Easy Truth

I just wanted to emphasize that private experience, i.e. subjective experience is not unknowable as the person having it, knows it. It maybe unascertainable or duplicatable by others but it by definition is knowable because it is known at some point by someone. When I say eternally unknowable, I mean never ever known, past present future by ANYONE.

Yes and No. Man made, yes always ... but that is descriptively speaking. The question is what should be? The reason murder should be illegal is a selfish one ... I don't want to be murdered. That is a requirement for my living i.e. survival qua man. In fact it would be a universal desire for "those who want to live". In the case of a child, it is the desire of those who want to bring it up that seems to be paramount. It is they that will hurt if the child is left to die. To say that another way, the premise would be that the unborn should be able to use the woman's body by right to remain in existence. Let us consider the following: A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action—which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.) That would imply that rights don't apply to a child that is not rational and can't self sustain. Therefore, it may be the right of those that in a sense "own" the child. Is it the mother (that does not want it) or those people that are willing to bring it up. One could make the argument that a neighbor torturing their child will "hurt" you. But what are your rights, the parent's rights, or the child's rights in this picture?

Then can we not start with the ZEF yet. (whatever that stands for) How about should a woman who gave birth to a child have a legal obligation to help it survive (assuming she does not want to)?

A series of range-of-the-moment reactions is no way to go through life. Agreed. If a potential child was not a part of the issue, let us say the person injects drugs, or even experimental drugs out of desperation, one would say, they have a right to do what they want with their body (as long as it does not harm another). In that case, the range of the moment aspect is not as important, right? So the argument around abortion has to center around the potential child. In other words, right or wrong, what's done is done, conception has happened. The question is what is the obligation of the parties involved and why. If the argument is that the parents were sluts, and therefore they should be forced to protect the child's birth, it should be spelled out as such so that it can be discussed. But is that the gist of the argument? Or is it that the parents should be punished for what they have done? Let us say, it was a slut that made a mistake. Something they regret. What is the principle mandating the birth of the child?

But isn't avoiding the consequence, having an abortion? Wouldn't that be the honest way to deal with it when a mistake has been made? (Not even taking the cases where it has been forced on the mother as in rape etc.)

The whole post was fascinating but trying to get my head around this part. I was just wondering if there would be such a thing as an unknown to an omniscient mind. By definition, won't all knowing, know everything? Meaning there would be no unknowns. I've always thought that an omniscient mind would not have any unknowns. That is probably the God concept interfering. Or there are things unknowable to us (as in arbitrary) that an omniscient mind would know. And the unknowable is unknowable to us and an omniscient mind. I'm not comfortable asking these questions as they have nothing to do with the natural world but there seems to be a context where this issue becomes important enough.

In the case of consensual activity and knowing the consequence, you have somewhat of an argument. But would you see it differently in the case of rape, or teenagers who don't know what they are doing?

If there is an identifier, then there is identification. If there are no identifiers at all, ever, then it's a moot point. To say that it is certain that things exist when there is no way know it, is to utter an arbitrary statement. The position taken is that things do exist even if there is absolutely no way to be certain of it. The position taken is that there is a logical necessity that things exist "before" consciousness. Then there must be causal connection between the material universe and consciousness. Except that it is not deterministic. The only conclusion that is reasonable at this point is: "therefore our understanding of consciousness is inadequate".

Don't forget to add the phrase "In the long run."

That which is eternally (not externally) unknowable, meaning, no one knows it, no one has ever known it or will know it, by definition, must be non existent. Not something that exists an there is no interest in knowing it. You could make the case that "that which is unperceivable by some species is not necessarily non existent". But I am making the case with: unperceivable by any possible species. Now, it may be inappropriate of me to say "eternally unknowable" as in contemplating "one hand clapping". But I don't know how else to do it.

Yes, Boyston, I have an appreciation for that argument, but's it's like a discussion about omniscience. If someone knew everything ... this or that would happen. I would argue that to think in terms of no minds, or no consciousness at all anywhere eternally, a nonexistent/impossible state and therefore inappropriate (based on some epistemic rule). Kind of like the arbitrary. A fact is known to be a fact ... because it's knowable (by something somewhere at some time). The eternally unknowable is by definition the non existent. But one problem with my argument is the temporal causation issue of "when" did consciousness arise. And if it did arise after some evolutionary process, then things had to exist for it to happen before anything was aware of anything. But there is also a counter to that which is knowing is simply a viral or chemical reaction. Kind of like a smoke detector "knows" when there is smoke. As in a plant knows about sunlight, so it gravitates toward it.

If there were no minds, trees would still photosynthesize, grow, and reproduce, clouds would still block light and in some cases produce raindrops, it would still take more force to break up a rock than as clod of dirt, butterflies would still move by flying and would still reproduce, etc. They are not just creations of consciousness. If there was no mind at all, how would you know trees are growing? Like saying, if "knowing" did not exist, I would know it. One can make that claim about their own consciousness, as in if I were not around all this would still be happening. But there would have to be a mind to witness what you are saying.

I see, so something other than cause and effect is happening. Does this analogy fit: 2+2 of Xs join to cause 4Xs as this is simply joining. Emergence seems to imply that there is an X, such that 2+2 Xs can react in such a way that 5Xs emerge. This goes beyond simply joining, something different is happening. Based on the reaction within the X's. And it also satisfies the requirement of the inability to reduce back to the constituent components as 5 cannot be reduced to 2+2 X's. If we go with this analogy, for one thing, such a thing is arbitrary. Beyond that, assuming we subscribe to the inflection point brought up in the OP in that this point is an "amount" of complexity that "causes" a change in the rules. If so, the amount of complexity at this point would be in fact the causal agent.

I would agree that there is no one term that would do it justice but I got comfortable with the following: The vice is "social unawareness" or "social blindness" where a person is not aware of the benefits of the people around them. In the examples you put, it is objectively NOT to the benefit to anyone of us to be consistently be like that. And in terms of rational egoism, if something is NOT to your benefit, it isn't selfish. So these behaviors to an Objectivist would not be considered selfish. I notice many Objectivists around me get hurt if someone calls them selfish. I never went through that. So I am okay with being called selfish. I can see multiple people in my past be completely shocked when they called me selfish and I said "and ?". As in of course I'm selfish. A socially blind person will act as if no one matters, or no one is around when people are around, which can be dangerous to everyone concerned. The issue that Rand was attacking was selflessness, AKA altruism.

Based on your example, can't we say that the water molecule is also an "adding up" of a "pile of" protons, neutrons and electrons, its constituent parts? Why can't we make the case that a stuck puppet "emerges" from a pile of sticks by some sort of change/motion? I suppose you are saying that water-ness as opposed to stick-puppet-ness is beyond an epistemological artifact, emerging from a rearrangement of protons neutron electrons or whatever the constituent entities du jour are. (I am emphasizing the constituent parts having the same properties in my examples as you were doing with the "sticks".) The key to your argument seems to be that the stuck puppet has no new properties as opposed to water. But even a stuck puppet can't fit the hand like it's constituent stick used to. The rearrangement of the same entities inevitably causes different properties and they can be recognized with proper context to recognize it. Epistemologically, pictures that "emerge" can be solely a result of focus, like magnifying glass when you magnify or zoom out. Non-epistemologically when you physically arrange dots in picture, it is beyond just focus or shifting of attention or panning or zooming. Many different pictures "emerge" depending how the dots are arranged outside of the mind. Why not just say the resulting images are "caused" by the rearrangement? Why the added complexity?

Then is emergence simply an epistemological artifact? Meaning this all hinges on "description" or "unexplainable" etc. only? Well, then anything goes. The fundamental laws of physics and chemistry do not mention "the love of ice cream", but are known to have cause it.

Then we must make the case that personhoods starts at X point, objectively speaking. I don't think we will be able to. I think the only clear delineation point is when the egg accepts the sperm. Before that there was no potential, when the egg has no sperm or the sperm was not in the egg. But we would argue that we don't have a "person" at this point. The initial question that has to be answered is: Is it ever okay to NOT care for a child. Implication being "to kill" the child. In the case of an abortion it is removing the support system of the potential child. The viability issue has to have some bearing. If let us say, there is a tribe on an island with limited resources and a child (i.e. a person that needs caring to survive) that cannot take care of itself exists that NO one wants the child for some reason. What is the responsibility of the people involved? I know that this is heinous example but it has to be brought up as a thought experiment. It is disgusting to think of a parent that throws a baby away, but I met one person who was tortured by the fact that she did that when she was 15. Meaning, it happens. She put the baby in the trash can. But doing that or arguing against it seems to be purely emotional. What is the non emotional objective argument for the moral obligation you speak of? It is an overall "survival of the species" argument?

To distill it to the act of creating forced labor, sometimes on the part of the mother, sometimes on due to forced taxation on others, makes sense to the anti-altruistic position that we have. But a question comes to mind related to viability: when someone (other than the mother) has volunteered to take care of child that is in utero, does that make the unborn child "viable"? Would that be a case where the mother does not have a right to abort since it is now "a viable life"?

Sounds like this means that: out of a deterministic universe/existence, a non deterministic entity emerges. As if some areas of the universe are deterministic and some areas are not. Well, how do they intersect? They seem to be in the same universe but contradicting each other (they coexist?). How?

At the core of the ethics of thinking, it's about "how best to make choices". The act of thinking is in this particular context has to be spelled out completely. For the caveman, it was "I better figure a better way or I'm dead". That could be emotions and/or thought or some combination. There is also the issue the automatic tendency to think. Like did the cave think "I will decide to think?" No, he thought. Perhaps a cat or dog does that too. For a human, thinking is at the basis of wanting, desire, motivation. Thinking it to create an end that is wanted. So the act or experience frequently ends up being: "I better determine the possibilities in my mind and pick the best one". As an aside, there is also the issue of rumination that is not a good kind of thinking. As in, eternally going round and round figuring out "what is the sound of one hand clapping". Thinking is an act of using one's mind in long term goal oriented way. It is unfair to accuse someone of not thinking simply because they missed a possibility that was available to be "thought of". Even a choice of question also has to be thought about. We have to strategize and omit some questions. You can't go around trying to answer every question that comes to mind. And sometimes you will be wrong. In general, I don't tell people to choose to think, I just ask them for answer to something. The time that the case for reasoning is at it's highest relevance is at the time of "intense emotion". Like when there is intense anger, fear, disappointment or sexual desire. In most of those cases, you better think and in many cases, to do that, you have to back off, and let the emotional dust settle.

Biden signs $40 billion aid package to Ukraine while in Seoul https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/21/politics/biden-signs-ukraine-bill/index.html

There is a major difference. Chechnya did not have a border that allowed for massive aid from modern countries which seems to exist in the case of the Ukraine. 40 Billion is close to the 60 billion entire Russian yearly military spending. Then add the aid from European countries.

I must have missed something. You're speaking as an Objectivist? What happened to rights? What happened to the freedom to employ rational self interest? Aren't you proposing another great socialist solution?

Unless you have a way to guarantee that "one nation" can exist that has the best possible policies, the point is to have competing "nations", i.e. more choices. (interplanetary or not)

Then is "an inherent political action" an interaction as in a human interaction? It seems it has to be a "rules based" agreement of some sort. The problem I run into is "An individual makes up a society", but "an individual is not a society". 2 or more people makes up a society and also is a society. Now is a political entity a subspecies of society?