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Yes, only if they do not affect (do not improve nor erode) the choice to live.

Gio, I would recommend listening to Leonard Peikoff's lecture series entitled "Unity in Epistemology and Ethics". I think it was the third lecture where he discusses a topic which is, in my view, closely related to your question. Basically, he argues that there are certain concepts which, in order to be properly understood and applied, must have two distinct definitions. The main concept he considers in the lecture is "value", but his analysis (which is still somewhat unrefined at the time this lecture was given) applies to other concepts too and I think also applies to the concept "concept", which is why I'm bring this up. For "value", the two definitions would be (roughly): 1. That which one acts to gain and/or keep, and 2. Something which one acts to gain and/or keep which sustains one's life. The second definition is "pure" form of the first, and refers to values in the complete and consistent sense. The first definition subsumes "values" which may in fact be life destroying (eg. "valuing" Nazism). With "concept", I think the analagous definitions would be (very roughly): 1. An idea represented by a word, and 2. A mental integration of two or more concretes [insert rest of Ayn Rand's definition here]. Peikoff offers his best explanation (at the time the lecture was delivered at least, which was in 1996) for why this is so. I think he argues that this only applies to certain normative concepts, or concepts which directly or indirectly refer to something volitional. Another example he gives is egoism. I think the basic point is that one first grasps these concepts in one context, and then discovers later on what their fully consistent definition is. Yet, the original definition is still useful since these concepts are still used and held by others in a form which is not fully consistent. If, having grasped the fully consistent definition of "concept", we did not permit ourselves to call things like "altruism" anti-concepts (thus viewing them as a subcategory of concepts), we would not be able to evaluate these anti-concepts at all; we wouldn't even be able to talk about them (because, "what" are they?).

What are you doing here? You're either relying on the veracity of your senses to impugn the veracity of your senses, or you're doing something else.

No. It is a new, unique sensation; but the same percept. Perceptions are retained. It doesn't need to be a concept. You seem to have to blurred the distinction between percepts and concepts. It is possible to have a percept for a chair. It is also possible to have a concept for a chair. This doesn't mean that percepts are a form of concepts. Percepts aren't first level abstractions.

That one sentence isn't the entirety of my argument. It is an opening statement. There is no such distinction as an "actual motion" and an "appearance of motion". All motion is relative (from relativity, there's no such thing as an "absolute" motion). The distinction of causality/force is irrelevant. We're talking about motion. And this "vacuous" notion of "I see the Sun moving" is the conceptual statement of what you perceive (this is perception by the way, not sensation). The question of what revolves around what is at an entirely different level. Exactly. The physical phenomena which produce perception is real too. There is no such thing as perception without the apparatus of perception. Some phenomena in the eye produced that illusion. To deny that would be to claim that you are blind because you have eyes. You need some means of perception before you can perceive something. You cannot perceive something "directly". That is not perception. The "illusion" is physically real (although fake). It exists. Yes You are here talking about the relation between what exists (what you call "appearances") and what you know (what you call "actual reality"). Sensations are of something which exists (whatever it is: hallucinations, simulations, etc) and you are conscious of it. Existence and consciousness are implicit in sensations. Hallucinations are real: as hallucinations. Simulations are real: as simulations. Simulations cannot be produced without the apparatus that produces it. You know that something exists. The light that hits the retina in a Virtual Reality or impulse that travels through the nervous system and finally enters the brain: some physical phenomena exists. Otherwise, you can't sense it. This is the self-evident validity of the senses. As for the question of what something actually is, whether it is an illusion or if it is fake, etc: that is the issue of proof. It is fully at the conceptual level. This has nothing to do with the validity of the senses (something exists and you know it).

That's what the entirety of ITOE is for - to explain how we begin with the evidence of the senses and arrive at objective concepts, definitions, and complex propositions. Lol. I am "typing challenged".

Except that it isn't. If life is what you want, you must pay for it, by accepting and practicing a code of rational behavior. Morality, too, is a must—if; it is the price of the choice to live. That choice itself, therefore, is not a moral choice; it precedes morality; it is the decision of consciousness that underlies the need of morality. OPAR Pg. 245 Miss Rand addresses this with the exchange between Dagny Taggart and Hugh Akston in the valley: So long as men desire to live, I cannot lose my battle." "Do they?" said Hugh Akston softly. "Do they desire it?