tnunamak

Then this hypothetical person is a broken unit, correct? If he/she were not, then the definition of man would have to be modified from "rational animal" to "usually rational animal." What I don't like about this idea is that you're essentially saying that an individual's rights do not depend on his individual nature. If I were physiologically an ape who, by some mutation, gained a complete rational faculty, I would hope that I'd have the appropriate rights which most apes would not. Don't we already do this for children and criminals?

Then how does someone in a permanent vegetative state fall under the classification of man if he/she doesn't survive by reason? Are you arguing that it is this person's nature to survive by reason, even though they cannot physically do so?

How can rights necessarily apply to an individual if you derive them from characteristics which do not apply to him? Do I have rights because my DNA indicates that I'm human? Or do I have rights because I have the ability to reason?

I'd just like to know if I've got the Objectivist approach to rights correct. Is it that rights are not inherent, but that in a productive society they are necessary? In other words, rights are needed because in order for people to live and work together, they must respect each others' life, property, etc? From this angle it makes sense to me why rights would probably make life for each individual better, but what does the phrase "every person has a right to life" really mean? Under what circumstances do rights apply? I'm just trying to figure out what might make them inherent, regardless of context or circumstance. Also, why is government necessary as described by Objectivism? Why does a morally objective philosophy require that a single government exists, and exists with a monopoly over force?

For my thermodynamics class my professor (who has environmental tendencies) is having us write a short paper about (alternative) energy sources. What would you argue should be the primary energy source to power the country/globe? I think coal currently powers over half of the power grid, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was economically the best option. Right now, I'm listed to write about nuclear energy. Any thoughts about these or others? If the utility of certain resources is downplayed due to things like green house gas emissions, which aren't all that bad, then that would be a good angle for me to argue for the use of a resource, whilst simultaneously presenting a case against the global warming scare (which is being force-fed to us in my engineering program now and again). Thanks

Your explanation makes sense. I do have a question though. In your 2-D hexagonal feasible region example, I take it that the cardinality of the set of all possible degenerate solutions is the same as the cardinality of the natural numbers or the reals (not sure which). If you extend the feasible region to higher dimensions, does the cardinality of this set remain the same? If not, then wouldn't that indicate a correlation between degeneracy and solution-space dimension? I apologize for the late reply... the semester has gotten off to a quick start . We do plan to publish a paper or two before Christmas, and I'll be going to a conference in November to present our work and ideas. Thanks for the comments.

Is the compatibility with windows office files any better?

I think before this discussion can make any sense, we have to identify the issue we're actually talking about. The term "great" IS relative to some standard, so in that sense a person can achieve greatness in many ways, depending on what you're comparing his actions to. I was under the impression that the idea was to determine the best standard. Personally, if I look at the reality of my life, push myself to my most extreme capabilities and achieve them, I will not say "What a mediocre job I did! Good for me!" even if someone else could do what I did ten times better. Some of the people I personally admire most are far from succeeding at the level of the geniuses leading their industry, but I still consider them to be great because they do push themselves and succeed at it. But that's just my opinion...

Fair enough, I agree with you there.

How else would you characterize greatness so that it is not on a relative scale? Great, big, small, wide, important, slow, these adjectives can only be used on some sort of relative scale. When we are talking about an individual, which scale is most important? A scale determined by societal standards? Or a scale determined by the individual's standards?

I thought that's what parents were for. Edit: When it comes to things such as driving, or anything that has the potential to harm others, the law should do its job to protect people by ensuring that drivers, etc are competent. I think using an age limit for this is lazy and also dangerous, as age might have a correlation with responsibility or capability, but does not guarantee it. I'd feel safer on the road with 10 year old drivers who passed rigorous exams than 25 year old drivers who aren't able to stay in their own lanes.

If an individual finds himself in an emergency situation and commits a crime, not because of evil intentions, but good ones, should he still face the same judicial penalties? I present a few hypothetical examples of different situations to consider: A man 1) kills another man in order to preserve his own life. 2) steals from another in order to preserve his own life. 3) kills another in order to preserve the life of another. 4) steals from another in order to preserve the life of another. ...the notable difference between stealing and killing being that it is possible to later pay back the value of stolen goods. I'm predicting the possibility of context being important, but if so, if someone could point out circumstances under which context changes penalties imposed, it would make it easier for me to understand. A bigger underlying question that is driving my thoughts, I think, is when should a man be penalized for his actions by the government? I'd like to point out that this includes paying for damage caused and thereby repairing it, and also paying with jail time, etc, as a means of justice but not repairing damages.

Thanks Before this summer, I didn't even know what a linear program was. My background in math is three semesters of calculus, differential equations and a bit of linear algebra, and an abstract math course (proof writing/logic). That said, this project has been heavily directed by my advisor and much of the thinking has come from him. I have come at this project from the computer science side of it, mostly parsing text, etc. Luckily, I think I have gotten fairly proficient with the basics of using a language such as Ampl, and am becoming comfortable with optimization techniques. I still don't know a lot of the theory behind linear optimization, so I am constantly forcing my advisor to fill me in . This is something I'll have to ask my advisor about, as it was his idea. I would be surprised to find there was not even a slight correlation, but you may be right. I'll follow up when I return for the fall semester. Indeed. That was what really motivated this project in the first place. FBA is an established technique which involves an established model. Much of the literature in the field, from what I understand, is coming from people without much of an optimization background. They all seemed to have overlooked the possibility of the optimal solution being non-unique, which is why we have defined new terminology. I hope this reply is suitable. Thanks for your comments!

To put it as plainly as I can, I think I am a bad (or mediocre at best) conversationalist and that that makes it more difficult for myself and other people to be comfortable. I'm not just talking about friends, but also people I admire who I don't know very well. In other words, people I am interested in talking to. Maybe it means I don't always know how to express my thoughts, or don't think about what is being said to me. Communication involves someone converting information into a transmittable medium, such as English, transmitting it, and it being received and decoded by another person. I would like to make this process more effective. I am not only referring to my immediate thoughts that I just have to work into nouns, verbs, etc, but also other ideas I have that are relevant, or how I feel about what is being discussed, that might not immediately come to mind. If this doesn't make sense, I will try to clarify it further. Thanks Edit: Deleted unnecessary quotation

I would take this to mean that "quantum theory" contradicts reality and thus is invalid. I'm not sure what they mean by "quantum theory that is in agreement with experiments," however. "In agreement" as in, quantum theory is supported by the experiments? Or "In agreement" as in, the results of the experiment prove that quantum theory is valid. If it is the latter, than the experiment must be invalid, since it depends on a theory that contradicts reality . Or maybe it's just getting too late and I need to go to sleep...