drose, Clark, and friends-
Good morning!
I have not done much more than skim Clark's post and drose's post. I plan
on replying in greater detail soon. The free will discussion, though, is
very fresh in my mind so I'll tackle it now.
On 6/13/99 at 10:13 AM -0500, drose wrote:
> This parallels some of the discussion on the LS, I think. I don't
> subscribe to the LS, but I do follow the discussion in the archive when
> I have time.
Yes, it does. I'll post part of my recent post on free will to MoQ since
you quoted part of it here and I posted part of it earlier. Perhaps it will
help explain my argument to have it all in one piece.
> Actually, the levels work well, Ken. Free will is simply the freedom to
> follow one's own conscience.
Conscience is a loaded term. I would use "preference." Following one's
preference does not imply consciousness, at least not in terms of the MoQ.
> In a deterministic universe there is no choice but to follow the
> dictates of morality. An amoeba will not choose to go to an acid
> solution because it has no choice.
This is where we start to disagree. The amoeba fundamentally has a choice,
at least in terms of my MoQ definition of choice (see next post). He
strongly *prefers* not to be in the acid. That's a simple scenario though
because it is so polar. If there was one type of acid on one side and
another type on the other, the amoeba would make a choice to go into one of
the acid solutions. He would make a (moral) evaluation and then act.
I posted the other day that, at least in my opinion, there is no
implication of consciousness by using the word "choice." This redefinition
of choice is supported by Pirsig in many places, including:
(Lila teal, p 180)
"Of course it sounds peculiar at first and awkward and unnecessary to say
that hydrogen and oxygen form water because it is moral to do so."
That implied choice since morality implies choice. Also, he writes:
(Lila teal, p 181)
"The question of whether an electron does a certain thing because it has to
or because it wants to is completely irrelevant to the data of what the
electron does."
> A sentient being might very well choose to enter a low quality
> environment for many reasons, but it is important to remember that he
> does so because he can make a choice.
So can the amoeba and electrons, especially when the choices are close
together and not polar extremes. Relegating choice only to sentient beings
is a mistake in my opinion. Certainly the monkey in my example the other
day, the one caught in the trap, remained in a low quality environment out
of choice. I also think that this showed a lack of sentience at the time.
He certainly was not acting on the intellectual level.
> The exercise of free will is a dynamic exercise and is what sets the
> intellectual level apart from the lower levels. The three levels below
> the intellectual cannot act to change themselves - they are static
> unless changed from without.
I disagree with this. All four levels are static to an extent and dynamic
to an extent. Their hierarchy is based on their Dynamic-ness. Society can
change itself. Yes, it requires humans for this, but that makes sense. A
society cannot exist without humans.
If the ability to change is limited to the intellectual level, how did life
begin?
I agree with many of your conclusions, by the way. I just disagree with
some of your premises. In some cases it is a fifth postulate of geometry
kind of thing. Do rocks have free will? In my MoQ-based definition (see
next post for my reasoning), they do. In your opinion, they do not. This
does not matter to our conclusions about rocks as I maintain that rocks
show less free will than men. Our actions and reactions towards rocks are
the same.
> The MOQ is humancentric, Ken, because man is the measure. That statement
> will hold true, I think, until we encounter another sentient species.
> Then we can say sentience is the measure. The MOQ may well describe the
> inorganic, biologic and social levels after we are gone, but the
> intellectual level is reserved to sentient beings.
This is basically agreed. I do not put choice or free will, at least in MoQ
terms, in the intellectual level though. I also don't think sentient beings
must act on the intellectual level.
Oh, I'm also not sure that the MoQ would exist without a sentient being to
know about it. <G>
Cheers,
Mark
________________________________________________________________________
Mark Brooks <mark@epiphanous.org> <http://www.epiphanous.org/>
How do you know who wrote this? <http://www.epiphanous.org/mark/pgp/>
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