[MD] The Hero's journey

[Matt Kundert]

Hey Dan,

I don't understand what we're talking about, and we're moving about 
in circles, and I don't know why that either.  Below are just a few 
more confessions about why it is probably better to let this 
conversation drop.

Matt said:
What it seems like you are suggesting is that by not taking "what 
dog dish/tree/X?" seriously, we are thereby eliminating our ability to 
question specific things about dog dishes, trees, any particular X.  
That, by saying "what dog dish?" is usually a bad question, we are 
saying, "Shut your mouth and don't question reality!"

Dan said:
Not at all! In fact, this discussion we're engaged in is all about 
questioning reality. If I believed we should shut our respective 
mouths, I wouldn't be struggling here attempting to answer your 
posts.  I'd just go away. I might first make some derogatory 
statements about how silly this is, however.

Matt:
Yeah, okay, but I'm saying that the question you keep pressing, 
"what dog dish?" _doesn't_ question reality in an interesting way for 
someone who already agrees with the point of the question, which 
is to call attention to the presuppositional nature of objects that you 
call the idealism of the MoQ.  Further, by pressing this claim, the 
only thing you are doing is either calling into question the person's 
commitment to that idealism or suggesting an additional claim, that 
until a person commits themselves to idealism, they will not 
question specific components of their reality.  In the above passage, 
I was trying to suss out your commitment to this latter, additional 
claim, a claim I find implausible.  If you are not committed to this 
additional claim, then I wonder what I can do to assure you that I 
am a committed Pirsigian idealist.

Matt said:
I think thinking of "what dog dish?" as an emblem for the Socratic 
spirit is a bad idea.  And partly because of how this conversation 
has rollicked forward.  Neither Dave nor I has ever wanted to stop 
questioning specific presuppositions, but your question applies to 
_all_ presuppositions, and so is about the process of 
presuppositioning.

Dan said:
Yes. I am questioning our perception of reality. It is a common-sense 
notion that conceptual objects have permanency... that they're there 
whether we can empirically verify them or not. You and Dave seem 
to be defending this notion though of course I might be reading you 
both wrongly.

Matt:
I can't tell whether I would defend that notion or not--I can't tell 
what you hang on it as a consequence.  Do you think dog dishes 
disappear, physically, when you physically leave a room?  Maybe you 
do.  I have, through my Dog Dish Thought-Experiment, been trying 
to get you to supply some of your intuitions about how the world 
works, but you have remained surprisingly reticent and closed-fisted.  
If you _do not_ think that dog dishes physically disappear when you 
physically disappear, then we all three agree to the same level of 
permanency, the only kind of common sense that I believe we have.  
To make common sense have a stronger sense of permanency is to 
attribute to it SOM-level philosophical potency.  Common sense is just 
common sense--it is not philosophy.

DMB said:
I don't follow your reasoning and I wonder where you got the 
impression that that I'm sweeping away questions or taking answers 
for granted.

Dan said:
I got that impression on account of your insistence on that common 
sense reality tells us objects have a permanence and that should be 
the end of the inquiry. My question to Matt was: What did Robert 
Pirsig mean when he said the historical defense of philosophical 
idealism is, what tree? in You seem to be saying trees are 
hypothetical but dog dishes are not... that we all share a common 
sense notion of object permanence instilled in us since infancy and 
that is enough. End of inquiry.

Matt:
Dave was saying that common sense tells us that physical objects 
don't disappear when we leave rooms _because we left the room_.  
That is the extent of the claim I think we've both been defending.  
The _reason_ specified, which follows the "because," is terribly 
important for it specifies just when inquiry should be ended: if you 
hear break glass from the kitchen, and the dog starts barking, you 
should feel free to begin to doubt that the dog dish is still in the 
kitchen.  (I neglected to mention that Don's dog dish is made of 
pure gold, and so is likely target of theft.)  Inquiry should fire up 
again.  Dave is not saying, at all, that trees and dog dishes have 
different statuses when it comes to their hypotheticalness.  He's 
saying that the common sense notion of physical object 
permanence instilled in us since infancy is enough for Don to think 
he can leave the dog dish in the kitchen and the dog will still get 
fed, for New York to still be there even after we've left work for 
Connecticut, or that trees do makes noises when they fall in 
forests even when mammals are not present.

Dan said:
I don't see any difference between forming presuppositions about 
hypothetical trees falling in forests when no one is around and 
hypothetical dog dishes that exist when no one is around. The claim 
that Don is a friend of Matt's and that Don has a dog dish is hearsay 
evidence. It wouldn't hold up in a court of law. And it is certainly 
hypothetical that the dog dish exists when no one is around.

Matt:
You're creating confusion again by imprecision.  I am not talking 
about "hypothetical dog dishes," unless by "hypothetical" you mean 
simply to point out that Pirsig's idealism means that all physical 
objects can have "hypothetical" precede their occurrence in 
discourse to point out their presuppositional nature.  I am talking 
about what happens to physical objects in a person's actual life, 
and whether they actually physically disappear when a person 
physically leaves a room.  The claim has _never_ been that "Don is 
a friend of Matt's," because that confuses the borders of where the 
thought-experiment ends and my life begins.  It doesn't matter 
_at all_ whether Don is a real person in my life or not: his only 
utility is to get _the reader_, you or any other thinking person 
reading the thought-experiment, to think about what they would 
think if they were in Don's position.

Dan said:
And we're not talking about perception of everyday objects here... 
this is a metaphysical inquiry into how presuppositions inform our 
perception of everyday reality... we are (or at least I am) attempting 
to look behind the curtain, so to speak, to reveal a metaphysical 
impossibility that is taken for granted in the "real world."

Matt:
What you seem to be neglecting, by your commitment to only asking 
"what dog dish?", is that a metaphysics that works properly should 
be able to state within its confines and with its vocabulary how 
everyday reality works.  That is what my attention to direct 
experience, in the form of Chris yelling out from the other room, 
was designed to elicit thought about.  So, Dave and I are talking 
about perception of everyday objects here, and we thought you 
should also do so.  I've been suggesting that we, all three of us, 
have got the metaphysical inquiry part down, pretty much (in 
accepting Pirsig's idealism), so lets go from there and connect it 
back with how we perceive reality.

Dan said:
What evidence do you [Dave] have to support your hypothesis that 
the dog dish was actually known by an actual person? The only 
evidence I've seen is that Matt says so.

Matt:
This says explicitly that you have not understood by 
"thought-experiment" the same thing as I understand by 
"thought-experiment."  Because if you did, this would be a very 
complete misunderstanding of what the parameters of Don and 
Chris's existence is.

Dan said:
Matt introduced Don and his dog dish. Don is worried that when he 
leaves the room the dog dish will disappear and Fido will go hungry. 
I responded along the same lines as RMP by saying: what dog dish? 
What did Robert Pirsig mean by giving the answer "what trees" and 
how does it correspond to "what dog dish"?

Matt:
In this reconstruction of my thought-experiment, I wonder how 
Pirsig's question eliminates Don's worry.  The only way I see is if you 
_get off the question_, and explain--as Dave has--how common 
sense physical object permanency works.  Otherwise, how have you 
responded to Don's worry in a fashion that doesn't only exacerbate 
his worry (or confuse him)?

Dan said:
Matt insists the dog dish is really there...that he has it on Don's 
authority.

Matt:
No, I insist that there is no particular reason to think that the dog 
dish physically disappears when we physically leave the room.  Don 
only exists in the parameters of my thought-experiment.  At best, I 
have it on Chris's authority that the dog dish _didn't_ disappear 
(because, in a later stage of the thought-experiment, Chris is in the 
kitchen looking at it).  Chris in the kitchen does _two things_, 
however: it both gives Don evidence for thinking that his dog dish 
is actually in the kitchen _and_ it reinforces the common sense 
notion physical object permanency because Don's original worry 
was based on _nothing more_ than a general, diffuse doubt in the 
notion of physical object permanency.  (I'm repeating all of these 
snipits of the conversation that has moved on without me only to 
clarify what I actually think is going on in the conversation.)

Dan said:
Even if Don's dog dish is taken as a real object, such objects don't 
exist independently of experience, at least not in the framework of 
the MOQ.

Matt:
You haven't specified yet what you mean by this.  Why, after all, can 
I not count Chris's experience of the dog dish to confirm that it is not, 
actually, existing independently of experience?  Further, and a more 
interesting question for you to answer, do physical objects not have, 
in the MoQ, their own locus of experiencing?  Isn't this what it means 
to be a inorganic static pattern?  Do only linguistic humans 
experience?

Dan said:
What throws me a bit is Matt's query concerning the difference 
between knowing New York City exists without experiencing it and 
knowing Don's dog dish exists without experiencing it. At first I took 
the existence of Don's dog dish as hearsay evidence and therefore 
not admissible in a court of law. But I'm not sure that's correct. Still, 
the overwhelming weight of evidence seems in favor of the 
existence of New York City as a higher quality idea than does the 
evidence for the existence of Don's dog dish... unless I am Don.

Matt:
Exactly, unless you are Don.  The notion of a thought-experiment is 
that its characters are placeholders for you, the thinker.  To think 
through my thought-experiment properly, you need to put yourself 
in Don's shoes.

Dan said:
You have misunderstood the discussion, Ron. I didn't say that trees 
don't make sounds and dog dishes disappear.  I asked what did 
Robert Pirsig mean by: what trees? I asked how to empirically verify 
the existence of trees or dog dishes when we don't experience 
them... when they are imaginary.

Matt:
Don't blame Ron, for apparently I have misunderstood what we are 
talking about, too.

Also, I find another imprecision here.  For I can't tell whether you 
believe "indirect experience" is a kind of evidence in your sense of 
Pirsig's epistemology.  My sense is that Dave and I both think that 
the only way for common sense to function is that it is.  (And then 
we must reconstruct how that works.)  Because as you have it 
above, if I'm not experiencing my dog's dish, which is in the 
kitchen, I must treat it as imaginary.  But the imprecision lies 
exactly in what is meant by "experiencing"--direct, or does it 
include indirect, too?

Matt