 Rulers, clocks, courts—these are all symbolic objects or practices.They are also "functioning objects" in the sense that a ruler is only different from another piece of wood in terms of what one does with it; they are symbolic objects that exist in use and in no other way.As Miller made clear in "The Midworld of Symbols and Functioning Objects", the midworld is not a "world" proper but rather the totality of all functioning objects (understanding "object" to have enough flexibility to include regularized practices and natural bodies such as the human organism).