dondigitalia

No, an infant's actions are not volitional. Introspect. Volition (in the Objectivist sense) only occurs on the conceptual level. I'm not sure if you mean to disagree with me or Hunter, here--I see a number of ways this statement can be interpreted. I will agree that the actions of an infant are purposeful, but not volitional, as volition is not possible at the perceptual level.

In the context, I don't think fact #1 is very significant at all. Statistically, it's not a momentary 50/50 choice that all men happen to make one way with no standard. Rather, it's a constant 50/50 choice one makes, every waking moment that could tip in either direction, until it actually does tip in the other direction. So just by sheeer statistics, you can say say that 99.99999999% of all men are eventually going to choose to think (made-up statistic). And, while beginnings might often have something special about them, it is arbitrary to assume that they do with out evidence. At any rate, I don't think one can really prove much of anything about the mechanics of that choice, other than to say: it happened, so I'm just going to let it rest after this. Pleasure and pain presupposes the life-standard. Non-volitional actions are taken according to the life-standard from birth, but the non-volitional is the amoral, so it really isn't entirely proper to talk about them having a standard at all. They are the metaphysically given--they just are. Prior to taking volitional action no moral standard exists. It can't, since morality depends on choice.

It's interesting that you say that, because that is the same way I interpret Genesis. I would wager that my evaluation of it differs from yours tremendously, although I've found religion to be kind of a futile topic, so I don't want to really get into a in-depth discssion of it, especially since I've observed you to be a pretty nice, benevolent guy so far, who I have no interest in offending. (Note: By evaluation, I don't mean interpretation of the allegory, but something more akin to a moral appraisal of it.)

It may be true that everything that exists has a basis in the physical, but might also be untrue, too. I don't have an answer to that (scientific) question. What you said, however was: The metaphysical is simply: that which pertains to the nature of existence (or Being, in the ancient terms) as such, which has nothing to do with the existence of physical entities. Even if future science proves that everything does arise from some physical phenomena, it still cannot be considered part of the metaphysical nature of existence. Current science, however, not having identified the fundamental constituents of reality, cannot say whether or not all comes from the physical. If the ultimate constituents turn out to be non-physical, then it will mean that all comes from the non-physical. Once you say, "Existence exists," you've kind of reached the end of metaphysics, since that's really all we can say at the pre-epistemological level. The rest of metaphysics involves identifying the implications of that one statement. Other philosophers have tried to make it more than that, but they were wrong.

I'm not. While Objectivism doesn't truly ignore metaphysics, its system is somewhat sparse in comparison to a lot of others. That's a good thing. Once you go beyond "Existence exists," and everything that implies, you enter the realm of fantasy--and that's exactly what the more complex systems were.

Those are all physical things, except maybe this "fabric of space" thing you're talking about. If you mean the ultimate constituents of reality, they are not necessarily physical, although they might be--that's a subject for future science. To suppose that they are physical, though, just because the physical universe is physical involves yet another fallacy--a reverse of the fallacy of composition. Why would I take up a disagreement with somebody who agrees with me? That would be silly. If you define supernatural as non-physical, then, yeah I'm calling consciousness supernatural. That is not, however, the definition you provided. If you wish to retract or modify your definition, say so. You've said things about both consciousness and the brain, in a manner that indicates you are equating the two. I quoted on such instance. They are two different things, one of which is physical and deterministic, the other of which is non-physical and non-deterministic. Neither is supernatural, under the definition you provided from wikipedia. I'm not trying to lure you into anything. I don't operate like that. I think it's a dishonest way to discuss things (in fact, it is the Red Herring fallacy), and I'm a little offended that it was suggested. Are you aware that identity depends on existence. In fact, identity is existence, viewed from a particular perspective. You cannot sever one from the other. Mathematics, in being based on the law of identity, is also based on existence. On the subject of how consciousness relates to mathematics, I'll paraphrase Ayn Rand: Consciousness is not inherent in mathematics as such, but it is inherent in your grasp of mathematics. It completely changed the context of my statement from talking about physical sciences to talking about all sciences, thereby smuggling a false premise into my argument: that no non-physical science exists. Omg, psychology isn't a science?!?! You. have. got. to. be. kidding. Are you a scientologist? What do you mean by a "layer of abstraction." Define in your own words, "abstraction." Or don't. You still have not addressed the (several) fallacies I pointed out in your arguments. You still have not pointed out any fallacies in mine (probably because they don't exist). If you refuse to acknoweldge them, then there is no point in having a discussion with you. Until you do, I'm not wasting any more of my time, when I could be watching movies with crude humor. Axioms are kind of outside the realm of proof. I'm inclined toward thinking that their axiom-ness is outside the realm of proof, too, but that's more of a gut feeling than anything else, so it doesn't hold much weight. At present, I'm neutral on the matter.

The flaw is in assuming that the self-motivating existent is a physical part of the brain. The self-motivating existent is the conceptual level of consciousness. How consciousness relates to the physical brain is something I don't know. I have recently learned that Harry Binswanger has a lecture called "The Metaphysics of Consciousness" that might help answer a lot of your questions; I have not heard the lecture myself.

Ok, here is the first problem then: This sets up another false dichotomy between the physical and the supernatural. It presupposes that there are no non-physical, natural existents. Supernatural does not mean non-physical, it means beyond the realm of scientific study. EC made his big error in accepting your premise that all that exists is physical. This is all true, but the brain and consciousness are not the same thing. Why do you continue to speak, not only as though non-physical is equivalent to supernatural, but as though it's a self-evident fact? Well, I didn't say Aristotle's philosophy specifically, but Philosophy in general. And yes, it is the base of all knowledge. Just using mathematics... it reduces to the law of identity. This law is at the base of all logic, and so is at the base of all mathematics. The facts that you learn from the special sciences are not able to be deduced directly from Philosophy (that would be rationalistic), but it is Philosophy that that determines the principles by which all of that knowledge is gained. This is a whole different topic, though. This is what you said: No, that is not what I said. I said: "Physics is the fundamental physical science, so all physical studies can be ultimately reduced to it." I find it highly suspect and rationalistic that you conveniently left out a word which, not only changes the entire meaning of my statement, but which is the crux of my entire position. Do not straw-man me. ...without which no science would be possible. So philosophy is pretty fundamental to the sciences. I'm not sure what you mean when you say the "root." I haven't used that term. What I say is that Philosophy is more fundamental, which means something very specific. It means that the special sciences depend on the knowledge gained in Philosophy. Philosophy sets the principles to which the sciences must adhere to be valid. Again, you are equating science with physics. There are a number of non-physical sciences which are not based on physics at all. Mathematics and Psychology are the first two that come to mind. If you insist on continuing to package-deal science and physics (a fallacy), and equate "supernatural" with "physical" (a fallacy), then I don't see any point in continuing. I have pointed both of these errors out to you a couple of times, and you have either changed my words (a sign of disrespect and a fallacy) or ignored them (a sign of disrespect, but also a clue that you might be evading). In any case, your avoidance of facing my actual position, instead of an imaginary position you created for me is highly unscientific, and being scientific is something you claimed to value in Objectivism. You're equating again. How is it that consciousness magically morphs into the brain halfway through your argument? I thought A is A. Only one of us is being logical. I've shown you the fallacies in your argument. Show me mine. Of course, the existence of logic at all presupposes a non-deterministic consciousness... I've made my point. There is no such thing as "perception of being logical." Any evaluation of logic is conceptual. Even if there was such a thing as "perception of being logical," your argument still would not logically follow. EDIT: One more thing. My apologies to Inspector for recalling his statement incorrectly, although I'm still not entirely sure I agree.

I understand that you weren't asserting that (a question doesn't assert anything), I was just saying that it isn't good evidence of anything. It's ok for a hypothesis, though. Agreed so far. I think it must require an act of volition. I don't see why the conceptual level would operate any differently at that age than it does at any other age. Even as adults, there are times when we are not using the conceptual level at all and are operating on a perceptual basis. I don't know if you're morning person, but I'm not, and a lot of times when I get up in the morning, I'm pretty much a zombie for the first 10 minutes or so--I'm not thinking about what I'm doing, I'm not in focus, I'm just going through my morning routine, which has been automatized as a series of perceptually retained, non-volitional actions. (We all have actions that were volitional at one time, but have now been mastered to the point of non-volitional automization; think of driving, for instance.) When I finally do start to think, it's by choice. Of course, as an adult it's by reference to the standard I adopted long ago, but the choice is the same. What reason is there to assume its any different for a child? Positing a difference without evidence for one is arbitrary.

That would be the Empiricist Fallacy. In a way, I think you're right. I tend to look at it this way: Either you're not in focus at all, or you are willing some sort of focus. Prior to going the focus route, you have no standard by which to choose one over the other, so it's basically a toss-up. Once the coin goes in the "in focus" direction, though, even a little bit, you have a standard which tells you, stay like this. Of course, this is pure hypothesis. I think validating it would require some sort of pre-conceptual introspection, which is impossible.

Perhaps we can come up with the right combination of words to trigger his brain-configurations to come up the the right words to trigger ours. But, then what will trigger ours to do that? Hmmm....

The extreme form I was talking about was actually Platonist dualism, but yeah, Cartesian dualism is the same idea. I can understand how Objectivism might seem dualistic to you at the moment. I assure you, it is not. The best thing I can do to give you the most accurate description of how Objectivism is a 3rd alternative to that dichotomy is to point to Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, Diana Hsieh's paper that was linked to earlier in this thread, and maybe even Peikoff's lecture on the One and the Many, which is available for free listen here. I understand that pointing in the direction of a bunch of books doesn't really do much for a discussion, but I really think the complexity of this issue is beyond the scope of an internet message board. The best I can sum up a comparison of Objectivism to monism and dualism is that, in a sense its neither of the two, but in another sense it's both. Objectivism tends to be like that with a lot of these age-old dichotomies. What simple fact can't you communicate to me? I didn't read the first couple of pages of this thread and haven't been debating the free-will topic at all, so I was mainly just giving some advice to anyone who was debating the free-will issue. Objectivists most definitely do not believe in the supernatural, and are open to scientific inquiry, but as you noted before, there is a hierarchy to knowledge. What you did not note, and I'm not sure you fully grasp, is that Philosophy is at the base of that hierarchy, and is more fundamental than any special science, including Physics. I wish that book had a "look inside" feature. I'm not going to buy it. Not that I'm dismissing what you have to offer out of hand--I'm just a poor student with no money who already has too much to read. I have heard about the amazing advances in neuroscience (not what the advances are, just that they were made) a lot. Neuroscience, however does not study consciousness, per se, however. Now, of course, I'm talking about the axiomatic concept that, in Objectivism is called "consciousness," which may be a different concept than the one neurologists refer to by the same term. :sigh: Consciousness is not supernatural. I showed the error in your reasoning from the definition you gave (which is a surprisingly good definition, I might add, considering it was from wikipedia.) If there is some other definition you'd like to use at this point, state it, and I'll tell you whether or not I think such things exists. One can take her words literally, but I'll tell you straight out that she regarded consciousness as neither physical, outside the realm of scientific study, nor deterministic (she did regard the perceptual level as deterministic).

Thank you for posting something new, instead of the same exact argument that has been popping up repeatedly in this thread. (I see that you posted it once before and I missed it.) It is interesting to think of it that way, but I disagree. I think it's imprecise. The statement "as a living organism, your goal is to survive," while true for most organism, is not universally true. There are some whose goal is simply to reproduce, take the praying mantis, for example, for whom reproduction is suicide. There are probably others, but even one counterexample disqualifies a universal. Also, in the case of other organisms whose goal actually is to survive, that's not entirely the same thing as it means for a human to have a life-standard. For them, it is mere physical survival. For us, it is having a happy life, a life that is proper to a rational animal. For us, it is a goal dependent on the conceptual faculty. Since, for man, it is dependent on the conceptual faculty, having that goal depends on using the conceptual faculty. Prior to using it, there is no goal. As you know, Objectivism holds that the conceptual faculty is used by choice. And, as I said earlier, as soon as one makes that choice (which, to the best of my knowledge, we all do, to some degree), one also adopts life as the standard of value.

I don't really think there is any way to defend Protagoras qua relativist, since Plato is basically right about him in that regard, but there is a huge difference between perception and the relativist use of perception. Plato's objections to latter are entirely valid, as you noted. I'm going to disagree with Plato's statement that "a wise man only is a measure." A wise man might be one who knows, but that doesn't make him the standard of what is true. The standard is, of course, reality. The "wise man" view amounts to a sort of elitist subjectivism--that by virtue of wisdom he is able to create truth, rather than learn truth. He who knows, knows, as you said, but he who knows is not the standard of knowing, which is what Plato is saying. This is really characteristic of Plato. If you've read Republic, then you will be familiar with Plato's notion of the philosopher-king; this is where that comes from, I think (although, I might change my mind as we read further on). You can also really see the Platonic influence on Judaeo-Christian religions here, too, where the clergy is the "wise man." If you reject "man is the measure" theory entirely, including Plato's delimited version, the scenario of conflicting opinions is easily answered. As far as what's going on @ 186-187... I have a couple of problems with it. First of all, he fails to completely understand the idea of objectivity, which leads him to the mind-body dichotomy, which leads him to the conclusion, as you say, that perception is not part of knowledge. In his view, it seems, sensation is not part of consciousness at all, but merely a function of the sensory organs. He is enacting an epistemological dualism here. I find it hard to really fault him for this, since I don't know that their primitive science could have told them that the sensory organs are related to the brain, which is related to consciousness. Hell, the only thing we know about the relationship now, 2400 years later, is that it exists. On the other hand, that relationship should be discernable by a fairly easy bit of introspection, so I find it hard not to fault him, too. That's the big error here, though--the mind-body split. Implicitly, he does have to accept that perception plays a role in knowledge, however. He say, "Then knowledge does not consist in impressions of sense, but in reasoning about them..." And he says this in the same context that he says "[perception] has no part in the attainment of truth..." So, clearly we have a contradiction, and it's not even one of those sneaky ones, but a glaring big eyesore that he just ignores. Then, there's also the issue of leaping from the acutal (valid) conclusion that knowledge and perception are not identical, which he says a number of times, to knowledge and perception are completely unrelated. Of course, we know that there are many, many things that are different, but related. Apparently Plato did not.

The nihilist or the typical academic philosopher cannot get away with asking that, because by asking that question, they are engaging in a conceptual activity which means they have already implicitly chosen to live. There is an alternative to the Objectivist ethics, and that alternative is to lay down, shut one's mouth, turn off ones mind and let oneself die (remember what happened on Miranda in Serenity?) Now, for a person who has already chosen life, that seems grotesque. And it is grotesque--by reference to the life standard. A person who has chosen the life standard has values he can use to make this decision, such as all the ones you named, all of which are values according to a standard. One cannot have concepts of "good" or "better" or "preferable" prior to holding a standard of value, so any reference to value judgment cannot play into the intial decision. Most people (the vast majority) needn't worry about how the fundamental decision is made, whether it is arbitrary or according to a standard, because it's largely unimportant in regard to their own lives--they have already chosen, and now have a standard that tells them life is better. The only people who need to worry about this question are those with an interest in technical philosophy; it's definitely more of a philosophy for Ragnar thing than philosophy for Reardan. That said, I keep seeing the same basic (fallacious) counter-position over and over, so unless I see something truly new, like a reason for choosing one way or the other that does not appeal to some standard of value, I've said everything I have to say here.

I'm not implying anything. I'm saying it straight out. The two are not ontologically separate, but different. If the concept you call "dualism" is defined as a recognition of the "mind and body" as being different from one another, then according to that, I am a dualist, as are all Objectivists. That is not, however, the general historical usage, which implies a complete separation, sometimes into to completely different worlds. I have no intention of outlining the entire history of this ancient dichotomy and how Objectivism resolves it. That's far too vast an undertaking for a forum. In my view, it is pointless to debate the existence of volition. Volition cannot be proven (contrary to Inspectors assertions that is has been proven), any more than the validity of the senses can be proven, and anymore than the other 3 axioms can be proven. They are unprovable because any proof whatsoever presupposes them. One can, however, debate whether or not consciousness is reducible to the physical processes of the brain. P.S. I have no idea what could have possibly given you the idea that Objectivism supports monism or reductionism, which seems to be your position. Even the most superficial inquiry into the Objectivist position on materialism or determinism should make it clear that it does not. There is neuroscience, which is dedicated to the study of the physical processes of the brain. Neuroscience and psychology together, someday may explain the relationship between the brain and consciousness, but as far as I know, it's not there yet. Nobody here as denied that neuroscience exists. And all of those study physical phenomena. Physics is the fundamental physical science, so all physical studies can be ultimately reduced to it.

You are setting up a false dichotomy here. You present two alternatives: mind and body as separate, unrelated things (dualism), and mind and body as being one in the same (monism). Objectivism rejects both of these standpoints, in favor of a mind-body integration. You must have both--always. They are two different things, which behave in different manners, but they are interrelated, and they do affect each other, so they are not categorically distinct. The laws of physics do apply to the physical processes of our brains, but not to consciousness. The definition from the link you provided is: "forces and phenomena which are beyond ordinary scientific understanding." And in saying that it is by definition, supernatural, you are equating scientific laws with the laws of physics--physics is not the only science. There are a couple of sciences which study consciousness--epistemology and psychology (which is still in its early stages). Edited to insert definition for easier reference.

Considering the consequences presupposes that one has already made the fundamental choice, so the fundamental choice cannot be made by reference to any standard whatsoever. Any consideration at all is done in hindsight, and it is a consideration of whether or not to continue with the earlier choice. Fun is only a value by reference to a standard. You can't use that as a reason prior to holding a standard. It begs the question, just as every other explanation of why one might choose to live in the first place.

I highly doubt that the San Francisco handgun ban has anything to with the gay marriage law in Texas. Are you familiar with the political atmosphere of San Francisco? This isn't the first time they've attempted to ban handguns, and I doubt it'll be the last. This city is overwhelmingly liberal, and has a long, long history of being in favor of anti-gun, pro-multiculturalism, pro-environmnetalism, pro-feminism laws. Here are a couple of excerpts from a paper I recently wrote on this subject: <snip> A bunch of boring stuff about the history of handgun bans in America. <snip>

I'm not a dualist either. I don't hold say that there is a split between the material and the spiritual (and I don't mean spiritual in the supernatural sense), but an integration. Our consciousness hasn't parted ways with the rest of the universe, it's part of the universe. It's just that the laws of physics don't apply to it, because it is non-physical. Both can be true because the context is different. The only acontextual truths are the fundamental axioms. The deterministic laws of physics are only true in the context of physical existents, free-will is only true when the context is a conceptual consciousness.

Teaching Assistant, silly. You know... the grad student minions that have to do all the grunt work while the professors read Plato in their office.

Every physics experiment confirms the deterministic nature of the physical universe. Consciousness is not subject to the laws of physics, but the brain is. While there is a relationship between the two, they are not the same thing. Also, I don't think you will find any Objectivist who thinks that every human action is volitional. The vast majority of them aren't. Do you even understand what the Objectivist theory of free-will is?

Who cares about what the values are, as long as they are real values? All I'm saying is that one can be proud of having achieved them. Any value-achievement is something to be proud of--some achievements more than others.

Honestly, that's a subject for an entire book. Offhand, though, I would say that it depends a great deal on context. What is the source and what do you know of their trustworthiness in this area? What do you know of their character? How does this integrate into the rest of your knowledge? Does anything contradict it? Does anything else that you know support it? Does the alternative contradict anything? There are a ton of questions that go into this, and you aren't always going to be able to achieve knowledge without validating certain facts for yourself, which is fine. You don't need to know or validate everything you hear when you live in a division of labor society; that's why we have professions. Before you worry about validating whether or not Chad exists based on what other people say, you first need to ask: How much do I really care if I know this?

And some people (a great many) never even reach that point.