[MD] The Hero's journey

[Matt Kundert]

Hey Dan,

Matt said:
You've been taking "Don's dog dish" as an made-up, fictional 
account--is that right?  And _that's_ why "what dish" makes sense?

Dan said:
Isn't that what imaginary points to? That is what a hypothesis 
contrary to fact means... there isn't sufficient evidence to back up the 
claim that Don's dog dish exists or doesn't exist when Don walks out 
of the room.

Matt:
I'm afraid that doesn't clear up my hypothesis about why I'm still 
unclear what your position is, such that you are _not_ both acting like 
a Cartesian (by asking their questions) and denying that you are 
Cartesian.

It had suddenly occurred to me, because of the lilt of some of your 
comments to me and to Dave, that you were basing the usage of 
"imaginary" on the fact that I "made up" the example, as in: I have 
no friends by these names, so it is an imaginary example.  This 
sense of "imaginary" is over and against the case of me reporting to 
you an actual conversation that has happened to real people.  Your 
response, however, doesn't lead me in any particular direction on 
whether or not my hypothesis is true.  I still don't know whether you 
think it is important or not that some cases are anecdotal and some 
made up whole cloth; some are reportings of experience, some are 
thought-experiments.  That's what I was trying to suss out last time.

Because, when you assert that "there isn't sufficient evidence to back 
up the claim that Don's dog dish exists or doesn't exist when Don 
walks out of the room," that strikes me as an absurdly high bar for 
sufficiency in evidence.  My route through is to suppose that the 
evidence for New York and the evidence for dog dishes come from 
the same general area (first-person sincere reporting), and the fact 
that only two people have ever experienced Don's dog dish versus 
the billions that have experienced New York should not persuade 
Don or Chris that they should doubt the dog dish's existence more 
than New York.  That seems almost like the reverse of the sentiment 
implanted in Pirsig's texts, which emphasizes direct experience over 
indirect testimony, meaning that even though Don's never been to 
New York, he has directly experienced his dog's dish, so isn't that 
something he shouldn't discount even though he's only one of two?  
Think of what you said on the analogy of how many people directly 
experience mystical enlightenment.  Pirsig's saying we _should_ 
include in our account of reality experiences that only a low volume 
of people have experienced--and you should particularly do so if 
you're one of the few.

Dan said:
And no... you telling me that this was an actual conversation doesn't 
make imaginary dog dishes any more like New York City. It only tells 
me that you and Don and Chris have presupposed a fallacy and then 
discussed the viability of it... it would be like me and John and Marsha 
presupposing elephants can dance and then discussing whether or 
not they do the tango. These are low quality intellectual patterns that 
point to the confusion that arises when we take for granted imaginary 
things like trees falling in forests when no one is around.

Matt:
I find this bizarre.  For, unlike the presupposition in dancing elephants, 
dog dishes _do_, in the world I comfortably and successfully negotiate, 
exist after I leave the room.  Where's the fallacy in thinking that most 
spatiotemporal objects that aren't loci of motor functions will remain 
where you left them?

Matt said:
If this hasn't been the block, then I have no idea why you have more 
reason to think that New York is a higher quality idea than Don's dog 
dish.

Dan said:
I hope I've answered that... there is more evidence... and in a 
value-centered reality ideas supported by evidence are of higher 
quality than are presuppositions lacking evidence.

Matt:
I hope I've articulated why I still have no idea why you think there's 
more evidence for New York than dog dishes.

Matt