[MD] Dog Dishes and Direct Experience

[Matt Kundert]

Hi Dan,

Perhaps one of the ambiguities that has caused confusion is in the 
word "object."  You say at the beginning that "perhaps we're treating 
New York City and dog dishes as 'objects' in the sense that we pretty 
much agree the concept of object permanence applies to both" and 
that "within the framework of the MOQ, that is wrong."  You begin to 
explain this sense of wrongness by saying, "New York City is a social 
pattern. It exists subjectively, in the mind. New York City is not a 
collection of inorganic buildings sitting on an island...."

When I use "object," I typically think of it in terms of grammar, like 
"The object of our conversation has been to figure out the length and 
breadth of Pirsig's idealism."  "Object," in this sense, is a semantic 
notion that picks out what "about" refers to, which means "New York 
City," "dog dishes," and "unicorns" are all objects.  However, in "the 
concept of object permanence," this clearly becomes blurred with 
"object" as denoting only physical objects.  For the easiest kinds of 
"object" to use in order to get a grasp of the concept are "purely 
physical" (or we might say, "purely inorganic patterns"--however, I'd 
note here that this idea of purity might be more complicated than we 
think).  If you want to get a grasp of the concept of "stuff in nature 
being around before and after we personally are" (as I implicitly 
defined "object permanence" in the first post in this thread), then the 
easiest thing to refer to is a rock.  But this definition also works just 
as well for New York City, even while we consider it to be a melange 
of all four patterns, since it was around before us and probably will 
be after us.  Now, however, the "concept" gets attenuated, since just
 _how_ New York City qua social/intellectual patterns is around after 
us will be in a different manner than New York City qua inorganic 
patterns.  This ambiguity in the "concept of object permanence" is 
not something I foresaw as causing a problem, but there it is.

Maybe what I've been bucking against is the tendency to want to say 
that intellectual and social patterns "exist subjectively, in the mind."  
When you say that, I cannot see but SOM getting reinscribed into the 
Pirsig's philosophy.  When Pirsig said that in the MoQ subjects and 
objects get redefined as social/intellectual patterns and 
inorganic/biological patterns respectively, I did not take him to be 
saying that New York City exists only in the mind, which sounds like 
he's choosing a horn in the S/O Dilemma.  I took him to be creating 
a ladder between the old materialistic philosophies and the MoQ, 
but a ladder that was to be thrown away once one has ascended.

What does this throwing away mean?  That's one of the things I think 
needs more pounding out in our understanding of Pirsig's philosophy.  
Taking physical-object permanence to be a social pattern I think is 
right, as is treating New York City and dog dishes as being partly 
composed of social and/or intellectual patterns.  (In fact, in your 
statement of your position, I lose all sight of what it was you 
disagreed about in Dave or I.  It's unclear to me what kinds of 
formulations strike you as referring to _physical-objects sans 
phrase_ instead of objects-cum-social/intellectual-patterns.)

What I don't think is the right move is to use "subjectively" as you did 
in reference to New York City, nor pair off mythos/logos with 
subjective/objective.  I take it that one of the virtues of going back to 
our language's conceptual roots in Greek (and hence Greek 
philosophy) is that we can see ever more clearly how Scientific 
Materialism took over European intellectual culture and philosophy.  
For "mythos" just means "story" or "narrative" and, more importantly, 
"logos" means variously "reason," "argument," "account."*  There's 
nothing particularly physical-oriented about logos.  I took that to be a 
very important stepping stone in ZMM as an insight into how to throw 
away the S/O ladder.

The last thing I should say is that I wasn't able to construe an 
explanation of why you said, in the previous thread, that you are 
more certain of New York City's existence then an unobserved dog 
dish in your kitchen.  Given that NYC and dog dishes are both 
embedded in social patterns, I'm unclear how you made that 
surprising claim.

Matt

*I have compiled on my site a list of meanings, and various 
authorities talking about them, for not only mythos and logos, but 
theoria, praxis, and arete.  (I started the list a couple years ago and 
planned to keep expanding it, but I got sidetracked and loaded down 
with other responsibilities.)  
http://pirsigaffliction.blogspot.com/p/index-of-greek-terms.html