Hullo Wim, Rod, others
I was reading your response to Rod, Wim, when something struck me that has
been festering for a long time.
You said:
"The idea that we have 1 (one) Free Will is problematic enough. It has to be
qualified under the MoQ by saying that we behave/act BOTH in a way
determined by static patterns of values AND are free to act/behave
differently to the extent that we choose (consciously or subconsciously) to
follow DQ instead (at lower levels often mediated by higher levels' sq). It
unnecessarily complicates things to even suppose 2 Free Wills, a conscious
and a subconscious one, as you seem to in the above quote."
There seems to be a logical short-circuit in this. If the free-will issue is
supposedly resolved by Pirsig's claim that our behaviour when determined by
static patterns of value is not free, but it is free when we 'choose' to
follow DQ, surely it is the choosing of the DQ that constitutes the free
will. Am I just dense, (please, be gentle), or have we not just gone in a
loop which completely evades the issue?
I went back to Lila to see what Pirsig actually said, and it reads somewhat
differently.
"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."
However your use of the word 'choose' where Pirsig used 'follows' has
sharpened my focus on Pirsig's meaning. Choice is active, whereas 'follows'
suggests a passive response to the dynamic. But if we look more closely, the
phrase "to the extent that one follows" allows for what appears to be
choice. I cannot see any other interpretation. And choice is the very issue
that won't go away.
Pirsig's logic seems equally shaky a page later, when he states that "If
chemistry professors exercise choice, and chemistry professors are composed
exclusively of atoms, then it follows that atoms must exercise choice too."
This is assuming that 'exclusively' means that a chemical investigation of
the professor will find nothing except atoms. But Pirsig also looks at
higher order values embedded in lower order systems - the novel in the
computer comes to mind. His logic does not cover this simple possibility.
No, not a possibility, more a certainty. This comes back to the key issues
in information theory that I raved on about in a recent post that somehow
disappeared into cyberspace. I will resubmit it now as I think it is more
and more relevant, even though it is one of those fuzzy posts that is an
attempt to refocus our view of reality and rephrase the question rather than
to offer a clear answer.
To put it simply, free will and determinism are not reconciled by Pirsig's
explanation.
John B
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 25 2002 - 16:06:20 BST