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gio

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Everything posted by gio

  1. It doesn't. The only thing Objectivism has to say about race is that racism is a form of collectivism, and the rest is what the philosophy has to say about collectivism. /thread
  2. According to Objectivism, rational faculty is volitionnal. If you are talking about a non-volitionnal faculty, then it has nothing to do with what Objectivism deals.
  3. Just to be clear: In your view, do race affect the ideas, the faculty of thinking, of an individual? Do Thomas Sowell share something fundamental in his head with Obama and 50 Cent, that I (as a white) haven't, while I have some different fundamental thinking that I share with Stalin and Steve Jobs, and that Sowell, Obama & 50 Cent haven't? (Obama, as a mixed, may have mixed premises?)
  4. She didn't believed that "due to the information that was available at the time". It is true that Objectivism holds reality is the primary source of knowledge. If tabula rasa is wrong, the philosophy will not change: it would merely mean that this philosophy is wrong.
  5. Objectivism hold that man is born tabula rasa. If you disagree, fine: then you're not an Objectivist.
  6. By the same way we know anything is objective. And I don't get how you can even consider the idea that belief in God would determine what is objective: the exact opposite is true. You have to exclude the very idea of God or any faith before you can enter in the process of objectivity.
  7. Ayn Rand answered exactly your question in her course The Art of Non-fiction. The question was: "Doesn't free will contradict the idea that man has a specific identity?"
  8. Is this person known in Objectivist circles? Does anyone know him?
  9. Have you ever come across any of these sites? http://objectivismaynrand.com http://reasonvsfaith.com/ http://newromanticist.com http://dollarsandcrosses.com/ http://fact4thought.com/ http://abortionisprolife.com http://capitalism.org http://capitalismmagazine.com etc. All those websites are very similar and are linked to each other. They all look like preformatted and somehow poor made. Do you know who is behind those?
  10. That's exactly what I said in my discussion. I told that people who are influenced by advertising, somehow choose to be influenced: they don't care, or they accept it in a way. But this has not been heard or understood either. I was told it was not a choice, people did not have the capabilities.
  11. I am pretty sure that my opponents did think that neuromarketing (or the use of cognitive science in advertising) actually prevents people from reasoning. And if I would have said that they haven't studied enough philosophy, obviously they would had laugh: they don't care about philosophy, they disregard it here, for them it's just a matter of science, a field which is certain and proved, as opposed to philosophy. Thus, the hardest task is to try to explain, to make it clear that this is not a scientific issue, but a philosophical issue. The whole problem lies there. I don't know exactly how to do that.
  12. This is not incompatible. You can have an idea that contradicts the results of science because you ignore the results of science. That's exactly what they thought I did. In fact, the discussion seemed to show, curiously, that they genuinely believe in free will. But that neuromarketing destroys free will. You see what I mean? All this makes things much more hard to argue with. I'm not sure it's very convincing for them. Actually, in our discussion, neuromarketing was an obvious example. But more generally, it was the use of cognitive science by advertising was supposed to be proof that advertising could impose things we did not want. And it will be complicated to argue that cognitive sciences are not science.
  13. I try to argue against the idea that advertising can impose to people stuff they don't want. As I said in my first post, that is exactly what I did. I asked for any scientific reference he regards as probative. And the only answer was that if I didn't see what he was talking about, it showed that I didn't know anything about the topic (I dont have "the level"), that I was lazy because I didn't want to do the research on my own, that I wanted him to did the work for me, so I didn't have the required level ... "I'm not your teacher" he answered, "go search by yourself, you're not a kid any more", etc. (this kind...)
  14. I'm totally agree with what you said except the fact that, in their mind, I was actually challenging the science, because there is a confusion in their mind that I tried (but failed) to explain between philosophical and scientific perspective. In their mind, they used no philosophical point this is only science. I don't know how to explain this was not the case. They disregard philosophy.... as having no value against science....you see? But, about the 100%...actually, that's an argument I used. Exactly how you said it: "I will see no need (or possibility) of getting a 100% response; free will means that there's always the possibility of people doing something other than the expected." But they didn't care about this. Why? Because, he said, there is actually an invariability. And this invariability is something like: "70% of people will do this" In other word, in 100% of the results, you have 70% of people doing the predictable result. And this is enough, he said, for his point. And enough for advertising, which rely on this fact.
  15. I had an argument with some people about the "power" of advertising. One of the guy argued that advertising could impose choices against our will, and force us to do things we did not want. He supported his point by the neuromarketing and the research on the stimulus and the brain. He emphasized my (real) ignorance on the subject. I failed explaining to him that these experiments and research could not prove that man was not free to make his own choices and that he can not be forced to do something he doesn't want to do. I really failed. I was merely an "ignorant" vs. a "scientist" who was constantly telling me to go to learn about the subject. Annoying. At the end he explained that the fact that there is physical laws, commercial monopolies, the size of my bank account, major depressive disorder, and many others factors ... showed that there was no choice in some cases. I failed to explain to him that it was a confusion between two different things, that you can't take the removal of reality as the standard of "choice"... he definitevely shone as "scientist" and me as "metaphysics" who confuses everything .... The misunderstaning I faced was hopeless and very frustrating. I'm not complaining about the disagreement, but the deep misunderstanding. I tried to explain that It's one thing to be attracted, it's another thing to lose the ability to say no ; but all I get as answer was that I don't know enough neuroscience and stuff like that. I don't have the scientific knowledge. What I said was automatically discredit because it's not "scientific", as oppose to neuroscience... Science (pretty bad interpreted I guess) is seen here as an authority, and everyone is "on the side of the science" of course. He didn't ask me to believe science on the basis of faith, he told me to go search and get information to learn about this topic where I am ignorant. Actually, at the beginning of our discussion, he never explicitly referred to cognitive science and neuromarketing, just vaguely to the relationship between science and advertising. I asked repeatedly if he could provide me with references that he considered probative to have a basis for discussion. And the only answer was that if I didn't see what he was talking about, it showed that I didn't know anything about the topic (I dont have "the level"), that I was lazy because I didn't want to do the research on my own, that I wanted him to did the work for me, so I didn't have the required level ... I ended up guessing (after a long time) that he was talking about neuromarketing, but when I showed him links and asked him if he evaluate this particular reference as probative, he just asked me: "In your opinion?" or "You should know for yourself.", "I'm not your teacher, you have to do the job." Etc. I found this particulary dishonest, but apparently I was the only one. Anyway, How to explain, in understable way, that neuromarketing and neuroscience in communication can't force us to act a way we don't want to act?
  16. Leonard Peikoff said in Ideas in History: Objectivism’s Relation to the Past and the Future that instinct philosophically means innate ideas. If instinct means innate ideas, does it means that animals have innate ideas?
  17. Objectivism does not need academic recognition. If it does get it, all the better, if it doesn't get it, too bad. But philosophy is not made for discussions between professional philosophers. Objectivism was not designed in this purpose. Otherwise Ayn Rand would not have expressed her ideas that way, and she was perfectly aware of what she was doing.
  18. Okay, my bad. Then let's say Hitler wasn't consequentialist. But what he made looks like.
  19. Observe that if all the dictators are consequentialist (they use all the means and do not hesitate to sacrifice whole peoples to reach their goal), they stay in power only because they ask the population to adopt a deontological morality. They must do their duty, they must obey the leader, because he is the leader. Hitler is consequentialist, but Eichman is Kantian. Hitler thinks that the good is the domination of the Aryan race, and he will use every possible means to arrive at this consequence, even if it is to crush many people. Eichman thinks that what is good is to obey Hitler because he is Hitler. If Hitler says to crush many people, let's do it. If tomorrow Hitler changes his mind, Eichman will always obey. And without the Eichmans, no Hitler. The conflict between Stalin and Trotsky was a battle between two consequentialists. In a totalitarian dictatorship, there must be one consequentist: the leader. All the others adopt a kind of deontological mode: obedience to the leader. Of course, it's a bit schematic.
  20. No, a consequentialist can come to the conclusion that such consequence is good in any way (reason, faith, feeling, desire ... it does not matter, it depends on the kind of consequentialist he is). But then, all means are good to reach this consequence. Take Ludwig von Mises for example. The only reason he defends capitalism is because it happens to be the best system to get the more happiness of the masses. If it were socialism that produced this consequence, he would be an advocate of socialism. It only happens that socialism is impracticable, it does not "work" it's basically the only reason he rejects it. For him, the notion of individual right does not exist, it is a pure arbitrary convention, a useless concept.
  21. You can say for example: "The good is when women rules and men are slaves, in other words the good is inequality between men and women." And in the same time: "All means that leads to this result are equally acceptable." In the first point, the context is a result, in the second point the context is action. (No offense, but I find this discussion rather uninteresting and off-topic.)
  22. It's not the same context. Equality (or indifference to be precise) of action is not the same thing as equality between men. Sending people who have made the choice of this kind of risky career is normal. But it is immoral, when it is not necessary, to sacrifice innocent human lives to restore normal conditions. (Provided your own life is not at stake, and even then it depends.)
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