *owns* them but because it REPRESENTS them. The Self is
therefore the patterned, static, known aspect of an individual.
FREE WILL/DETERMINISM
Free Will is one of those ideas that influence the Self, and that it can
accept, or refuse. The novelty brought by the MOQ to that old and stale
debate between Free Will and Determinism is in the realization that the crux
of the argument lies in the very system in which it is present.
Of course, even contemporary thought agrees that the world is a complex
system of varying patterns interacting with one another. And in the jungle
of patterns we're composed of, the Self does have an influence, and is
influenced in return. Inside this complex system, it isn't more determined
than it is determining. But even in a complex system, the Self is only a
part of a larger whole, and therefore can again be said to be without Will
or Freedom. 'Blown around by the winds of DQ', as Horse puts it...
But remember, all and every system of thought are only that : systems.
Patterns. Structures. By which I mean an organized, mecanical, STATIC
pattern of intellectual value. And what exactly are we looking for in such a
system ? That's right, Freedom.
Now, if you're not all over yourselves with laughter yet, try this : inside
a system, how could it be possible to believe yourself anything else than a
composant following rules, even though you might have invented them only a
few seconds ago ? How can you think up a *coherent* system and leave
freedom, uncertainty, undefinable elements in it ? Even the MOQ has problems
with that, because as soon as you say the Self is a IntPoV, you've unloaded
a truckful of rules right on its head. The problem might not be in the MOQ,
but in the fact that we try so hard to make it invulnerable to criticism
that we do not dare to leave gaps in it. We do not dare to insert freedom.
As long as we'll try to define the roles of Man and his Self and his Will
and the relations between them, we'll only invent more rules, which we'll
*then* think we're conforming to... Yes, inside the MOQ, you ARE blown
around by the winds of DQ, but remember that a few years ago you didn't even
know that such things existed. And in fact, they didn't, then. ;)
Quality is still undefinable, and the Universe non-mechanical by nature. It
still escapes the intellectual nets we're trying to wrap around it. Pirsig's
definition still stands : "We are determined when we follow SQ, and Free
when we follow DQ."
And Pirsig warned us : talking about Quality has nothing to do with DQ.
Be good
Denis
PS (for newbies) : "PoV" stands for "Patterns of Value", "DQ" for "Dynamic
Quality", "SQ" for "Static Quality" and "MOQ" for "Metaphysic of Quality"
(but if you don't know the latter what the h... are you doing here ? ;)
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