Hello everyone On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 3:46 PM, Matt Kundert <[email protected]> wrote: > > 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.
Dan: What I see presented by you reporting a conversation with two friends would be called hearsay evidence in a court of law and inadmissible as such. Let's say Don sees Chris steal his dog dish and tells you about it. You call the police. When Chris is arrested and you are called to testify against him, the judge is going to throw your testimony out as hearsay... you did not see the crime being committed... you only heard from someone else that a crime occurred. Don may be just as reliable as the sunrise and he may be sure that Chris stole his dog dish... but you are going on what you've heard and not on evidence that you witnessed firsthand. You are presupposing Don is correct without sufficient evidence to back up your claim. The point is: when the MOQ is attacked on the grounds that it contains philosophic idealism within its framework, one possible response seems to be to articulate how we make presuppositions about reality and then believe those presuppositions to be true. We implicitly agree to the presupposition that the conceptual objects we talk about are real and not imaginary like trees falling in forests with no one around. The idealists answer this by asking: what tree? They do this to point out the implicit agreement which is otherwise overlooked. By using the court of law analogy it is easier to see that arguments supported by hearsay evidence or a hypothesis contrary to fact is inadmissible for a reason. >Matt: > 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. Dan: Matt: > 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. Dan: If I suppose a skyscraper fell in New York City and no one was around, would it make a noise? We are not concerned if two people experience an occurrence or if a billion experience it... the question before us is if no one experiences an event, does it occur? What I sense in the route you take is a subtle shift in context. You're presupposing first person sincere reporting to an event that no one has witnessed. Matt: > 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? Dan: Yes, the MOQ emphasizes direct experience over indirect testimony. But Matt... you're asking me to accept indirect testimony that Don's dog dish exists independently of anyone verifying its existence. This is hearsay evidence at best. Matt: > 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: Again... it is the kind of evidence submitted and not the number of witnesses. If I see Matt breaking into a bank late one night and I go around telling a hundred of my friends what I saw... not one of those people I tell about the crime can testify... it is hearsay and totally inadmissible in a court of law. It is low quality evidence. And if I hear from a hundred different people that Don has a dog dish, it is hearsay evidence unless Don directly exhibits the dog dish. But even if I accept Don has a dog dish on hearsay evidence, there is no one who can testify if that dish exists when no one is around... not even Don. Isn't that what we're discussing here? I thought so... > > 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? Dan: I purposely chose a bizarre example to (hopefully) better elucidate the fallacy of presupposition. We are all familiar with dog dishes and trees that fall in forests so it is easy to accept the notion that there are real dog dishes and real trees that exist independently of any observation. But they are imaginary. We make them up in our minds and believe they exist apart from us. > > 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. Dan: When you put it that way you're again changing the context of the discussion. I have no doubt that dog dishes exist just as I have no doubt New York City exists. But would dog dishes and New York City exist if no one was around to verify it? Thank you, Dan Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
