softwareNerd

True. However, words are perceptual sight/sound symbols that represent concepts. It is the words that are retained.

We have had a thread discussing how to take into account evasion vs. error when judging people. We have also had a thread discussing generosity/benevolence in making judgements. I'd like to ask a different question about judging: what is the right way to integrate judgments of the words and actions of a person, into judgements of that person. For instance, if I meet a person who was dishonest one single time in his entire life, should I judge him to be honest or dishonest? What factors should I consider: frequency of actions, their scale, my purpose in making the judgement, etc.? Do you have broad categories that you use to classify people? Say, "basically evil", "basically okay", "basically good" ..or any some other such classification?

I agree with DavidOdden's "reasonable man" standard. Legally, that's what a jury should use. Morally too, the reasonable man standard is useful. I can ask myself: knowing what I know about people, is it reasonable for me to assume that they have left their access open to me with an understanding that I might use it? Is it reasonable to assume that they will not mind my using it? I agree with Tom that the majority of people who have open access points do not want their neighbours on it. From a legal perspective, how would one "peel the next layer" of a "reasonable man" standard? It is true that securing access is something that does not take an expert; yet, many laymen (who are otherwise pretty reasonable) just do not think of doing so. Is it reasonable to take such ignorance into account? Morally, if I judge that my neighbours probably do not realize that I can get on their networks, should that judgement stop me from using their access point?

You beat me to it!

I'd like to address the issue mentioned above. 1) For this current post, I do not want to discuss whether somone else is hurt by accessing their wireless or not. That is not the issue to which I am responding. 2) Also, I will grant that some actions hurt the evil-doer, in the form of hurting his self-esteem. However, when someone hurts his self-esteem it is because he judges what he is doing to be wrong; isn't that so? If so, it is insufficient to argue that Action-1 is wrong because it will hurt your self-esteem while Action-2 is right because it will not. While this might be true, it is insufficient. It actually "begs the question": it assumes that Action-1 will induce guilt and damaged self-esteem while Action-2 will not. To take a bizzare example, if someone were to say: "Murdering a man is wrong because I will feel guilty, but murdering a woman is fine because I will not." One would have to say: "Well you should." Again, the purpose of this post is not to say that using an oipen wireless connection is wrong. Rather, it is insufficient to say: it is okay because I feel no guilt about it.

Well said, Dominique! A moderator ought to be a little moderate, what? Or am I reading too much etymology into the word? Some quick thoughts: 1) Some posts (like the advertisment for cigarettes that someone posted on the forum) ought to "disappear". 2) For everything else, I think it's best to PM the original back to the author. This way, the author always has their original work of art. 3) In a borderline case, give the author the opportunity to edit the post himself. So, the original post goes back to the author with a note like: "A moderator has temporarily edited your post for the following reason: ... ... Your original post is below. If you would like to edit it yourself and send it back, do so. If your editing is acceptable to the moderators, we will use your revised version." 4) Sometimes it is important to edit a post because leaving it in its current state is inflammatory and will simply encourage a flame war. In a borderline case, one can wait --many posters visit the forum daily. 5) It's fine to take into account who the author is. Not just fine, it is actually important to do so. Are we dealing with an Objectivist/student of Objectivism (a.k.a. "potential long-term customer) or are we dealing with a non-Objectivist. Is this a newbie? Is this a long-time poster who is usually polite etc.? Is this someone who adds value to the forum? The more value a poster is to the forum, the more he deserves an opportunity to make his own edits.

Manav, You might be interested in a large (11 page) thread dealing with the same subject.

The choice, then, was made the person who decided on the theme (of the "altruistically-themed computer game"). However, choosing to play an altruistic-themed computer game is a different type of choice. Good one.

Let's assume that the note is lost or abandoned, and there is no way to trace the owner. Using a connection that you know is owned and used by someone, though you do not know that person's identity, is different. Wouldn't that be more like (say) taking a car from a parking lot because one does not know who the owner is? Many people see this type of activity as different from regular stealing. Some justify is as "its not hurting anyone, I'm just using a little bandwidth". Tom addressed this issue of "trespass"..even in the concert-hall example, one might rationalize it as "it does not hurt anyone". Further "chewing" on the concept: ff that example is not enough to chew the idea, consider this one: suppose you are a travel agent who always have a list of names of people from your city who are out for the week. What if you don't have a house and instead spend each week in one of these homes, owned by someone else. What's wrong with that? What if it were your house; would you prosecute someone who stayed there without your consent?

A recent study says that humans can process about 4 "variables" at a time. I found the cooking recipe example interesting. An experienced cook would be able to remember it better (than an amateur) because he would combine component-steps into higher level steps, thus reducing the compexity of the recipe in his mind. (Corrected spelling- softwareNerd)

In an innovative attempt to circumvent "decency laws", a strip-club owner started holding an "art night". Patrons were handed art-pads, ostensibly so that they could sketch the "models". The city did not let it go, the raided the club. Here is what a police spokesperson said: "If it were an art studio and models were actually posing, that would be one thing. But these women weren't posing, they were dancing." A funny story that also highlights that -- at least in common usage -- purpose is considered to be an important aspect of the concept of pornography.

Mention of "the placebo effect" on another thread got me wondering about its basis. Some web research shows that a fair number of studies have been conducted over some 50 years that indicate that the placebo effect is real -- patients given placebos have measurably better outcomes than those who are not. However, opinion is not unanimous. There are some scientists who challenge the existence of a placebo effect. I found this article to be a good summary. Any doctors or other experts here who have a perspective on the subject?

The amused has become the object of amusement.

A. West did say (as did I) that bank notes would be backed 100% by assets. In fact, the assets would be more than 100% of the banks notes plus other liabilities. If a bank-note is represented to be backed by a 100% gold or gold-equivalent reserve, and it is not actually so backed, that is obviously a case of cheating. The case that A.West and I were describing was different. Example: a bank has issued (say) notes with a face value of $1,000,000. It has $600,000 worth of gold and $600,000 worth of (say) mortgages -- real homes that it can sell if borrowers default. [The $200,000 difference is the bank's capital.] It is completely legitimate to ask why anyone would accept such a note as being on-par with real-currency. Wouldn't such a bank-note be accepted only at a discount to its face value. However, if we focus on the moral/legal viewpoint, then I cannot see how this can be considered fraudulent in a context of full-disclosure. Some reference has been made to the "third-party effects" of such an arrangement: if someone accepts such notes, that devalues the currency held by a legitimate person. Even if we assume that a rational person would discount such bank-notes and treat them as worth less than currency, how can there be a legal claim against an irrational person who acts "foolishly" and accepts them on par. For instance, suppose a U.S. merchant were to tell customers that he will accept Russian Roubles as equivalent to US Dollars. Such a merchant could be accused of irrationality (therefore immorality). Still, holders of dollars would not have a legitimate claim against such a merchant. What if other merchants followed? What if most merchants -- or almost all merchants did? Would that change things?

Guliani was the prosecuting attorney in the case against Michael Milken, and used the threat of RICO in that instance. SRB (now Ayn Rand Bookstore) used to sell a book about the case, but I forget the title. ARB still sells a lecture by Dr. Locke about the case.

spydawebz, If you have not done so already, you'd profit by reading the entire thread. Previous posts in support of the right to an abortion would indicate that the issue is not so much "should we shirk our responsibilites". Rather, it is "why does this create a responsibility?" Take a completely unrelated example -- if you go sking and break a leg, you would have it fixed rather than "taking the consequences". The example obviously does not apply to the case of abortion. Question is: why not? What are the unstated assumptions that make it different?

To me, at this point, a blog is a public Journal. I've kept little notes to myself on various topics over the years. When I first read Ayn Rand, I made a lot of notes on Philosophy. Later, on Finance. Finally, when I started working, my interest shifted to Software Development. I would make notes like: "What went right and wrong with my last project". The twin objects were: to better formulate my thoughts on the topic; and, to jot them down so that I would remember. I'd do the same with book-summaries. My blog has a very similar purpose: get my thoughts together and get them in a place where I can refer to them later. The difference is that my Blog is public. So, there is an element of preaching and sharing involved. Even if not a soul reads the public blog, for me it imposes a discipline of having to verbalize my thoughts, bringing them much more into conceptual terms. So, my Blogs tend to be things I'm thinking about, but are not too "initial" (the latter I keep private or share privately). That's an interesting question. I think he might. I reckon it may have entries like: "The Potential of Plastics" and "The Principle behind the Dean". I reckon many of them would. I can just imagine a young Peter Keating blogging about the virtues of golf, so that he can quote it to an client who is an avid golfer: "You love golf! I do too; in fact, I've even blogged about it." Also, entries that win approval from Toohey and his ilk.

I think it depends on the context. I've seen the cases you're speaking of, where the adult is taking a perverse pleasure in a child's bewilderment. It hassles me. When its my child, it angers me. It usually clarifies things to my son and shuts the adult up if I interject with something like: "Well, do you think something so silly can be true?" Depending on what has been said, there are a few other adjectives that may be substituted for "silly". On the other hand, there are some contexts for which I do not have a word, but "controlled nonsense" or "funny nonsense" might be close. Think of it like a puzzle. Take a simple puzzle that my son does in school: 4 words and they find the odd man out. At a slightly more complex level, there was a certain age (and it still continues at about 7 years) where my son enjoyed a little game of "why is this so absurd". The way it was presented to him was always in a context where he knew he was being presented with something that was wrong, and the game was to figure out why? Like a conceptual, logical version of "What's wrong with this picture?" For an older child, Lewis Caroll's "Though a Looking Glass" might be a more complex version of this "genre". I say "might be" because I read it only as an adult. It struck me as a light-hearted puzzler, using epistemology as its subject. Its possible that a kid of some age might read it not as a simple fantasy but as a "spot the epistemological error" puzzler (though, obviously, not in so many words). Aside: As for people telling my kid stuff I do not like, another thing that gets to me is when some adult would ask him (even as early as 5): "Do you have a girlfriend at school?"

A.A, you might be right if you assume this was her goal. If Ayn Rand's wrote her novels primarily to convert people to Objectivism, she would probably have done them differently. However, she indicated that it worked the other way around: she had to discover and refine her philosophy in order to be able to write her novels. In the essay, "The Goal of My Writing" (The Romantic Manifesto), she wrote: "Let me stress this: my purpose is not the philosophical enlightenment of her readers..." (Italics in original.)

No, Ashish, it is not. In fact, if you read it carefully, you will see that it is not nonsense in the sense of being a word-soup of nouns, verbs, etc. put together in a pattern that resembles language. The only way to illustrate that it is nonsense is to point to the flawed theory of concepts that it propounds. If you are unable to answer the proposition, which has complete "internal logical consistency", then do not dismiss it as nonsense out of hand. An insult is not an argument. What you have said is this: 1) People who say Kant is complicated are "whiners" who cannot "put aside" their "hubris". And yet, you "had to read ...at least 30 times". Clear as mud? 2) In a forum of owned, run and populated by Objectivists you try to pretend that the following is not impolite, but simply ordinary hyperbole: "Everytime I see something like "Rand's Razor", ..., I don't know whether to laugh or puke" 3) On some topics you ,the self-proclaimed "athiest and realist", "have several pretty good reasons (which [you] don't think Objectivists would listen to) " 4) You even say you "could go on and on, which probably wouldn't amuse [us] nearly as much as it would amuse [you]". 5) As "positive critique", you comment on "5 to 9" versus "6 to 8" as though any Objectivist ever claimed to care about the exactness of those numbers. Is all this what you were saying, or how you were saying it? My contention is that it not mere rudeness, but has a very higher percentage of the what. Since you seem to think psychology is important, have you considered the psychology that would draw someone to engage in pointless discussions, with people he thinks are unwilling to open their minds, will not willing to listen to him and are worthy of ridicule, only to amuse himself? How likely is that...you see, we're here on Earth.

Ashish, Are you hoping that believing such blasphemy would force me to abandon a life-long committment to Objectivist dogma? To hell with averages. As your posts attests, there are some brains that can hold many more items, and each item can be pretty complex. Perhaps I can only hold 1 + 1 + 1 (is that 3?). For all I know, you can hold: 0.123465 + 0.0890812 + 0.009822112 + 0.567668 + 0.067844390 (Wow! That is so much more, or is it?) I'd say, more to cogitate on but less to cogitate with. And even if you are fully rational, remember that the supposed irrational majority here are actually superior because the term that describes your state is constucted from 2 multiplied by 4 letter-elements, while the one that describes our state is 2 multiplied by some number that is 25% larger than the one that was mentioned as multiplied by 2 to arrive at the number of letters in the word rational, and further every letter in the prior is in the latter making the latter a superset of the former and therefore making irrationality so much more complete that simple rationality. That, sir, is profundity?

There's a particular type of fountain that I like to watch. Not sure what it's called, and wonder if an engineer here would know and either explain how its done or point me to a web-page. Essentially, the water flows in a perfectly even flow, almost glass-like in its transparency -- nary a bubble. The flow is started and stopped very abruptly. I've seen one in the new airport terminal at Detroit. Its fun to watch (and it also screams 'man made').

Playing devils's advocate for a moment, I read Tom's point as follows: 1) A bank note is a promise to pay. It is a promise to pay a certain amount of currency (e.g. gold, or gold-backed dollars) on demand. 2) A good bank, working on a fractional reserve system, will have enough assets to cover its liabilities (including its bank notes). However, it will not have liquid assets to cover the bank-notes if they were all to be presented at once. So, I distill Tom's point to be: how can a bank morally issue bank-notes payable on demand, when many of the assets backing up those notes are not liquid? Having said that, I agree with you, that if everyone is clear about what is being done there is no fraud. I do not know about the history of private banknotes, or how they would evolve. I wouldn't be surprized if such notes had some type of rating or warning. The utilitarian (dare I say practical) issue about inflation is another thing to consider; but, I think we should start by addressing the moral and practical viewpoints separately, and only later should we integrate them.

Another favorite I remembered...not a specific place, but a sight I love nevertheless: I love seeing the lights of a large city from a plane at night, the houses, the streets, the headlights of cars. It's the window-seat for me!

(This thread belongs more in "Ethics" than in "Misc"...with a change of TopicName) I'm going to recap my understanding of the arguments thus far, the points on which there is agreement and the points on which there isn't. Everyone here agrees that honesty is a virtue that should be applied strictly, without compromise. Everyone here agrees that a full grasp of reality is essential to living a moral life, at least when it comes to any context one would encounter on a regular basis. Everyone here agrees that virtues are contextual. Everyone also agreed on one specific context where a lie would be acceptable (to Nazis etc.). Everyone also agrees that typical "white lies" ("That dress looks great on you, honey") are not moral. (Don't reply that your opponent does not agree with one of the above. If you disagree, "speak now or forever be silent".) So far, so good... because that's my understanding of what Objectivism says too! The question, then, is this: other than lying to folks like Nazi's, and thereby not putting one's "morality" in the service of evil, are there contexts where one would lie? Either cases where morality does not apply, or where lying is moral? Three specific examples have been provided: 1) A dying old mother 2) A dying child (Assume in both these cases that the person does not know or suspect they are being lied to.) 3) A person who would recover better if they did not understand the real seriousness of their condition. It is safe to assume that once the person recovers, they will be told the truth. Cases 1 & 2) The context in the first two cases is different from the context in the third. The context is different because dying is a pretty special case. The ethical question in the first two cases is this: Does impending death create a context where lying may be the moral thing to do? If we agree that philosophy is a science of living as man qua man, it would seem that impending death is a context to which morality is really not relevant. Why does a person who is about to die need philosophy? Ofcourse, when we ask if lying is moral, we are assuming that there at least appears to be some benefit to doing so. In the case of a dying person, the perceived "benefit" they get is that they worry less. It is easy to see why a person who lives a regular life needs to grasp reality and perhaps even worry about it when appropriate. Why would a dying person need such a code of values? As a corollary, if we assume a context where you would definitely tell a person something in the course of regular life (not "I didn't shave my legs today", but "Honey, the neighbours called to say our house just burned down"), how is holding back the truth different from lying? In regular life, if my wife did not tell me that our house just burned down, that would typically be dishonest. If we consider a situation where non-disclosure is dishonest, would the context of impending death be relevant, or would honesty still call for full disclosure? Case 3) In the third case, the context is different. The context presented is one where a person's full grasp of reality would be harmful to them. Some have said that this is impossible. I'm guessing that this is not just an objection to the validity of the immediate medically ascertainable facts. I understand the objection being made to broader, as in: even if "faking reality" leads to a better medical outcome, that is not to the person's benefit. Is this the objection? If so, can someone explain it better? In what way is it different from (say) the example of a doctor giving a person an anesthetic to reduce their perception of reality?