[MD] Three Hot Stoves

[John Carl]

Something has bothered me quite a bit for a long time, and I'm gonna fumble
through an analogy of sitting on a hot stove in three different
environments, in order to get at the conceptualization (of
conceptualization) which bothers me.   And then I'd like to discuss this
thing "psychological nominalism" which recently popped up in my reading, as
well as this list.  Such congruent leadings should always be heeded, imo.

First, three hot stoves.  We'll take as our "hot stove" your basic wood
fired, kitchen stove.  It's black, squat and normal.  A perfect height for
sitting and nothing shiny or distracting about it.  Heated to standard
temperature, we'll figure it at about 450-550 degrees.   We're going to
consider this hot stove in three different environments, a north-woods
cabin, a deserted island and a normal kitchen like has been around for
hundreds and thousands of years and we're going to compare experiential
encounters with this hot stove in these three different ways.

First, the normal hot stove experience involves a cook working in a kitchen,
who is fully aware ahead of time of the stove's existence and temperature.
He's a busy guy, got a chef's hot on his head which is full of thoughts
about the dinner, the cooking and all the tasks involved.  This first sitter
most closely approximates Pirsig's analogy of "not thinking" when he sits on
it.  His distraction causes the accident and he quickly reacts to his
stove-sitting experience because he's fully aware of the stove and his
environment so there seems to be no time lag between the physical sensation
and the physical reaction.  But as I would like to show with my other
examples, this is not because he's having a non-intellectual experience,
it's because his intellect has already dealt with the existence of the stove
ahead of time.  He's probably done it once or twice before in his life, and
the first conscious thought flitting through his head after he's leaped off
is "oops" and he goes about his business with very little afterthought or
reflection or emotional connection to this flitting experience.  Like
getting a bit of egg shell in the cake batter, it's just a normal "oops" in
the kitchen, with no associative "aha" at all.  Part of the process, is all.

The second stove sitter, is found on a deserted island in a warm climate.
He's walking along the beach, decides to rest for a minute and watch the
waves, and what he thinks is a bunch of rocks, just right for sitting, is
actually a hot stove amongst a bunch of rocks.  Because his butt was
expecting a certain amount of warmth, he doesn't realize at first that he's
sitting on a hot stove and not a sun-warmed rock.  Furthermore, in this time
and place the hot stove is completely incongruous.  He didn't put it there,
he didn't light a fire in it, and there's nobody else on the island.  It's
appearance under his ass is about as unexpected an event as he could
imagine.  He's not going to react as fast, because he has no mental picture
in his head to even deal with the experience and after he realizes he has
sat on a hot stove, he's going to be frightened and bewildered and his heart
is going to be pounding, his mind racing to come up with some explanation of
how this stove got there and who lit it.  He's going to be completely
obsessed with this stove for days, if not months and years.  He's going to
wonder if he's going crazy, with nobody else around to even confirm it's
existence, he's going to really wonder.  If he's at all inclined toward
supernaturalism, that's going to be the direction he's going to be
thinking.  Eventually, I could easily imagine such a hot stove experience to
become a talisman or idol for him.


The third hot stove experience will be found in a north-woods cabin.  The
owner of the cabin gets the fire going, and then goes for a walk after dark
on a cold, frosty winter's night.  He has a mishap, gets his bottom wet and
frozen and stays out much longer than he expects and as he's trudging back
to the cabin through the snow, each step a torture to his almost frozen legs
and buttocks, his whole being and attention are gonna be focused on that hot
stove.  He's going to fantasize to himself how good it's going to feel to
just go in and sit right down on that stove and when he finally gets there
and seats himself, he's going to stay on it as long as he can stand it.  As
long as it takes to heat his frozen flesh and he's going to have the most
positive emotional response to the hot stove of any hot stove sitter ever.

So which guy had the most "pure" experience of the hot stove?  I say they
all experienced the stove in relation to a pre-existing conceptualization of
their environment and their reactions and the meaning of their experience
was not derived from the merely sensory reactions of stimulus response, but
derived from a narrative of their existence and a mental context for their
varied perceptions.