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donnywithana

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Everything posted by donnywithana

  1. It seems to me that what we're calling "Falsifiability" is most closely related to tautology. If Falsifiability simply refers to the rejection of tautology as significant, then there's nothing to argue about, because tautology is inherently insignificant.
  2. On the particle level, matter is governed by the laws of physics, and nothing else. A brain is a collection of particles. Thus, the brain must operate as physics would dictate that it should. Any cerebral process that involves free will must necessarily allow the brain to make a choice as to a certain physical event within it. Since this violates that acting particle's obligation to function as dictated by its nature and physical surroundings, it is an impossible event. A whole can not function except as a sum of its parts. Thus free will involves the belief that some external force (outside the world of physics) can "decide" to change the way the universe functions. Thus, believing in free will is tantamount to believing in a mystical force that can make the collective brain function in physically impossible ways. That's the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night. Sorry if that messes with your head too much.
  3. *handshake* The only problem i have with that idea is that it suggests a finite level of virtue that one must achieve before being "marry-able." I mean, I understand the basic premise of what you're saying, but I'd caution against being too cautious. Life is a journey towards perfection, and it's unlikely any of us will reach it in our lifetimes. Thus, in my opinion, it's the commitment to the journey that makes someone marry-able, if the rest of one's personality is in accordance with the other's values.
  4. Ok, smartie pants, if ether, which you refer to as the substance that fills "empty space" is real (a topic hotly debated in the scientific community) then is it comprised of divisible quanta? In other words, is there a singular undivisible unit of ether? And between these units, is there empty space? Why doesn't ether produce friction? In fact, why doesn't ether seem to possess any mechanical properties we associate with other substances? The reason I can talk about "nonmatter," is that "matter" is simply a form of energy, which does not follow the same rules as matter. Energy is measured in quanta called photons, and photons have the ability to travel en vacuo (through "empty space"), despite their very wavelike properties. This corroborates the idea of ether's existence, because waves, as we understand them, must be an affectation of particles, and can not travel through "emptiness." The problem with ether is that it does not appear to be made out of matter. This is because matter is assembled from subatomic particles, which have observable traits, and ether does not. Ether can not absorb photons of any wavelength, it can not displace, it is not compactable; it has no mass. Therefore, something we don't understand is going on between these subatomic particles. All I was saying is that "God" could hypothetically be what physically fills these gaps. I don't hold this to be true. Don't talk down to me.
  5. One stops being an Objectivist when one becomes an objectivist. In other words, when one does not need to cite the source of their beliefs, and instead can state them as their own beliefs, then one becomes independent of their banner. To do something pleasurable that defies virtue is immoral. Thus not all pleasure is virtue, because there can be no contradictions. This does not necessarily mean, however, that dating a non-Objectivist is inherantly wrong. Philosophical beliefs are not necessarily all that determine the quality of a relationship, especially amongst less activist individuals. Humor, intelligence, taste, etc. all contribute to a good relationship, and do not always rely on one's philosophical background. However, the idea Rand promotes is that as one moves closer to Objective living, the ceiling of one's happiness is raised. For example, a couple with nothing in common can be happy together, but they will never know the happiness of the couple with similar tastes, who will in turn never realize the happiness of the couple with the same beliefs. The idea is that it doesn't matter where you start. As long as you're with someone, it should be your goal to achieve a unity in worldview. This is not to say that to reach any lesser point is condemnable, but it simply implies that the less your non-Objectivist partner aligns with your beliefs, the less happy you will be able to be. I'm currently with a girl who loves Rand and agrees with what she's read, but is still on her way to aligning her life with these ideals. Once she asserted that happiness was unfeasible; that she was not as strong and good as the people she read about. I told her that all it takes is wanting what she wants, and being willing to try to get it. I offered her the choice of admitting that she wasn't willing to try for happiness, in which case she should break up with me. Obviously, she chose correctly. But this is what relationships are all about. Could I have given up? Of course; she didn't possess fundamental beliefs I value, but instead of walking away, I made both of our lives better. So to all of you who said "cut your losses" and "there's nothing but pain in store for you," if you refuse to help others reach the level that you yourself have reached, there's nothing but pain and loneliness in store for you
  6. Supply and demand. If there is a scarcity of a product (in this case, educated labor), its price will rise, and entering the market as a producer (going to school) becomes more profitable. Thus, loan granting agencies will be more willing to provide loans to those seeking the means of production (an education), because it's a safe investment for them. Banks don't just give out loans to anyone, you have to give them reason to believe that you're a good investment of their resources. I don't see how that's relevant, we already agree that they're wrong. What I meant was that if we supply our citizens with only what they deserve, and other countries prey on their citizens to provide public education, the ones who benefitted from the predation will have an advantage because they stole and weren't punished. If you and I are store owners, and I have to buy my products, while you steal them off the supply truck and aren't caught, you have the advantage. Thus, in order for me to survive, the status quo has to be set at not using force to acquire the means to survival. Right, that's why Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged. The fact is, people don't know that there's an alternative because they don't understand that the predation is even predation. If everyone understood the ideals we're shooting back and forth, we wouldn't have this problem. It's as if the world's population has been thrown in jail without having their rights read to them.
  7. As is the case for all deductive objective epistemology, (not Objectivist epistemology, i'm talking about the specific process of knowledge acquisition), reality is based on a sort of "hypothesis->empirical/logical validation->theory" process. With God, the hypothesis is there, but the empirical/logical backing is not there. This leads to a theory ("God exists") without any legitimacy, as it's not been truly thought out or tested. Whether or not God does in fact exist is peripheral if we can't explain him. If there truly was an all ruling deity who demanded your respect and love, would he want you to abandon that which you consider a virtue and simply believe in him based on faith, or do you think that he would want you to try to gather all the information you could in order to not believe in him, but to know him? Any God I would ever consider worthy of worship would wait until I simply knew he existed, even if it never happened, rather than ask me to renounce my morality. I think that's the best way to leave it. You can't say there isn't a God without a concrete hypothesis of what exactly God is. To say "I don't believe in anything that doesn't exist," doesn't necessary discount God if he does in fact exist. To say "I believe in God because I just do," is similarly flawed for reasons you are all already familiar with. I think that approaching God the same way as anything else is the best way to go. Let me warn you that this isn't at all reflective of the way I view existence... But here's the hypothesis : God must exist within the laws that govern the rest of the universe. If this is true, then God cannot be "everywhere," unless God is the universe, because some spaces are occupied with other things that are not God. A particle can not be God, because a particle is already defined, and we're simply creating additional variables; God doesn't simplify anything (a terrible summary of Occam's Razor). Thus, God can not be matter, because matter is already matter. If God is matter, than it is simply an entity that is to be observed. If God is not matter, than it can not be energy either, unless we are wrong about the nature of energy. This is because our current understanding is that energy is a form of matter. However, there is another possibility. Between particles there is, apparantly, nothingness, or empty space. This is a startling idea, because what is empty space? Could God occupy this empty space? We can't necessarily say that he does not, so now we have a place for God to exist physically, according to this hypothetical attempt at Godly explanation. The next aspect to having a God that would be worthy of any consideration would be sentience. Because our hypothesis only has room for God to exist in the empty space, and since the general idea of God as presented by the majority of people nowadays claims no central location for God's existence, God can not really have a brain. Thus he must be sentient in a way other than the way that we are. This is no big surprise, because he existed before DNA paved the path towards our form of sentience, so he very well may have another mode of thought. But what is thought? Apart from the acquisition of knowledge and all that makes us intelligent, thought itself is, on the basic level, the ability to observe change. Think about it. So basically we need God to be able to observe change, and if he occupies all of this empty space, then we have a system where everything's moving around within God, and that's a pretty good start. At least now God's in a position to observe change if it has the capacity, but we still don't know where this capacity is coming from. Thus we have an incomplete hypothesis. If anyone wants to further my attempt, using nothing but logic, to explain God, I think it would be fun. At least we'd be accomplishing more than religion ever has!
  8. Abstract thought still must be done in terms of concretes. For example, imagine sonar, something seemingly abstract to humans. A sound is emitted from your body that bounces off an object and informs you of its location and nature. Try to actually invision what this would "look" like. It's impossible, except in terms of the senses we do have. You might imagine being able to "see" the entity your sonar detected, but this is a falsification, as sonar involves no light. The truth would be that you could "hear" where an object was. In order to think abstractly, you have to ground your thought in your own perceptive reality. Now imagine "Nothing." This concepts defies the nature of how your brain works, and you must approximate it based on the way your brain does work. One might think of "nothing" as a void, but a void consists of space, thus making it something. Come on, NOTHING! Like, if the universe started from one point, it must be finite in size. That means that outside of the bounds of the universe there must exist NOTHING. Can you imagine it? How about this: According to the Second "Law" of Thermodynamics, the universe can not be eternal, because it would be uniform in temperature. That means it has to have begun, because we think we know that matter can not just spontaneously appear, which means there could be no time before the beginning of the universe! So that means before the Big Bang, there was NOTHING. Does this mean that "nothing" can not exist? Possibly, but as this is a discussion of abstract thought, I thought it appropriate to bring in a true abstraction.
  9. Any argument about God must be contextualized to have a basis. I am currently studying biblical literature, and I can tell you that the origination of Judaism essentially disallows the existence of God as envisioned by the people who created Him. The Hebrew Bible is an amalgamation of many sources, stemming from folk tales, myths, legends, and mysticism. If looked at in the context of its writing, the Bible is as simple to understand, in terms of its origin, as any tribal belief system. So the question is not, "Is there a God as described by the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)?" but instead, "Does there exist an entity which defies the laws that govern all other existence?" And the answer to this question, in my opinion, is no. The reason for this is that a law can only be a law if there are no exceptions. If there exists something that contradicts our premises, we must change them.
  10. I think that before we start getting caught up in some of the things being discussed, the ability of the government to pry money away from someone needs to be circumvented. If people want to have Affirmative Action, and they're willing to fund it, then that's something that the government can not morally get involved in. The same thing goes for non-forceful racism, prejudice, etc. If people want to be stupid, that's their prerogative, and can't be legislated for or against.
  11. Completely restructuring the government of this country to "recognize and respect the rights of people" would be a colossal undertaking. At least in my experience, the "but that's just the way it is" argument holds a frightening amount of water. That sentence was thrown in for the benefit of those not subscribing to our beliefs. When I said I was for repealling amendments made after the inception of the original Constitution, I meant only those amendments which contradict the ideas of the orginal document, or which violate the rights of any individual. Perhaps I should rephrase: To say "This includes amendments to the Constitution created after its inception which violate these rights, as dictated by the Ninth Amendment." I would appreciate examples of this and constructive criticism, it's hard to work from a blanket statement like that. Can you help me out with that? I thought I captured it, but I guess not. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks so much for taking interest! I really appreciate it.
  12. These are excellent points, but I to respond to your first statement, it's not the government's right to determine something like that. The only thing I meant by "just compensation" was that there are certain services which a government must render its citizens, such as military, law enforcement, etc. Just because someone wasn't willing to pay for the police doesn't mean he can break the law. But it's unethical to force the government to provide any service uncompensated, as the government is an abstraction made up of individuals bestowed with certain powers granted by the people. To make someone work for free is contrary to morality. Others have stated that contract enforcement fees could pay for the government, but I find this to be unfair as well. Why should those paying these fees have to fund everyone's government? This is fundamentally wrong, though I have yet to reach this chapter in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, and eventually I could be changing my tune on this if provided with a good enough argument. Thus I feel that in instances where the people must come together, to agree on a responsibility to bestow upon their government, they implicitly agree to pay for the carrying out of these responsibilities. You make a good point in, But it's in the protection of your property rights that the government is working in this instance, and this protection, like insurance, for example, costs money.
  13. Exaaaaactly! Check out my excruciatingly long Declaration in the Productivity section.
  14. The main issue I was wrestling with was the idea of compensation for services rendered. Forcing someone to pay for something is immoral, but the government provides its constituents with certain services that individuals can not opt out of. National defense is the prime example here, another is simply having a government institution. I tried to use the original Constitution as the starting point for my grievance, as I was trying to talk about violations of rights rather than changes in the definitions of those rights. Therefore I went to the original Bill of Rights and found an amendment stating that no private property could be seized for the public good without just compensation. I think this makes sense, because in this case no one loses, and I took this to provide moral license for certain kinds of taxation (which many on this board seem totally opposed to, I'd love to discuss this further). I feel that the institutions of government, law enforcement, and national defense are all just compensations for the price of their funding, and no citizen can really "opt out" of these services. Therefore I consider it appropriate that since the government is obligated to supply its services (protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) to all of its constituents regardless of whether they want them, it's only fair to charge the constituency for a sort of "price of admission." The only way to make this non-coercive is to say "If you don't want to live in this country, you don't have to."
  15. Ok, this topic is a result of some work I was doing in an effort to avoid the work I actually need to be doing... I would be honored if you would all check it out, it's an outline of what needs to be changed in this country, in the form of a declaration to the government. An Objectivist Declaration
  16. I did it. I wrote a declaration summing up what the government should be, in my opinion. I would love to hear reasonable debate, and I'm very open to editions. On July 4, 1776, our forefathers voiced their belief that their political condition was unjust and prohibitive to their rights as men. In their brilliant declaration, they put forth their grievances, and announced their independence, justly citing their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Once more, the right of the people to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is being suppressed. Thus, it is necessary for the people affected to voice their objections and demand justice. It is in the spirit of the same patriotism that drove our founding fathers that we voice the following concerns. Our forefathers demanded the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In no way did this imply that one be provided with happiness, but simply the right to the pursuit of it. We find the government’s responsibility here to be the protection of the pursuit, independent of coercion by any party, including itself. In this respect, the government has failed. Our government has forced us to contribute to the happiness of others, at our expense, without our consent. This is to say, we have been taxed to fund programs we did not choose to fund. The motivation of these programs has been social spirit, and so we declare our right to determine individually what constitutes social spirit. The government of the United States has required, under threat of incarceration, that we support a welfare program that wrenches our earnings from us for redistribution to those who have not earned what is being given to them. We assert this to be the same, in spirit, to those beneficiaries robbing us in the street. We have paid for the education of the masses, without our consent. We have funded the subsidies of businesses incapable of staying afloat, without our consent. The government has taken our money, our work, and given it away, against our will. A great many of these programs are important to the citizens of this nation. Then we say let those citizens continue to contribute, from their own earnings, to these programs. We simply demand the right to refuse. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America specifically grants us this right, and it is thus we demand that the unconstitutional taxation of our nation immediately cease. We recognize the government’s right, however, to demand compensation for services rendered to its citizens. Thus the cost of its own upkeep can rightly be demanded in exchange for citizenship. This cost, however, must be equally divided amongst all constituents. Any services rendered to its citizens by the government, can justly require compensation, and we therefore recognize the right of the government to charge its citizens appropriately for law enforcement, military protection, contract enforcement, and any other direct action either voluntarily provided or reasonably included in maintenance and protection of citizenship. We recognize the right of any citizen to choose not to pay for citizenship, but we do not recognize the right of that individual to enjoy the benefits of that which they will not pay for. Our government has not been fiscally responsible. The military has been used outside of the purpose of self defense. The government has funded programs that do not benefit every citizen equally. The Fifth Amendment states that we must be justly compensated for any private property seized by the government. Because the people of our nation are required to pay for their government in exchange for their constituency, it is imperative that they be compensated justly. Any government action outside of the interests of all of its citizens is illegal. Our government has taken a hand in our business practices, refusing to allow the market to follow its own course. With the short run in mind, the government has acted to protect the rights of its workers. We assert that these rights can only be called such so long as they do not violate the rights of others. No right which benefits one party at the expense of another can be correct. We recognize the right to assemble. With this right comes the right of a workers’ union to demand adequate treatment from an employer. We recognize the right of an employer to hire a worker that will work under lesser conditions; we recognize the right of a union to strike in defense of these beliefs; we recognize the right of the employer to replace these workers, and to bear the consequences. Should he be correct in his denial; should the union’s demands be unjust, it shall be his right to protect his interests. Should the union be justified in their requests, the public may boycott the employer; the replacement workers may be under-qualified. The employer will be the winner or the loser for his or her own choice. We make known our indignation at government coercion. The Constitution of the United States can not be construed to deny the rights of the people, as is stated in its Ninth Amendment. We recognize the rights appropriated to us in the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. We recognize the right to freedom of speech, of belief, of expression, of petition. We demand that this right be upheld in a way that does not violate the rights of others. The government has no right to force one man to provide forum for another. No person shall be required to voice any opinion contrary to their own beliefs. A newspaper; a television or radio station can not be required to spread the beliefs of any individual without its consent. A store owner can not be forced to let someone defame them on their own property. Again, the Constitution can not be construed to deny the rights of the people. Though inconvenient, we demand that all of the rights assured to us by the Constitution of the United States of America be upheld by the government of our nation. We demand that any law or government action contrary to the rights of any citizen be immediately repealed or abolished. This includes amendments to the constitution created after its inception. To act otherwise is in direct violation of the principals embodied by our country as envisioned by its creators.
  17. The fifth amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America: And I emphasize: So who wants to be the one to take it before the Supreme Court?
  18. If there was no goodwill, it would mean that it wasn't important enough to anyone that the child live. Therefore, it would be wrong to force someone to help the child if they didn't think it was a worthy cause.
  19. Oh! If you make it a law that one must provide care to their child, you could prosecute and place a third party in charge of the child's care at the parent's expense. This would be state controlled retalliatory force, as we can agree that the parent violated the child's individual rights, and therefore doesn't go against the idea of non-coercion.
  20. Let me try my hand at this one. Let's say public education vanished from the face of the Earth today. With the current schools in existence, only the rich elite would have access to education, resulting in a huge drop in overall academic level. This scarcity of educated individuals would cause businesses to pay much more for an employee with an educational background. Banks would see granting loans as a safe investment of their money, because they could be confident that anyone with an education would be able to find a job. Businesses know today what colleges correlate to what levels of education; universities know the high schools. In a privitized system, the best institutions would be able to charge the highest fees. The schools with inept staffing and poor management would eventually disappear and be replaced with better and better institutions. Because of the value of an education, the best individuals would have even more incentive to become teachers, because the best schools would be competing for their presence. Schools with large classes would be able to charge less, but if small classes really are better, people would be willing to pay for them. In my experience, it's most often the public schools being forced to settle for large classes and lower quality proffessors anyway (this is not overly biased, I attend a public college). The problem with abolishing public schools is the status quo. If there were no public education in this country, businesses could go overseas for employees. Their governments, through force, would have been able to provide them with the education that we were too virtuous to steal for them. The only environment that can support many Objectivist theories is one where use of force is equally prohibited for everyone. Anyone who uses force will have a distinct advantage over anyone who doesn't.
  21. But who could force you to bear responsibility for that decision? What are a child's rights? If it's a child's right to be fed, then one must ask, at whose expense? It's the same notion being put forward in Rand's essay on Man's Rights, but with a different application. You choose to bear a child, but that choice simply covers the labor process. What happens after is a parent's choice. However, the idea of charity is a very viable one. I'm batting around the "hows" and "what ifs" in my head, I'll be back with problems if I find any. Thanks! For anyone else thinking about this with me, I already solved the "how would we make sure it was working well, and how would we decide who to help" dilemma with the "whoever did it best would be most successful" approach.
  22. (Mod's note: Merged new thread with existing topic.) Ok, so we agree that no individual has the right to another's property. The unfortunate fact of human biology, however, subjects the human to a period where it is incapable of earning its own way: childhood. In the case where a parent wants a child, this is a voluntary transaction; it's the parent's pleasure to spend their earnings in exchange for the property of a son or daughter. However, what is the right of a child in the case where it is unwanted? To force a parent to care for a child that they don't want to care for is immoral; it involves the use of force. This leads to the conclusion that the child should be left to fend for itself, as this is the only way that no one's rights are being violated. This would lead to the necessity of repealing child labor laws, which violate reason in the strictest sense; they use the physical force of government mandate to prohibit an individual from earning their worth. This would provide an opportunity for unwanted children to be able to earn their own way. But what of the infant? Up until a few years into its life, a baby is utterly incapable of survival. To avoid forcing a parent to bear the expense of rearing it, the baby would have to be left to die. This is epistemologically correct...I hate to bring feelings into any Objectivist discussion, but...
  23. Ok, that makes a lot of sense, thank you. The reason behind this post was that I participated in a debate with four Socialist supporters, and I couldn't satisfactorily explain to them why they were incorrect in certain matters (these being the ones I struggled most with). Thanks to everyone who helped clarify this with me!
  24. By the standard of survival of the fittest. If the best do not have the opportunity to succeed, then a meritocracy can not exist. This seems true initially, but further examination is warranted. Say you inherit a factory. You might not be the best at running that factory, but you are in a position of power, because the factory belongs to you. Now let's say I'm a worker starting out with nothing. I am talented and would be better at running the factory than you if I had the opportunity. We live in a world where transportation, communication and location are factors. In a perfectly competitive market, I could find a job where my talents would lead me to the top of the food chain, and would eventually lead to your downfall. However, perfection is in this case compromised by the fact that you're the only factory in town and I can't afford to move elsewhere. If I want to maximize my profit, given my options, I have to work for you. Since you own the factory, you can pay me less than my work may be worth on the open market because you have a quasi-monopoly on jobs in my field that are accessable to me. You can take advantage of my skill and profit from my ability, not your own. Because you didn't put yourself into the position to do this, you have not earned the right to this profit. Thus, a loophole exists. Capitalism relies on everyone doing what's best for them, but it's an incomplete ideology without the addition of "as long as it does not impede anyone else." The only way to achieve capitalistic harmony is with perfect communication and no monopolistic surplus. Since this is next to impossible, we need to work towards creating artificial models of them that would make it possible for workers not to be taken advantage of by their employers.
  25. I'm new to this board, so I don't know if this topic has been discussed, but...: In order for a objectivist society to function in the best way, it is necessary that merit be the sole basis for advancement and reward. The enemy of such a system would be any way that someone could achieve success without themself earning it, or any way that someone with ability and merit would be hindered in achieving success. Two ways that someone could undermine the structure of the system while operating within the parameters of objectivism, as I understand it, are inheritance and monopoly. First, inheritance. Case and point: the Bush family. George W. Bush was born to a wealthy family, was grandfathered into Harvard, and now is fabulously successful despite never producing anything of consequence for anyone, ever. A system where a successful and talented parent might produce an inept child who would have an advantage over others to begin with, is the enemy of a meritocracy. The root of this is inheritance of any kind. Any way of gaining power in society, without earning it, is the reason that exploitation has led to the degradation of our system in America. This must be coupled with some uniform education system, which allows the talented, regardless of background, to excell and rise to the top. Thoughts? The other enemy, as I can identify, is monopoly. In capitalism, the ideal end of an individual more talented than his peers, would be that he could rise to the top of his field. If the less capable competition couldn't survive, it would die, leaving only the best to survive. However, due to economies of scale and the eventual ability to run temporarily at a loss, it would be, and is, possible, once on top, to prevent anyone else from entering one's field. This destroys the concept of a meritocracy, because someone with more talent might not be able to enter the field of his talent, due to the monopolist's ability to lower their prices until the virtuoso can no longer afford to stay in business, then subsequently reraising them. Or, the monopolist could operate at a higher profit margin, and offer lower prices, simply because he benefits from bulk production. The current solution is flawed, in that monopolies are simply illegal, because they limit one's ability to succeed ultimately, based on merit. How is it possible to avoid monopolistic actions while simultaneously giving the best in their field the ability to rise to the top? The combination of these two enemies leads, almost unavoidably, to exploitation of the disadvantaged. It's not always the incapable who are complaining about their plight, but those not given an equal chance to succeed due to their inability to compete with the wealthy from the very beginning. If I own a chair factory my father started, and you are a poor worker better at chairmaking than me, I still have the ability to predate upon you because you may have less access to the means of production than I do, independent of your superiority. How does one close these loopholes without infringing on the beneficiaries' right to succeed? Thanks!
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