[MD] Dog Dishes and Direct Experience

[Dan Glover]

Hello everyone

I've constructed a wonderful machine that runs all by itself and it
runs forever... it doesn't need any gas and it don't use no stinking
electricity... it's a perpetual motion machine. Being a bit of a
recluse and perhaps just a tad eccentric I've secreted my wonderful
machine deep inside a mountain where no one will ever see it. I've
installed thick steel doors with unbreakable locks on the entrance to
the chamber where my wonderful machine sits and runs all day and all
night long all by itself.

People stop me on the street and they ask me... Dan... what fucking
good is that machine of yours sitting in a cave running all by itself
with no one ever around it. It just sits there and runs. It all seems
rather useless to us. I say... hey... it's a perpetual motion
machine... it is the wonder of the universe. It doesn't need anything
to power it and it will never stop running. Even in billions of years
when the sun expands and engulfs the earth frying everything else to a
cinder my wonderful machine will keep on running.

People ask me... how do you know that though? If you're never around
your machine, how do you know it is even running now? Maybe it stopped
and you don't know... maybe no one knows. Oh no, I say... I know it
cannot stop because of the concept of object permanence, you see. I
know it keeps running because when I left my machine there in that
deep dark cave secreted way back inside of a mountain and locked
behind doors no one can open that mother humper was running like
nobody's business. There ain't no way it stopped. It's the wonder of
the universe... it's a perpetual motion machine.

Hadn't you better check on it before you start making all these
grandiose claims? they ask me. Why on earth would I want to do that? I
wonder. Even a baby knows about the concept of object permanence...
that is, unless they're retarded. Are you retarded? I ask. They all
walk away shaking their heads. Huh... I think to myself... no one
appreciates the wonder of the universe but me. How sad...

Thank you,

Dan

PS I didn't find Ron a bit funny... maybe the writers of the script
were funny and talented but I think Ron is a dork. Of course that is
only my opinion and we all know about those...

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 1:28 PM, Matt Kundert
<pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Okay, Ron, now I find it funny...
>
> Dan said:
> I get the impression like Matt that we're after bigger fish by asking
> the kind of questions being asked. I'm not so much concerned about
> practical matters or scientific objectivity or subject/object
> metaphysics... I believe we are all pretty familiar with that.
>
> Matt:
> I don't know about "bigger fish," because I agree with Dave that
> going back to the baby learning how to respond to "objects" (which
> are specifically physical objects _at first_).  Apparently Dave and I
> disagree somewhere along the path leading out from there, but I'm
> not entirely sure where because a lot of positions in regards to
> understanding how the MoQ explains things are tied into it.  I haven't
> wanted to exactly tie myself down to any particular interpretation
> (partly because I haven't the facility with Pirsig's texts anymore), but
> I have wanted to talk about them.  (Dave's manner, of course, gets
> in the way of that because he "crushes" as opposed to "discusses.")
>
> However, when you say "I'm not so much concerned about practical
> matters or scientific objectivity or subject/object metaphysics," I
> grow concerned because the only way to properly discuss the
> questions _I have in mind_ are to understand how we need to keep
> _all of those things_ in the air.  You say "all pretty familiar," but I
> can't believe your tenure at the Discussion Group doesn't make you
> at least a little wary of the idea that all members of this forum
> understand the same thing about those things and about how to
> understand Pirsig's understanding of those things.  For example,
> that's why I keep talking about Descartes.  You want to talk
> philosophically about the dog dish: well, I think we need to know
> how to avoid Cartesian SOM when talking philosophically.  You, after
> all, had the same suspicion of Dave and I: you thought we were
> implying a pre-existing reality that is foreclosed on by Pirsig's
> philosophy.  The only way for us to avoid the other's suspicions is to
> talk about how we think we avoid SOM.
>
> DMB said:
> You're [Matt] using "object permanence" to mean things that it
> doesn't mean. Period.
>
> Matt:
> Sure, yeah, except meaning follows use, not a dictionary.  I'm more
> flexible with the usage of words for philosophical purposes than you,
> Dave, it is true.  That has been well-established by our encounters
> over the years.
>
> DMB said:
> Are we NOT talking about the status of "objects" within in the MOQ,
> as opposed to their status within SOM?
>
> Matt:
> That's part of it, sure.  But it sounds like you are only using "object"
> to mean "physical objects" when you keep going back to babies and
> birds.  I'm not sure about how far you think your discussion extends
> in explanatory scope, but I am after that extension.  That's why I
> brought up "object" as a semantic term.
>
> DMB said:
> By contrast with notion of "object permanence" as a cognitive ability
> so very very basic that even birds can do it, you sort of mixed this in
> with "the concept of 'stuff in nature being around before and after
> we personally are', which you said you had, "implicitly defined as
> "object permanence" in the first post in this thread".
>
> Matt:
> The idea of "object permanence," if I remember correctly, got
> brought up out of a discussion of history with Dan (as I retailed
> partially in this thread).  I thought your contribution about Pirsig and
> babies was useful as a means to getting back to the larger frame of
> discussion, which includes more issues than just babies and physical
> objects (though, again, I can't be sure whether you see yourself as
> just talking about physical objects, but you do seem reticent about
> my attempts to talk about more than them).
>
> DMB said:
> I'm saying that the concept is much more limited than you claim AND
> that your claim as it's ambiguity and flexibility is undermining my
> effort to get down to the most basic and empirically grounded
> concepts about "objects". That's why I brought up the concept of
> object permanence in the first place. Your comments on the topic are
> making a big hairy mess right where I was trying to be clean and
> simple.
>
> Matt:
> Sure, _your_ "concept of object permanence" as you used it is more
> limited than the one I want to employ for broader purposes.  I'm glad
> you interjected as you did, but I also did not think I was being obscure
> or confusing in taking what you had done, agreeing with it, and
> applying it to other issues I wanted to talk about.  Your reticence
> denotes something, but I'm not sure what it is.  You either 1) are
> stuck on a single issue because you think that issue evacuates the
> area that needs to be discussed or 2) are stuck because you think the
> other discussants haven't grasped it adequately yet.  In Dan's
> case...maybe, can't tell.  In my case, I haven't been able to locate in
> your interjections what in my discussion has been squibbing your
> point or getting a later piece of the conceptual puzzle wrong.  I so
> broadly agree with you in treating "'objects' as a practical belief," as
> you put it earlier, that I don't know where you think I'm belying that
> methodological platform.
>
> I apologize if you think your objections to me are clear and that my
> confusion about them is absurd or perverse.  But I refuse to play
> games with you--I only want to talk philosophy.
>
> DMB said:
> "Taking physical-object permanence to be a social pattern I think is
> right," you said to Dan, "as is treating New York City and dog dishes
> as being partly composed of social and/or intellectual patterns".
>
> No. New York City is way too complex to rightly be discussed as an
> "object". It doesn't take a scientific worldview or a metaphysics of
> substance to believe in that city on the Hudson but it's still way
> beyond what we mean by "objects" as they're understood by infants,
> dogs, cats, etc. Why is it so hard to impress upon you how simple
> and basic and old this idea is?
>
> Matt:
> The above is what I would take to be evidence that you think of
> "object" as only a "physical object."  Because otherwise, I'm not sure
> why New York City cannot be the object in sentences like "New York
> state has a city called New York City."  New York City is terribly
> complex, I agree, but you can still get it wrong as the object of
> beliefs.  And since I think all beliefs are practical orientations, I'm
> not sure what I've violated in your view of things.  It _is_ "way
> beyond" objects as understood by babies and birds, but I'm not sure
> why, once we grasp that beginning point, we can't go on to how,
> e.g., if toddlers don't eventually grasp how to use the locution "New
> York City" to say true things about New York City (notice how "New
> York City" appears after the "about"--that means it is an object in
> the world to be negotiated), then they can be said to be
> developmentally deficient in the same way as the baby in Pirsig's
> example.  To wander around New York City successfully, one has to
> practically understand the object called "New York City."  For
> example, Crocodile Dundee's trifle with the thieves ("_this_ is a
> knoife") or with the tranny are funny versions of the common
> fish-out-of-water trope associated with country folks in cities.
> People from the country, goes the trope, do not understand how to
> practically negotiate the city.  (I use this last part after my
> toddler/sentence example to show how I am not limiting myself, in
> this sense of understanding objects, to just being able to employ the
> right sentences to say true things.  Saying sentences is a species of
> the genus of practical understanding.)
>
> DMB said:
> Soooooooooooo, this notion of object permanence is totally relevant
> to the question about the status of Don's dog dish WHEN DON
> LEAVES THE ROOM, right?
>
> Dan said:
> No! The notion of object permanence is irrelevant when no one is
> around Don's dog dish.
>
> Matt:
> I see your "No!" Dan, and raise you an "Oh, fer Christ's sake!"
>
> This is what neither Dave nor I can wrap our heads around.  The
> "notion of object permanence" _is_ the social/intellectual pattern that
> babies learn, and the _lack_ of which would make them grow up to
> be Don, who apparently forgets common sense, and so wonders if
> his dog dish is still there when he leaves the room.  The notion
> _repeats_ common sense, and so _is exactly_ relevant as the
> philosophical account of what presupposition is in place that makes
> us _not worry_ about Don's dog dish when it is unobserved.  After
> all, why would it be relevant if one _was_ around the dish?  One
> would presumably be sensing it, and so not need in place the
> common-sense-pattern that reminds one to not worry when one
> isn't sensing it.
>
> Dan said:
> It is presupposed that Don's dog dish continues to exist... just like
> trees falling in forests with no one around are presupposed. Does
> Don's dog dish vanish when no one is around? No! Does Don's dog
> dish exist when no one is around? No! All a person can say is: what
> dog dish?
>
> Matt:
> I still don't understand this move on your part, Dan.  It _is_, we all
> agree, presupposed--as part of the social/intellectual pattern that
> babies learn--that the dog dish is still in the kitchen.  So when Don
> worries about it, what is the answer "what dog dish?" supposed to
> accomplish?
>
> It doesn't sound like you're simply reminding him of the
> presuppositional status of our beliefs about reality.  It sounds like
> your saying something metaphysical that neither I nor Dave can find
> a use for, and I would want to add Pirsig, too.  It sounds like you're
> saying that the proper response, at all times, when a person
> wonders about something that is beyond their first-personal
> observation, the correct answer should be, "mu--that's a bad
> question."  When one isn't observing an object, the object--like the
> computer analogy in ZMM--cannot be said to exist or not-exist.  But
> the world wouldn't be able to function if that was the case.  That
> means your question is _philosophical_ as opposed to
> _commonsensical_.  However, what is this philosophical purpose?  I
> read it earlier as the purpose of reminding us about the
> presuppositional status of our beliefs about reality.  But, at that time,
> it seemed like you pushed back against reading you as only doing
> that.  What else are you doing?  Are you saying that, philosophically,
> nothing can be said to exist or not exist outside our immediate
> observation?  "What reality?"
>
> Dan said:
> The MOQ states that reality is value-centered, and value begins with
> experience.
>
> Matt:
> Yes: this, right here, displays the ambiguity about whether you mean
> Quality-experience or first-person-experience.  You need to say more
> about this in relationship to my first post in this thread.
>
> Matt
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