KyaryPamyu

The premise I see here is that emergence is used to explain something. No, it's not. The underlying cause of emergent properties is not 'emergence' itself, but the nature of the interacting existents. In other words, emergence identifies the fact; the how and why is explained by the corresponding sciences. Emergence is also not a metaphysical concept (it's itself an instance of identity and causality). But it adds important knowledge about the world.

When two elements meet, both will exert an influence on each other, causing both to change in some way. Since the two elements are now different, this will also affect how they react to a third element, and how that third element will react to them. The only way to avoid emergent behaviours/properties is to have no interactions whatsoever. The way a thing behaves is an aspect of what that thing is like. That is causality, i.e. a specialized perspective on the nature of a given thing. If 'determinism' means causality, then volition is not a-causal; it's impossible to exercise volition if your nervous system lacks that feature.

A triangle is a way of regarding three lines as a single unit; a line is a way of regarding multiple dots as a single unit. Dots are ways of regarding several sensations as a single unit. Unit-perspectives are not properties. Emergent properties (such as life) arise out of an integration of existents, not out of a mental integration of sensations. In O'ism, unit-perspectives are a form of being economical, and the perceptual apparatus + the things it comes in contact with actually exist, and operate according to what they are, A is A. This is in contrast with Kant's view, for whom integration is not about unit-persepective, but about a 'mine - not mine' perspective: unlike your own thoughts, sensations originating from interactions with the world must be regarded as not of your own doing - that is the rule, and the categories are the means by which that rule of integration is fulfilled.

If you study just one thing, I recommend going with this article. Without understanding this topic, the O'ist conception of rights, honesty etc. will always sound like chinese to you, because the key issue according to your posts is 'what if'. 'What if I'm in such and such situation where I can get away with it?'. The article is long and might seem pointlessly abstract at first, but there will be a huge payoff if you stick with it till the end.

There are no ends that do not require some kind of 'sacrifice'. Success with your career/business might require you to do nasty things, such as attending pointless university lectures to get the degree. That's just how it is. While this never stops sucking, Rand pointed out that if you gain a bigger value at the expense of a lesser one, it's not a 'sacrifice', but more of a necessary (and good) deal. Such is the case with morality. You put up with less pleasant aspects of life but, overall, you thrive because your guidelines of action actually work in practice. With tyranny you win one finger in exchange for the whole hand. If there's nobody else around, you don't need rights. Because other people can willingly compromise your living requirements, you tell them 'If we are to cohabit, I will not tolerate interference with my natural survival needs'. Your neighbour responds just the same. Now you have a society where you have to take that in account if you want to trade with him, or live peacefully. The moral principle of 'rights' emerges: you gain worse by messing with people than by respecting their life. As to lying to avoid loss: in such situations, if you're honest you'll lose, and if you're dishonest you'll lose as well, living under the boots of those that know or can investigate the truth. Better to act in a way that doesn't lead to such situations, because no matter how you look at it, losing sucks.

EF, tell me if I understand your position correctly: Apart from immaterial mind(s), there are only particles and maybe space. Some of these particles interact with your sense organs, leading to sensations. The immaterial mind (not made of particles) performs an act of thought through which sensations are integrated into percepts. Reason, integration, purpose etc. belong exclusively to the immaterial mind, and not to some body part. There are no rocks, trees, and butterflies, only particles. Rocks, trees and butterflies are mental constructs. The immaterial mind can directly interact with material particles in such a way that it directs the evolution of lifeforms. The faculty of reason has always existed. Induction is not a valid method of proof because you're inducing from your own integrations of sensations. If this is an accurate summary, could you clarify the following? 1. There seem to be two clashing premises: a) the existence of sense organs or lifeforms, and b) the notion that there are only particles out there, not rocks, trees and butterflies. Which one is it? Does the mind merely integrate sensations, or does it integrate actual, material particles into sense organs, trees and butterflies? 2. Does the immaterial mind have a physical origin? i.e. the nervous system leads to the immaterial mind, which has a nature of its own and can influence the material nervous system back. 3. If ideas construct percepts, why do you use scientific experiments to validate your positions? For all you know, the ideas that construct the experiment-percepts could be bogus and not related to reality in any way. Are you counting on a pre-established harmony between what is true and what your innate ideas say? 4. Whose mind directs evolution? Thanks.

Yes. Both exist, both are parts comprising the same world, and the absence of either has some consequences for the other, whatever those might be. In this example, the interaction is between the puffs that make up the external entities, plus the puffs that make up the perceptual apparatus (including the nervous system). The result is the experience of the world of three-dimensional objects possessing color, shape etc. We wouldn't perceive the primaries (puffs) but the perception would still be real since it's the product of an interaction that actually goes on in the world. But in this example, consciousness is an effect of the puffs, and not itself a special kind of puff, hence its 'immateriality'. Being immaterial does not disqualify it from existing; it still is, but qua effect and not as substance. The same way the body keeps itself alive by its own action, the brain perceives existence by its own action.

The same way I use 'mankind' to denote every human being, I use 'existence' to denote everything that exists, including the material, immaterial and perhaps other classes of which we have no knowledge of. Poet and philosopher Friedrich Hölderlin authored a brief philosophic fragment which makes the following case: an object of perception cannot exist outside of perception, and the perception of an object cannot exist without the object that is perceived. He then concludes that the world cannot arise out of the mind, and the mind cannot arise out of the world - neither subject or object can exist in isolation, they are two perspectives on an undivisible whole. And he was right, but not in the sense he believed. Notice that whether you start with the mind, world, or an undivisible subject-object (like Hölderlin), you start with something. That is the common ground which materialists, immaterialists (and anybody inbetween) share. Hölderlin claims that he looks at the subject and object, but he only really looks at one thing: perception. Object perceived, and the act of perceiving it. I'm interested in something different: not what exists, but that it exists. If you start with that which exists, the what becomes irrelevant. Whatever is, is not something else; it is not less or more than what it is. Whether mind exists, or matter exists, or both, or neither, existence is the starting point to which no mind can lay claim of authorship. If what is perceived does not exist prior to being perceived, it is not perceived, but conceived. You are contemplating a hallucination whilst still existing as a definite being (material or immaterial) through no fault of your own. To make matters worse, you are 'constructing' perceptions instead of actually perceiving what's out there, the you that actually exists (perhaps alongside other things).

EF, as a student of aesthetics, my research regularly leads me to thinkers like Schelling and Whitehead, which see nature as a living organism or super-subject, contra the so-called mechanistic or lifeless view. Since I'm using the base of Objectivism to ground my thinking about subjects such as art, beauty and personal freedom, I always find myself thinking about how those who hold the view of nature-as-living would react to arguments about the primacy of existence, the derivation of concepts from percepts, and so on. I can't pinpoint your overall worldview yet, but so far there seem to be some themes. You do seem to believe there is a world out there, albeit you claim that the sensations which reach you are integrated by an act of thinking, which was the fashionable view in Kantianism, but not much in line with the current science. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant claims that the manifold of mental contents must be seen as belonging to one single subject (my consciousness), that this necessitates distinguishing between what is subjective and what is objective in experience, and that this in turn depends on representing what is objective (from out there) according to rules which belong to the objects and not to your will: causality etc. You also mention the double-slit experiement, which allegedly shows that consciousness affects the world in some way, and in another thread on this forum you mention a disagreement with a purely 'undirected' emergence of life. This would be more in line with a consciousness-first view, such as the one in the OP. I am asking out of curiosity if you can describe your view in some essentials, especially: if the universe emerges out of a consciousness; or if a Nature-as-intelligence gives rise to all particles, chemistry, life and consciousness as it gropes (consciously or unconsciously) for some end goal, like self-consciousness. It could also be that, for you, nature is an objective absolute, but it simply can't be known through perception, and for instance, the double-slit experiment is merely true for how things apppear to your mind and not indicative of some fact about nature. In your opinion, does your view solve some inadequacies or 'evil' implications of materialism, biological evolution or Aristotelianism? If there are some books on your worldview (it could be that it's actually an original view of yours), they might be of interest to future readers of this thread. It is a monumentally important topic, since all forms of departing from the existence-as-absolute view depend on showing that some ideas are innate or created by the mind, independent of perception.

If I understand you correctly: perfection does not rely on measurement, because perfection is what is being measured. If this is the case, then no, The ability to judge closeness or deviation from a set criteria precedes any instance of doing it, it is a mental faculty which is there whether it's being currently used or not. Concepts of consciousness (measurement, perception, intensity of thought) are derived ostensively from observing those faculties in action. The mind is part of reality. So is my ability to measure perfection. So is my thinking of a blue elephant, even if there is no actual blue elephant out there to match that concept.

If you are able to distinguish between a perfect and an imperfect circle, it means you can measure the imperfect circle's closeness to a standard of perfection. 100 points on a test is a perfect score, a video game can be finished with a perfect score, and so on. You can't measure perfection without a standard.

It's not the whole story.

Yes, but... non-beating heart, non-functioning organs. This was my point with the h2o example. Don't look at chemicals. Look at emergent properties. This thread is departing from the subject of tyranny.

See:

EF, you might find this post to be of interest to you. This book is very much in line with your arguments. On another note, studying books like these, as well as German Idealism, is a very good challenge for Objectivists who want to test the strenght of their understanding of the O'ist position regarding metaphysics and epistemology.

It's only 'clearly' not part of logic if one holds the position that concepts lead to percepts, and not the reverse. To disprove this position, one can't rely on experiments, since allegedly your concepts construct the experience of doing the scientific experiment. Whether those experiments seem to be amiable to idealism or not, it makes no difference either way to the idealist.

There is an alternative way to view this: In other words, existing precedes perceiving. That which leads to perception, performs the integration of sensations. And if we integrate this insight with other available evidence, that would be the brain.

Two gasses, oxygen and hydrogen, change their status into a liquid when combined. A liquid has properties which neither of its constitutive parts have. This might shed light on that seemingly incomprehesible gap. Any legitimate discovery - philosophical or scientific - is made through the same method: induction.

EF, Try to imagine a line that has no color, texture and resembles absolutely no line that you've seen (with your eyes) before. If you can't, that's likely because you can't summon any memorized percept whose defining quality is that 'you haven't experienced it'. A line is a percept. The measurement of a line is an action enabled by a specific mental faculty that you possess, and other species might not. That action (measurement) can itself be conceptualized, but only by noticing what you are doing while measuring chalk-drawn lines or the roundness of tomatoes. No measuring = no way to conceptualize measurement. Mentally conceiving something depends on the prior existence of that which is doing the conceiving: a faculty that is precisely what it is, not less or more than that. Existence (the world) is the starting point, not the product of that faculty. You can conceive a circle without impurities, or a perfectly square-shaped opera singer if you want, assuming you have a prior acquaintance with circles, squares, human males and opera. Reversing the percept-concept order does not make a point for 'immaterialism'. Physical vs. Immaterial doesn't mean Unalterable vs. Alterable by mind. It's a distinction between two different classes of existents: mind, plus the general category of whatever else there is, including but not limited to: matter, energy, choco-puff wave-squares and not-yet discovered particles.

Geometry presupposes the ability to perceive shape, size and position, otherwise you wouldn't even conceive of a science dedicated to that. Percepts don't just 'aid' in the formation of concepts. The latter is literaly impossible without the starting point of perception. Abstraction allows you to mentally isolate aspects of things, such as action, size or weight, but those remain aspects of something that acts and is of a certain size or weight. "Pi" does not depend on the actual existence of a perfect circle, any more than knowing you can count forever (1, 2, 3...) depends on actually doing it. However, those do depend on the ability to know what a circle is, and the ability to regard percepts as units.

LB, My suggestion is the opposite: self-impose a ban on all reading of this subject - no Rand, no evo psy, no Shakespeare, no statistical overviews of data organized according to the modern scientific method. For a period of time set by yourself, direct your mind out of books or articles and invest your time into doing something that you've always wanted to do (and monetize it if you can). Whatever is true of human nature, is in you, not in Aristotle or Freud's minds. One century of meticulous study will not replace a single week of closely introspecting yourself as you work to bring into existence something that you actually care about. At the end, you'll likely find something curious: your interest in other people's theories will diminish. Considerably. There's also a chance that you'll find most of what you've read to be absolutely useless in practice. No thinker can be judged without a point of reference, namely a set of principles one is already using - not when arguing, but in regular life choices. This turns ideas into tools and henchmen of a living breathing reality, and refining them becomes no more than that - a means to an end. Right now, your arguments read like more-or-less accurate overviews of western thinkers. But what you are casually doing is a monumental task - scholars spend many years struggling to accurately communicate the essence of just one thinker and his influences. There is also the danger of the truth being on the fringe, and not in the mainstream. But 'what ifs' are empty talk - only individual minds exist and only individual minds can recognize reality. The test of one's philosophy (and the accuracy of its view of human nature) is ultimately the quality of the practitioner's life, and his liberated status of being able to judge ideas without the aid of an external source.

Reality is absolutely unalterable by human wishing. On a desert island, if you don't produce your necessities, you die; no positive thinking will alter this. Not surprinsingly, when there's more than one person around, nobody wants to give their toil away for free. If anybody tries to take stuff away by force, there is the inconvenient aspect of self-defense. And if the attacked person is too physically weak to defend himself, his self-defense can take the form of pretending to go with the swine's demands, and taking care of him while he is sleeping. Two things would result from a widespread recognition of reality: productive competition, since innovation actually results in more profit; and widespread aversion to fraud, since nobody wants a smartphone that crumbles in the hand, regardless of who the producer's aunt is. In other words, honest people would gang up on the frauds, because nobody wants that guy to mess their cosy life up. There does seem to be a way out, however. The information of the senses is not enough to understand reality. If you see a flying stick, you have to integrate that sense data with memorized facts, such as gravity. This is the process of reason, and that process is voltional. Meaning, it's like a TV set. You turn it on when you're using it, turn it off when you don't. And when it's off, your ability to judge what's in front of your eyes is impaired. Fraud counts on this obliviousness. But this lack of awareness is not an absolute, and may always come up in the form of the victim's ploys. The tyrant lives on the edge for when the sheep will turn wolf. Incidentaly, tyranism is not the only expression of this drive. Modern art is like that as well. 'I don't like that art is challenging to make, I want reality to be such that anything I feel is good because I feel it'. There is only one way for the tyrant, modern artist, religious clerk or philosopher to allegedly escape the ironclad laws of reality: cast doubt on man's ability to know facts with certainty. Examples: - Words are conventions, and have no connection to reality (The nominalists, Wittgenstein). - You do not know reality, you only know how reality looks to you. The unknowable realm beyond your senses might have God and immortality (Kantianism). - Man can recognize that his choices will nuke him off the earth, but he has no choice. He can't help it. His knowledge and his emotions are in conflict, because emotions are unalterable (Original sin, 'human nature'). - Your genes/Freudian id brainwash you into thinking you are acting freely, when if fact you're not. Knowledge of this fact does not give you any alternative, since when you are fooled cannot be detected. - You don't get ideas from sense observation, your ideas are the blueprints that make up reality. Hence, for art you must look at pure ideas, not contingent nature. LB, you don't seem to suspect that the theory of gravity is infected by traces of the belief in Alchemy, even though Newton was an avid believer in it. In other issues, you seem almost obsessed with the idea that thinkers might be unknowingly influenced by a theory without their knowing. If its clear to you that man can peek behind the veil of his 'programming', you can identify what logically follows: that this fact is the decisive blow to any of the theories I mentioned above. Whether you are programmed or not, the ability to adjust your mind to act with full awareness of every piece of related information means that determinism and freedom both lead to the very same path: the paradoxical self-anihilation of determinism. The fact that man is oblivious without enaging in volition is not a license to condone the mindless things that result from that: injustice, corruption, poverty, nepotism, anxiety, tyranism, genocide, misery and so on. Rand made a crucial distinction in this regard: the metaphysical and the man-made. The metaphysical is facts such as: hydrogen and oxygen turn to water. The man-made: historical contingencies of which countries had the most tyrants. The man-made is not the fault of reality, but of men. Whatever is not right today, is the result of previous generations acting blindly. This is true regardless of the dishonest copouts that philosophers, pastors and Harvard professors might try to delude themselves with. It also sheds light on what the business of philosophy is: the study of the facts which have the most implications for the most areas of your life. People like Wittgenstein, one of the richest men in Europe, can afford to act on his hatred of reality's impartiality to his wishes. Rand, who had to flee for her life from a country that pillaged her father's business and the welfare of everyone, knows better than taking those unalterable facts lightly, a pretty intellectual exercise.

LB, Rand's point is that whatever out-of-context desire, drive or motive the subconscious spits out, it will always get overwriten during the process of raising one's awareness of the situation at hand, and noticing that the 'drive' will prevent you from getting something you want. It's in this sense that mystic impulses and subconscious drives are basically the same principle. Rand was a pretty good psychologist, going by the testimony of close associates that were helped by her. 'The Romantic Manifesto' is chock full of examples of how one's childhood events, way of thinking and other factors influence one's psychology. Except, she thought that one can identify the source of one's mental disposition through meticulous introspection.

No. The central issue is how value is calculated. If the criteria is conformity to reality, then the value is truth or falsehood. If the criteria is temperature, then the value is cold and heat. And so on. If the criteria is survival value, then the value is good and bad, as in: beneficial or detrimental. That is Rand's thesis. This rejects the notion that good and bad is a property of things. For example, the presence of sugar is a property of fruit. But goodness or badness is not a property located in the fruit, which can be separated from the fruit and put into a jar. Good and bad is a calculation. If life didn't exist, then some machine could still calculate temperature or truth values, but there would be no criteria to judge the good. That is because the calculation is based on the specific kind of organism. Jogging is good for humans, pointless for fish. For humans, actions are motivated by prior intentions. You don't have to worry that your legs will suddenly start moving on their own and jump of a tall building, because you don't do things unless you have some reason. Now, prior to any choice between alternatives - sleep or TV, steak or ice-cream, music career or enginering career - there is a prior choice. That choice is how 'awake' you are. Awake, as in how much context you are aware of. For instance, if you just go by your immediate feelings, you might pick ice-cream instead of steak. But if you enlarge your awareness of the context, you might remeber that you are trying to build some muscle and therefore you want to fill your stomach with the protein first, since there's limited space in there and ice-cream might curtail your appetite. This primary choice, behind all other choices, Rand identified as volition (or free will). Her phrasing was: "the faculty of reason is the faculty of volition". The basic virtue for human survival is rationality. The 'hunter-gatherer' mode of existence only became obsolete some 10.000 years ago (despite this species being 200.000 years old) precisely because so few souls ever stopped to do what Rand was talking about, i.e. question their mode of living and come up with easier, better ways to live. They went by the seat of their pants, and for this reason did not achieve a better existence than that of animals. Rand defines instinct as an innate 'know-how'. Not an ability, but a method: a method of building dams (beavers), where to go (bird migration) etc. People learn stuff like this from thinking or from the initial discoverers, and they stagnate for millenia if they don't have the benefit of busybodies that keep questioning things. Rand locates the locus of human survival in three values: - A rational mode of operation - Making nature conform to our needs through production and trading, contra the hunter-gathers and animals - Moral absolutism and determination. The more bad things you let accumulate in your life, the harder undoing them becomes. It's the bad apple/domino effect. Or, to use her terms: reason, purpose, and self-esteem. Her ethics is based on metaphysics only in the sense of being based on the kind of species man is (his metaphysical, i.e. natural characteristics). Philosophy, to Rand, is a set of disciplines required universally by man, regardless of career, interests and so on, namely: - how to discover new things, and detect B.S (epistemology) - how to determine what's beneficial and detrimental for living (ethics) - how to ensure that living with others does not wreck the requirements of your life (government) - the 'why' of upholding naturalism or supernaturalism (metaphysics) - examples, heroes, concrete statements of one's worldview (art). Neither of these sciences are 'derrived' from each other. They are connected only in the sense that a field will make use of discoveries from other fields.

In other words, natural science. The common classification of sciences is into three branches: formal (such as logic, mathematics), natural (chemistry, biology) and social (psychology, economics). I go with Rand in classifying a science as philosophical if it's realistically needed by everyone regardless of their occupation, interests and other considerations. In the essay The Objectivist Ethics she laments the lack of a scientific ethics and arrives at one by observation of facts, not experiments.