Olex

When were you in Taggart?

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/modern_art.html “Art and Cognition,” The Romantic Manifesto, 76 Bold is mine. The first image that was shown was a good example of "something piled together." How can that not be obvious?

I second that as an ex-CEO of TTI in EVE Online. Look for the channel TAGGART, we'd give you a good exercise for the brain - in order to get membership, you'll have to write a bit of an essay. That's how we filter the good from the bad in EVE.

This is a form of insult, an indirect form of insult to Ayn Rand.

Yes. See my post above #43. The following is a great and simple explanation of a double slit experiment. http://speicher.com/tew1.html

http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?act=boardrules Has the rules been changed on this forum?

For those who wish to find a simple layman explanation of Dr. Lewis Little's theory, I highly suggest taking a look at the following 3-part article here: http://speicher.com/tew.html http://speicher.com/tew1.html http://speicher.com/tew2.html http://speicher.com/tew3.html

I find these thoughts completely bewildering. Here's why. Let's remind ourselves that this is what supposed to be comments on a physical theory. But yet the first 3 sentences that we see is a random detour that "ttn" talks about various possibilities as to why the author misspelled "Innsbruck." Excuse me? The topic is physics not an analysis of an individual and his spelling ability. How would it look like if you were replying to Einstein's theory and your first few sentences were discussing that he misspelled some word? It would look ridiculous. In a scientific debate one ought to challenge the argument not the author. Yet another name calling. If one wishes to leave a comment aside, one should leave it aside, instead of saying an equivalent of: "Oh, yeah, I have an irrelevant comment that my scientific opponent's comments are stupid. However, I would like to leave that aside for now." Huh? Excuse me? What is the point of asking questions, which have to do with the personal intention of the author instead of his arguments? Furthermore, these questions are arbitrary. They cannot be answered without having a very close friendship with the author where you can get at least get some insights into this actions and intentions. Otherwise, what is going on here is "psychologizing:" "It is very curious to me," "Little feels," etc. You cannot know what Dr. Little feels or doesn't feel on this subject, so it's arbitrary to bring it into this discussion, AND to do so in the first few paragraphs before even beginning to discuss his arguments. This is one of the lowest point of ttn's post. The quote above by Dr. Little is taken completely out of context. "ttn" drops the context and then proceeds to show the (non-existent) internal contradiction that Dr. Little makes. Here's the actual full relevant context of the quote that "ttn" shows here: (The underline below is mine.) And now consider how "ttn" twists that into: The twist of context-dropping boggles my mind.

An objective rebuttal of a scientific proposition or theory should not start with a personal attack and name calling towards the person. One should attack the argument not the person. You've committed the fallacy of ad-hominem. I am appalled that the moderators are allowing this to remain unchallenged.

So, in essence: " Language is just labels that humans hang on things. We as humans can only hope to understand only part of reality anyway. Economics come from what little part of reality we humans can get. Through this tiny amount, we hopelessly try to come up with more labels. First, we come up with an idea, without any relation to reality ( "First there is a hypothesis" ), then we check to see if it happens to match reality, and formulate as much as we can to best fit the idea to reality. Therefore, the 'science' is born. " ?

I don't see it. Entities and their actions are inseparable. So this primacy only exists in your mind when you break them into parts. But in reality it's one whole. So I don't see your point. I don't know what you mean here. Actually, epistemology is in the same position as metaphysics is. So why are you separating metaphysics only? I think you are taking this too far. I'm pretty sure that many people today have a separation between action and thought. So they could act while denying the axiom. Furthermore, they often mess themselves up so bad, that they can't even understand what "Existence exists" means. They begin to wonder in circles about second word having the same root as the first, etc. Now, it's true that in order to properly claim any knowledge, one must build from those axioms. However, this only happens when one goes through the entire process correctly, of correctly building knowledge. A wrong example is a rationalist who says that one can't be certain that reality exists, since one can't prove it by deductive means. How would you assess such case? That sounds too vague for me. In essence, you are saying that one needs a conscious and develop it somewhat to be able to grasp axioms consciously ? EDIT: clarifications

Some minor corrections that I think you should be careful of. Be careful here. It's certainly true that there are no "floating" (i.e. cause-less) actions, and that's a decent start for induction to arrive at the principle of causality. But the final argument shouldn't be using that. Causality is really an extension or specification of principle of Identity. In short: if a thing is what it is, then it will act according to what it is as well. Once you say that, then in your argument you ought to provide some concrete examples to illustrate what you mean in reality. So "balls" should go here. I don't think I would use "primacy" in this context, b/c it seems to mean metaphysical primacy. It's not as if first an entity comes into existence, and then a split second later, its actions and properties come in with appropriate causes and effects. In reality, it's all happens at the same time, and it's indivisible. However, when we think of this, we have to break it up into parts, and when building the argument, one part certainly has to come first (entity and its identity) and then show the second (cause and effect). But that's not what "primacy" means. As far as I have seen "primacy" in Objectivism only refers to metaphysical primacy. For example, existence over consciousness. But in this case, it is so b/c consciousness is subject to existence in many ways. #2 is correct, however, the more essential statement is that knowledge requires a foundation. So, it's not that we happen to assume certain things when we think but rather that our knowledge is hierarchical and requires a base, a first step - and that's what axioms are. To be honest, I'm not sure why you have to outline things about axioms. It's not like you have to constantly be on lookout for axioms in philosophy. There are only 3 of them after all. But given that, how would you defend that all axioms MUST be metaphysical? I have doubts over this. For example, a child wouldn't be able to grasp an axiom. He would have a ton of work ahead of him. While axioms are the basis of knowledge, they are not "easy" to grasp. Another example is that a child goes through bunch of work being able to separate between existence and consciousness. Keep in mind that "existence" and "consciousness" are very 'fat' concepts. They include a lot of concretes and involve a long road from 'table' to 'existence' for example. I'd suggest you pick a different verb for "grasp."

Of course, one idea was built on another idea. But this is wrong. Electromagnetic communication != WWW. Using transistor for switches != computerized communication. Just b/c an idea was based on some previous idea doesn't mean, nothing new was created. I think you missed my point. Of course, one must think of an idea and then make it. The point is that somebody had to invent the idea, which didn't exist before. Otherwise, you might as well claim that Newton didn't invent anything new at all with his laws.

So, there was a concept of "world wide web" (i.e. Internet) before it was invented? Nonsense. That's what invention is - creating something that hasn't existed before.

I would suggest then while reading Atlas Shrugged paying a lot of attention to Dagny Taggart - why she keeps fighting while others have already shrugged - try to stick to every bit of information there to the very end of the book. You could also consider all others characters and see what made them quit. The novel is very deep in terms of how much is going on there. This should give you more food for thought.

There are a few things for you here that you really need to hit hard on: introspection and emotions. Introspection will help you figure out why and how something is bothering you. It's vital to keep asking yourself questions anytime something like this is eating away at you. Here is a link that contains useful excerpts from Objectivist literature on introspection: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/introspection.html Objectivism provides a very important explanation of where emotions come from. The common answer you've been taught is that they come from nowhere and nobody knows how to change them, so standard answer is repress-at-all-costs. That's destructive to your mental well-being as you can see yourself. Do read here: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/emotions.html So, it's important to ask yourself and figure out why you want to "change anyone's mind." One possible direction is to consider that others get to choose their own values, and some people want to be irrational by choice. Imagine some of the people you know acting irrationally despite your efforts and check your own response to that - do you feel like you have failed at something or that they have made their own choice which doesn't place any moral weight on you?

It's not intrusion that was pointed out. It's that the argument has been completed. From now on, in this thread, it's clear that your position here is a pure rationalist position, which is very opposite to Objectivism. So, all discussion between us will be going around in circles, and hitting the wall over and over again. And that's not the purpose of this forum. (My own understanding, though, I'm not a moderator, but I believe I'm correct.) If you say you wish to understand Objectivist approach, then you have to read the actual writing from Objectivism. I really doubt you can get any better answers here in this forum at this point in discussion. If above answers haven't satisfied you or convinced you, then 10 more pages of this discussions aren't going to do it. The forum has many examples of this. This isn't a statement about your intelligence or honesty. To put it simply, you can only expect so much effort from regular people on forums to explain you something. After that, you need to go the source and to the highest ability available - to the works of Ayn Rand and Leonard Piekoff.

I second the review of Moose on the movie. He hit the nail. {Spoilers...} The end was definitely a serious put off. In all previous movies, Indiana Jones didn't end the adventure on his ass because he is awed by what he sees to be so much greater than himself. As Moose said, it used to end with riding into a sunset. But now it ends with Indiana staring at the UFO taking off. That's a quite a way to destroy the image of Indiana as a great man. And I agree, it's not even so much about irrationality or impossibility of UFO existing, it's about a wrong content. I was sitting there in the movies and thinking if I went to see X-files or Indiana Jones. Sheesh. The movie was worth seeing, but it was not about the plot. The plot was weak in scope and areas traveled in the movie compared to first three. The good parts were all created by the image of Indiana Jones not backing down and even willing to raise hands in the face of commies. And I have to question your intention on such a negative analysis of Moose's review. There was nothing in Moose's post to indicate such such a broad negative intention as you suggested.

I don't believe you have answered my question. I was following the stance taken in this thread on the restricting stuff that appears to be non-Objectivist. And I was asking for an explanation on 'why' - not how some mis-application was actually non-application. I'm going to assume by your reply that mis-application isn't the problem. And what is non-application? Does it just mean dishonest conscious attempt to fool? Or is it really really bad application? If you say, it's dishonest, then I already said in my post I don't mean such cases. (Btw, I place that Christian club who stopped by OO sometime ago to belong to dishonest group.) On another point: that somebody has to make the judgment. Sure. If it's found that it's needed then somebody has to make the judgment. I wasn't bringing up the issue of the hierarchy of judgment making. I was talking about the necessity to judge if one is talking about mostly Objectivist ideas or not. So, I don't see what you were addressing with that point. My post was asking for an argument of why it's necessary for this board to moderate non-disruptive discussion of students of Objectivism when they make an error with understanding Objectivism.

I've been reading this thread and I just can't get hold of the following problem. From one side, nobody on this forum can claim to speak for Objectivism nor officially state that a certain idea comes from Objectivism. All that we can do here is quote Ayn Rand or Peikoff, and on that basis in very limited cases, we can say that X does or doesn't belong to Objectivism. From another side, it is implied that at least some forum members are capable of speaking for Objectivism and are capable of explaining Objectivism to others on such a proficient level that if the other person doesn't get it then "pressing on" is not allowed and seen as a bad thing. It's either-or: either some members here are in the position to speak for Objectivism or they are not. Now, I presume, most people (on this thread) think that no one here can speak for Objectivism. (Assumption 1) If so, how can somebody claim with certainty that person A was explained Objectivism correctly by somebody on this board? To me, this is a plain contradiction to Assumption 1. -------- My own view on this issue is that on this board you should only judge honesty in regards to trying to understand Objectivism. If you see a person is dishonest and just posing or trolling, by all means one has to ban that person to prevent the collapse of the board. However, an honest disagreement with Objectivism in a form of "chewing" an idea from Objectivism should not be a problem. A side note: Leonard Peikoff speaks on his course "Understanding Objectivism" that he had huge problems with Objectivism; that it took him years to correctly understand it. And yet if a student of Objectivism comes to this board and has the same problems (without the benefit of Ayn Rand's personal explanations), then moderators will be come down on him hard for the purpose of keeping the forum pure of non-Objectivist views?

Seeing that you present no arguments anymore, but just repeat your impressions of the movie, there isn't any point in going on here.

I didn't complain about the plot's complexity in any way. I complain that it really didn't make sense at all on number of occasions. For example, why did Speed decide to live home? Why did his older brother decided to do it? Why did the older brother decide to hide his identity after the good won? Are you serious? What about parts of asking for a burger right after returning from the hell of being held captive? In my eyes, that was a very serious affirmation of one's values and life as a good thing. (The audience in the movie theater that I was in picked that up as well.) What about him saying "I refuse" in the face of the tyrant? Compared that to Speed Racer who looked like a little lost kid for the most part, and yet somehow being able to say no. And even then, it wasn't because he thought about himself. He kept talking about family, and never about himself. He didn't say "I won't take the offer, b/c I don't want it." No, he said that it wouldn't be right for his family. In another scene, he answered to his dad (Dad asked: "Were you thinking of this family at all?") "But I _was_ thinking about family! That's all I was thinking of." The implementation of "individuality" obviously fails in Speed Racer. It comes out only on an emotional level. And never on the level of explicit words that Speed Racer should have said. This is very much opposite to Iron Man who actually speaks out and says no to the face of evil. I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree here. I didn't mean to intimidate you. My point was that Iron Man was so much better than Speed Racer in explicit statements and actions that it would be weird not to recognize it properly. There was no personal attack involved. Apologies, if I wasn't clear enough. Edit: spelling and clarifications

Oh, hell no. First half of Speed Racer left me with a very bad taste in my mouth. It was like having to eat lunch where before I get to good tasty parts, I have to first eat something crappy. "Overly anti-business"? Excuse me, but this movie had one of the worst representation of business. It was very very graphical depiction of depravity of business and their lust for money and profit. Geez, in one scene, there were some dudes with dollar signs in their eyes, and those guys were slowly running in the background as Speed Racer was doing his usual business. That was just sickening. Those "businessmen" looked like mad dogs with shining dollar signs at their personal drives. It took some serious effort to try enjoy the movie afterwards. On another point, the movie was made very bad. One of golden rules of movie making is not to break the flow of action. This movie decided to set a record on how many times the development of action would be broken by a quick switch to a wholly different scene with an opposite mood. The first one third of the movie was just a complete mess of switching scenes back and forth, back and forth. Though, it didn't stop there. The fun of driving was almost completely killed by random movements of the cars. For the most part you couldn't even tell what was going on in the race, except for shifting colors and spinning cars. The only exception was the race in the desert, where things actually made some sense, and you could see some cool use of car technology. The movie did have some decent parts about Speed Racer. He definitely projected many good qualities, but even then it was barely individualistic at all. It was heavily mixed with "family values" and "oh, how awesome a small family shop is compared to big evil business." All this resulted in bad build-up of a plot, and the end just didn't feel as Speed Racer accomplished anything. The movie tried to build something up as well with replaying some quotes from the movie about various people saying various things - but it was too late. The action was just too random to really get into it. (Unlike Iron Man where each move could be seen and understood.) Where good motors come out of nowhere (for the last race of Speed Racer in the movie). The characters just didn't make sense. Why did various people decide to leave the house, etc, etc? (Unlike Iron Man where things made a whole lot more sense.) And the movie's theme (if you mean it in a proper sense: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/theme.html "A theme is the summation of a novel’s abstract meaning." ) was parts of good mixed with such an evil view towards big business, that it only left bad taste in one's mouth. (Unlike Iron Man where the ending summed up everything about the theme in a such strong way that one was left with a strong feeling towards man's ability to accomplish and be proud of it.) So, unless you can mentally block out all the negative parts, which is very hard to do, Speed Racer is a pain to watch, literally. P.S. I cannot understand how one can think that this movie was anything better than Iron Man. Not that you would be insulting Iron Man, you would be insulting yourself. EDIT: spelling

Well, I'm done with this topic. I don't see where to go anymore with the arguments. So, I'm just going to disagree with the original statements in this thread by Dan_Edge, and leave it at that.

Let's restart on some point I just had. Correct me if I'm wrong, Sophia. Your point is on maximizing the pleasure in your life by (sometimes) staying with a value that requires less effort, because alternative would mean more effort and some loss of pleasure, right? Now, how about this take: Happiness isn't the standard by which you choose actions. Your life is the standard by which you judge which action to take. So, wouldn't it be wrong to base your action on happiness versus what you think would be a good life for you? EDIT: spelling