DiscoveryJoy

Yes, the larger picture of the ideal surely overrides answers on particular questions. But culture, I would say, simply IS what people think, so there is no need to find a causal relationship among the two. Hence both must change together.

But wouldn't that make anybody immoral who doesn't move to the freest country on earth, if he has the opportunity?

Hey guys, this has been occupying me for a while: Should one love the country that one prefers to live in because of its concrete values (i.e. non-moral values such as art, lifestyle, aesthetics, produced goods etc.) more than another country that lacks those values but whose moral superiority expressed through its laws one appreciates? For example: John Doe lives in country A. Country A is economically semi-free, but its people care deeply about cleaniness, so part of their coercive laws prescribe there to be government street cleaners that do quite a good job and at the same time these laws prohibit and severly punish waste and hodgepodge disposal in places where it is optically disturbing. Furthermore these laws prescribe city infrastructure and homes (buildings, roads etc.) to be built only in places and in such architectural styles so that they maintain beauty, harmony and in certain places coziness and prevent places from looking chaotic or like rubbish. As a result, country A is a much more handsome place than country B. Furthermore, let's say, most of the products John Doe really enjoys are available and can be bought cheaper in country A than in country B and are created by domestic producers. Country B, on the other hand, is economically much freer than country A, has big enterprise, and produces a much bigger variety of goods than country A. But on the other hand, most of the goods that are produced exclusively in country B are products that John Doe doesn't really need or care about, because they are either unhealthy, too extravagant or simply unnecessary for him. Furthermore, the people in country B - as economically free as they are - simply don't care as much about cleanliness, harmony and coziness to the extend that people in country A do. As a result, people often leave their waste in public places, skyscrapers exist next to gypsi-huts, and huge roads bombarded with commercial advertizing everywhere make it impossible to experience a sense of cozyness. John Doe thinks that country B is morally superior to country A due to its better respect for individual rights, i.e. that country B has better or stronger moral values. But on the other hand, the concrete end values that most people in country A love happen to coincide much stronger with those that John Doe loves than those people love in country B. I wouldn't make a split between spiritual and material values here, because things like beauty and coziness also have a mental aspect to it, although they manifest itself in material objects. Is it right for John Doe to love country A (the country in which he wishes to stay for that reason) more than country B, while at the same time regretting its moral inferiority?

I just got a reply by Peikoff to this question, in which he confirmed that both "secular" totalitarianism (like Communism) and fundamentalist religion have the identical existential results. To me that is incomprehensible. Just compare the Russian Army or the High-Tech German Wehrmacht or Japanese Armies during WW2 to the Armies of Iran (Theocracy). Furthermore, there was the building of the Autobahn and a lot of other economic activity in Nazi Germany, compared to almost nothing in Iran. Of course this doesn't change the fact that both systems are evil, both supress a lot of reason that would have allowed people to really flourish and be really productive in the long run. But how can one equate the existential results of a religious fundamentalist system that pursues a world totally outside the perceptual world and doesn't care about any material values on earth to a - by pretense - "secular" totalitarian one that pursues the well-being of particular groups in society (which is meaningless, since the group is not an entity), but for this purpose at least has to and does create real material values as a side-effect?

Thanks, Peter, for your very extensive answer. Will get to some points later. But just for the record: According to Peikoff, only among the PURE modes you find the potential for them to last indefinately, NOT among mixed ones. M1 and D1 are mixed modes and instable because they form the transition to M2 and D2, i.e. each of them moving back to their epistmelogical root of mis- and disintegration, accepting it fully. M2, D2 and I are pure modes. But only M2 (Plato) and I (Aristotle) can last indefinately, because they don't tilt. They make not compromise and provide something people can work with without any internal contradiction in their approach. The D2 approach (Kant), too, doesn't compromize, but human beings cannot exist without integration, hence that mode bears in it the seeds of its own destruction and is doomed to perish on its own grounds, in order to make room for a viable alternative. When Kant said "I found it necessary to deny reason in order to make room for faith.", I think an appropriate answer would be: "I found it necessary to deny Kant, in order to make room for thought."

The public's reactions to the mini economic crisis you mention, i.e. their demands or answers, are fully compatible with a Christian fundamentalist world view. They form the intersection between their demands and those of the D2s. The D2s hate Wall Street because it is about self interest and stands for something and anything that stands for something must be destroyed. The M2s hate it because they too, are against self interest but they stand for something else: Sacrifice to God and his will. Hence Wall Street must be destroyed. Same story, btw, for environmentalism, which can both be viewed as a means to destroy industrial civilization for the sake of destroying it (the D2s' goal) as well as a religiously motivated demand (the M2s' goal). Don't think that Christian fundamentalists have any use for technology and industry that adapts nature to man's needs. If life on earth isn't the goal but a sin, then a feudal no-progress, zero-growth society is the optimal society. This goal is best achieved by vilifying industry. The fundamentalists have very well understood that, hence their recent shift from rejecting climate science to embracing it. So the new M2/D2 alliance you see today is not based on modal kinship but on convenience: All these intersections of interests the fundamentalists have with the nihilistic left come in very handy in winning over the country in the long run. Supporting the nihilistic left's demand for destruction of big business and industry only accelerates the process. It serves to totally destroy the country economically so the real collapse can happen. That will create a state of such hopelessness, demoralization and powerlessness, they will be just like fruits so ripe for the plugging that all the fundamentalists will have to do is pick them up and tell them exactly what to do. Because - contrary to the D2s - THEY will know what to do for THEY will be the only ones who are NOT hopeless and powerless, but have a vision. Once the fundamentalists have gained the power with their support they can just throw them away, because they won't need them anymore. Just reminds me of the very eloquent sentence I read somewhere in DIM: "The haters of God are godsend to his lovers." "To-big-to-fail" is what the D2-dominated public supports out of fear of an imminent catastrophe. A catastrophe which then, evidently, has NOT happened yet. Everyone knew that a bailout would be possible to achieve immediate results. They just hate it because it didn't destroy the rich guy, but no one really seriously wants inaction. But a real crisis hasn't happened yet, as long as you can count on a government that has the power to borrow and spend as it pleases. The fact that life still goes on as usual just shows that there has been no full collapse.

It's not the economy. It's the goal of the thought process. It's not a disintegrated philosophy, but a philosophy OF disintegration. The goal is to destroy thinking. What Capitalism and Communism have in common is that they are both economic THEORIES, i.e. complex pieces of integration - correct or incorrect. The mixed economy rejects the idea that wealth is really created by individuals, but it also at the same time rejects the mutually exclusive idea that wealth is really created by the collective. It is a blank cheque on answering the question of WHAT wealth creation IS, i.e. a refusal to clearly advocate for any connection between the creation of wealth and an unambiguous cause of it AT ALL. At least that's how I would put it. But "hey", they could say, " 'creation of wealth' - that again is waaay to much integration. How about destroying the next connection - the one between wealth and the fact that it has to be created? Let there be no 'wealth creation' but just 'wealth'. Since wealth just IS and that's all we know, there can be no idea of its previous creation or even of the possibility to create new amounts of it. So let's not talk about this 'economy' stuff, since there is simply nothing any more to economize about. So what do we do with all that wealth that we still want to identify and pursue, but that just IS? Let's just allow everyone to take it from wherever he can. There is no stealing, really, there is only taking, so let anyone who stops people from taking stuff be punished by law!" You see, we haven't quite arrived at the end of the road just yet, there still is quite a lot left to destroy, and after all wealth has been successfully been "taken" and consumed, there will be no more need for them to look up "wealth" in some dictionary so they can dismantle any integrations they find within its definition - by then wealth will simply no longer BE, with no need to reject the concept but to look at reality. Looking at this reality, they will find that the end result of the philosophy of disintegration is a total desaster. There will be no motivation to go two or three steps back to a mixed economy anymore, because what would there be to gain from that? Finding your way uphill overland back to the river head to place your raft in it again doesn't change the fact that it is a RIVER that DOES flow towards a deadly WATERFALL! And if you're not dead already from the first drop, you still don't want your legs to be broken AGAIN. Well, one could say, but how about constantly paddling against the stream while in that raft? I'd say that's fine, but then you're just doing NOTHING, because that's definately not the point of rafting altogether, you will just find it completely pointless. You might aswell ask: Why did I even enter that river at all? I think this shows why a philosophy of disintegration is less powerful than a cohesive one once the end result has been understood or even experienced. This isn't to say that a cohesive philosophy of misintegration's river has no waterfalls, it's just that they're often not deep enough to kill you. You might get hurt - even injured for a while, your raft will tumble, but you generally stand better chances of keeping on rafting no matter what. I think that's just the kind of river you take because you don't have a good river map to avoid waterfalls. Or because it happens to be the kind of river that flows much faster than the fall-free ones, so it can give you a continuous enjoyment of flow, even without any effort of paddling whatsoever. Or because it happens to be the kind of river that flows much slower than the fall-free ones, so you have a chance to peacefully enjoy the amazingly beautiful landscape around you without even having to pay close attention to the raft's balance (it might even make you forget that you're hardly moving forward anymore, making you wonder whether rafting should still be pursued as an end in itself or just as a means to sightseeing). I think this shows why a philosophy of misintegration is more powerful than one of disintegration once enough potentials have been understood or even experienced.

I think Nicky kinda has already given the answer I was about to give you. He's right: The point is not really a current rise of Christian fudamentalism (although even Peikoff takes on the so-called decline of the latter by challenging widespread studies of alledged decreases in religious convictions: Dissatisfaction with religious institutions does not mean moving away from mysticism as such. Peikoff takes all people who practice certain cults, natural religions, believers in witches, etc. into account as well, which no religious survey would really consider. They, too, are potential sympathizers of Christian fundamentalism, when it gets really serious). The real point is, as Nicky pointed out, there is no alternative mode available at the moment that people are really confronted with to the extend that they might give credence to it besides Christian fundamentalism, neither a misintegrative (M2 = Nazism, Communism, Christian fundamentalism, etc.) nor integrative (I = Objectivsm)) one. Reading Peikoff (beginning of chapter 13), what is required for modal changeover (i.e. a culture changing its dominant mode (the options are M1, M2, D1, D2, I)) are at least two things: 1. Knowledge of an acceptable alternative mode. 2. Triggers. In our current D2 culture, there is a knowledge only of the alternative mode of M2 in the form of Christian fundamentalism. Objectivism hasn't really reached enough people to recall in their memory something like "Yes, there was once this book I read called Atlas Shrugged" or "Yes, I once heard this wonderful talk by Yaron Brook who warned us and was right all along, and he really had a convincing alternative". But they WILL remember "Yes, I remember Pat Robertson promising me the Kingdom of God and how easy it felt to get there, so let's really give it a try, there's nothing to loose!" The trigger that causes such enforced mental reorientation would be a catastrophic economic collapse, in this case something worse than the great depression, which is what we are heading towards. People need to really fall to their hands and knees before they really change something as serious as their epistemological mode. An event or a series of events that - quoting Peikoff - "lead people to question and to conclude that the established mode is unsafe, backward, invalid, and/or evil". This is the same thing that happened in Nazi Germany, that's the reason why it happened so suddenly and no one really expected it. An alternative had been known all along: Hitler. But it seemed rather uncomfortable to follow him, since things were still running quite okay. Just one great depression, hyperinflation and Hitler now became very viable, in fact the ONLY thing viable. Things could now change rapidly over night. People often ascribe the rise of Nazism to economics alone, blanking out the fact that countries around the world lived and even live today under even worse conditions than they did in late Weimar Germany. Where's their Hitler, if economy alone necessitated him? Note that 1. and 2. always go in tandem with each other, there is no modal changeover ONLY by knowledge of an alternative or ONLY by a trigger. Just as people could live under starvation indefinately during the Middle Ages before Aquinas due to the promise of salvation in heaven (lots of triggers but no alternative mode known), so are we today able to really take it to the uninhibited max in sticking to our current D2 drug (alternative mode of Chrstian fundamentalism known, but no trigger yet). For those who have also read parts of DIM, I hope I am getting this all right, otherwise please correct me. Concerning Christian fundamentalism and Peikoff's take on the alledged decline, and everything else I have just tried to put together, you would have been able to look some things up on the Google books version of DIM: http://books.google.de/books?id=m-dbR-EoK50C&pg=PT206&dq=dim+hypothesis&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q=dim%20hypothesis&f=false. I'm saying "would", because I don't know what happened: Just yesterday I was able to preview the relevant chapter "What's next" (see table of contents), but it is now no more available for preview. But luckily, I have the full version ;-)

I might be wrong about the 20 years, but I do believe it to be just decades, not centuries from now. Just let me first quote the introductory remarks from DIM part 4, chapter 16: RELIGIOUS TOTALITARIANISM IN America - that is my prediction. "God is dead," said Nietzsche in the nineteenth century. To which a recent book title gives the twenty-first-century reply: God Is Back. Peikoff assumes this to come true in one or two generations, but in one of his podcasts about the NSA-Snowden affair he also claims that had he known how far advanced the power of the state in monitoring us already is when writing DIM, he would have predicted religious totalitarianism in America to happen much faster. So doing the Math, and further taking note of the economic collapse Yaron Brook often predicts for about 20 years from now, 20 years might be a pretty good estimate. So just to sum it up: In "DIM Hypothesis", Peikoff explains the whole history of Western thought in terms of fundamental approaches to epistmology and explains how all transitions in history - from Ancient Greece to Rome, to the Middle Ages, to the Rennaisance, the Enlightenment, Fascism, Communism and Post-WW2 happened in detail and why. Finally, he compiles a lot of evidence about the current state of U.S. culture: The growing influence of the New Christianity, the Baptists, Mormons, Evangelicals in statistical terms; the influence on youth-culture (Christian Tattoo Association, Mega-Churches full of Jesus-loving youngsters, rising sales of Christian music to teenagers etc.); the rise of religious colleges and identification of students as "Born again" or otherwise fundamentalist Christian giving many concrete examples, figures and numbers; the growing influence of religion on the military and politics. You should really read at least the last chapter (16) of part four of that book (much of which can be read without a DIM-background). You don't have to wait, I got it as an e-Book for almost nothing compared to the rich content it provides. Really interesting and quite convincing. I wish there was much more documentaries on this U.S. development on Youtube. The most shocking I could find is the Jesus Camp movie: http://vimeo.com/34473505. If this is how education is possible in America today, what do you expect these kids to turn into in one or two generations, especially if things get worse and worse materially, crisis after crisis, and people start looking for answers that no one else can give them but kids like these grown up? I think Peikoff makes a very good point, already in his first book "The Ominous Parallels" about how the widely accepted philosophy in a country - NOT some economic breakdown crisis - is the ROOT cause for the rise of totalitarianism, i.e. how a country must first be culturally RIPE for this to happen, at the example of Nazi Germany. "The DIM Hypothesis" kind of completes this task by expressing this issue in terms of combinable categories of thinking, i.e. Disintegration, Integration, Misintegration, really telling the whole story of Western thought from beginning till end. So yes, I think what you are asking must happen, if trends continue. But I'm surprised you are even asking me this, I thought this possibility should be accepted knowledge among you guys here, the core reason why you are fighting?

It's what Peikoff hints at in his DIM book. He gives the exact DIM-based reason I nearly quoted here from one of his footnotes. However, due to a lack of clarity (he doesn't literally talk about a "Muslim Empire" right there, but refers to the dangers preached by Geert Wilders http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHyxyEl5hz0 . I was curious and asked Dr. Peikoff about what he thinks about the future of Europe on his Q&A page (www.peikoff.com). This was his answer: "I cannot recommend anyone who would apply my categories to Europe. I do not myself have nearly enough knowledge to comment on your question, to say that, if current trends continue, Europe will become a Muslim empire, with Sharia and all that this implies. Also, the continent will not survive very long after the U.S. finale." So this just confirmes that which one is lead to believe about his assumptions about Europe from his DIM footnotes. And - honestly speaking - footage like this one gives me a lot of reason to be worried about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ-QX8LuKHA But I don't want to turn this into an "Will-Europe-really-become-a-Muslim-Empire"-thread. I am much more interested in the alternatives, i.e. hopeful challengers to this threat by other countries, assuming that the trends described so far for the U.S. and Europe are indeed going to lead to the mentioned outcome.

Hi guys, this is for those of you who are familiar with Peikoff's DIM hypothesis about the future of the U.S.. It is said not only by Objectivist scholar's but by all sorts of intellectuals, that "the U.S. will go down and if the U.S. goes down, the world will go down with it". I'm sceptical of this view, if I try to apply DIM to the whole thing: So the U.S. is undergoing a modal changeover from it's fastly approaching D2 towards an M2 which - when it happens - is to appear almost instantly without any warning to the dim-witted so to speak (with "dim" in this context standing for the vast portion of society that follows and drives the current DIM-trend according to Peikoff). The M2-flavour the U.S. would take is Christian fundamentalism, since such a movement is already part of its culture, ready to replace the expiring D2 culture. Since this flavour of M2 is fully other-wordly-oriented, with total indifference to life on earth, it would lead to the U.S. becoming a third world country with a medieval state of technology. Europe, too, has reached the end of the D2 road according to Peikoff. Since it has no M2 culture of its own, its desperation for answers must come through an open immigration policy that invites a foreign takeover. This is currently happening through Islamic immigrants, who will then create a Muslim empire in Europe. Again: Other-wordly orientation of an M2-flavour. So again, the consequence: A medieval state of technology. So that's both the U.S. and Europe sinking to an other-worldy, mystical M2 culture, i.e. the lowest possible level of technological development and ultimately of military power possible. In other words: The future influence on world politics by these two regions would be reduced to zero. Since this flavour of M2 is hence the most impotent possible in world politics, it is so easily outmatched by even a secular M2 country (just as the Soviet Union outmatched Iran or Afghanistan), since secularism at least implies an INTEREST in technology, the creation of SOMETHING in reality, on EARTH. This is the minimum required to outmatch both the U.S. and Europe. The next stronger player would be some form of a D1/D2 country that hasn't gone down its road so far yet: As we see, comparing post-WW2 European D1 culture outmatching the former Soviet Union, and even comparing today's D2 culture to the Ex-Soviet Union, there seems to be a certain flexibility about the D mode that still allows it to have some prosperity-advantage over M2. The strongest player would of course be an I country, which is not to be expected in the future world at all. So my question is: What will the world look like politically, if the modal changeover has happened in the West in about 20 years? What countries will dominate the world, i.e. which of the many (probably all miserable) countries would it still be best to live in from a technological standpoint (standard of living)? I am particularly thinking about the following: Will Russia await a fate different than that of Europe? I have been highly surprised to discover that the share of the Muslim population in Russia is not the lowest, but the HIGHEST in greater Europe, inspite of Russia's antireligious past. But what seems to be different is the status of Russia's culture. The country is keeping a secular M2-president in power, if you believe Peikoff. With the majority in Russia being non-muslim, this must mean the country must already have a strong M2-culture of its own. Be it driven by a nostalgia for old Mother Russia or by a newly discovered self as a sleeping giant - never really crushed and conquered in WW2 or even by the Soviet Union's fall, i.e. still maintaining something allegedly great about itself to believe in. I should expect it to resist any Muslim-takeover, since it has no void to be filled up. So Russia = Candidate number 1 for a new center of the world? The Chinese story, on the other hand, seems quite mystical to me. I really have no idea what they're up to. Surely, their current strategy of imitating the U.S. as a model will collapse. Will they keep the good things they have learned from the U.S., is there such a movement? Or will they turn inwards again, sinking into some Buddhist form of M2, paralizing itself just like the U.S.? Or are they not most likely to join Russia in their thinking? What about South America, is it possible that there is a strong Evangelical presence there spread through the U.S.? Will South America become like the U.S. or are there other M2 movements in the region? Is there any current D1/D2 country that is significantly slower than the U.S. and Europe in its D process, so they can be around much longer? Maybe the most free ones like Canada, Australia and New Zealand? How about India? How would one classify the current state of Sub-Saharan African countries like Nigeria or South Africa? Is there any modal changeover to be expected on the basis of the U.S. downfall, and if yes, into what direction? I am sorry for bombarding you with questions, just linking out loud a bit. But what do you think?

Hey guys, thanks for your replies. I'm sorry for not having answered earlier, but after looking more closely at the practical situation in Russia and having better identified some core criteria by which to evaluate the legitimacy of a country, it seems to me that - given Russia's absence of free speech - Ukraine has a stronger legitimacy - at least for the time being. I say for the time being, because, looking at things like these (start - if you like at the 19th/20th minute) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbDn-srzGIA make me rather skeptical about Ukraine's status in the future. Given - again - the fact that such activities or movements as in the video would be dealt with completely differently in Western Europe, the fact that there isn't more resistance against it in the Ukraine , I find it hard to classify Ukraine as "good" in a way that equals any Western European country. Now I'm not saying that the woman in the video is right about her conspiracist views about the situation - after all this LPAC organisation that published the video is full of unprovable conspiracies and completely wrong with its socialist agenda - but there seems to be some truth to the impact or potential of the fascist element in the Ukraine. But - as for my question, as I have said - the Ukrainian state still has more legitimacy than Russia, hence a Russian takeover of Crimea was illegitimate.

I don't understand the whole way the Western press is treating the issue. What makes the political system of Russia worse than a system that is envisioned for Ukraine by the current regime of Ukraine with its Nazi-like elements? Those are parties of the kind that would cause riots in the streets and a furious demand for immediate abolition in any Western European country if they were to take over, but yet the EU has the hipocrisy of supporting that government? Don't the Russians of Crimea have a right to secede if the Ukranian government is aimed at discriminating against them? Surely state sovereignty isn't an argument, it all depends on which government protects individual rights better, independent of what its citizens think.

I think this answer by Peikoff is strongly related: http://www.peikoff.com/tag/sex/page/59/#list Not being an explicit Objectivist, but an occasional listener/reader, I am not sure how to interpret that answer. Personally, I would say it depends on the individual what value physical beauty utlimately has. First of all, I don't know whether "can" in that podcast question really means "can" or whether it is supposed to mean "should". But from what I have read, Objectivists seem to hold the view that you really have no choice about the fact that you are expressing your appreciation of fundamental and concrete values that you see in another person's mind when having sex. So I assume "can" really means "can" in that question. So the podcast question would translate to "can beauty be a fundamental value to a person"? I find it confusing though, how the word "mind" is often used in terms like "mindless" etc., not just by Objectivists. I don't think I have ever met a mindless person. The very fact that a human being is conscious of his own existence and conscious of the fact that among the things he has are concrete feelings of his own body already raises him above any animal. That's already a mind, with concrete sensual data at its base. It is another question, of course, how far his mind has developed to more abstract integrations. And it is ultimately also another question, what content or aspect of another person's mind in its concrete form is identical to one's own fundamental (and concrete) values. Secondly, I don't know whether Peikoff's answer is meant as a conclusive answer. After all, his answer begins with "I would say...", also stating that sex should be about fundamental values. So according to him, it seems to me, beauty cannot BE a fundamental value to a person. Why this should be so, I don't see, since beauty is something directly consumable and directly enjoyable in a degree according the individual's capacity. It is not like money, where you can actually only value the concrete things you can or want to BUY with it. So I have to assume his answer is not meant as a conclusive answer. But I agree, of course, that extremely bad attributes in other fields (like a person being a robber or a murderer etc.) can destroy the possibility to enjoy that value, as it can any fundamental value. However, I don't think such extreme negative attributes are assumed when talking about a person one does not know.

And do you think any of my suggestions for quantification at the bottom of my last post would help? But aren't you treating pain and suffering like axioms then? Only the Axioms are irreducible to something else, that's why only they are undefinable, only those facts can be referred to ostensively only. Every other thing should have a definition, shouldn't it? And by "validate" you mean "confirm"? Life is about running through the process of confirming the fact that you can either exist or not exist? So it's not about existence but about confirming your choice? How would I quantify THAT? By the degree to which I am looking at the two alternatives, thereby moving towards confirmation?

Thanks, David, I think I'll have to focus on the issure of what "life" means first, before going into the other questions: Hmm. You made me have a closer look at my starting point: Mine is that you should try to remain a part of existence for the biggest timespan, but I didn't quantify on anything like the "intensity of existence". I have never thought about how to do that. I would say that I exist as long as I have consciousness. So there's existence and non-existence, only these two discrete states, like 0 and 1, that I have been trying to distinguish. If you created a visual chart like the one of a computer signal, only taking into account the states of 0 and 1, you could then claim that it only matters how long the sequence of 1s turns out to be. This makes timespan the only way to quantify being alive. But it comes to my mind that there's actually something strange in my starting point: You could spend that life in suffering, I don't think it would be worth living to you then, but I can't prove it. It would be a sequence of 1s, since there's existence. I find it hard to argue rationally, why this life wouldn't be worth living then. Maybe it could help if I could define "suffering", define "pain". But how? And I feel that the answer to that will help with my other question: What does it mean to spend "81 years dying"? And what other ways to quantify being alive do you suggest? What makes you say that one exists "more" as what you are, a conscious being? Does it mean to bear bigger parts of existence in your consciousness? A bigger range of perception? More body mass so you can have more of yourself to perceive?

Hey, I'm a bit confused about the line of argument leading to the conclusion of "rights to life". I would agree that man should do EVERYTHING to make sure he can live as long as possible. This would be my starting point. Now I also understand that I need reason as a prime tool of survival and that I therefore need to make sure I protect my mind from any harm. And that I need to protect myself from those who try to excercise destructive force on me. But all this would, as a first idea, lead to the neccesity to join some protective group strong enough to protect me from such dangers. If you don't see that there is something like "natural rights", it would be proper for anyone to attack anyone outside his protective group in order to make his life possible. You basically need the obedience of all group members to the rule of not attacking group members, unless he has attacked another group member. In this case you would need the persistency of the group to punish or expell him from the group. You would thereby either be making sure that such internal attacks don't happen or decide to spare the efford to protect him. It would also be wisest to join big groups to get more protection. But obviously Rand claims to have a logical line of argument, leading to the conclusion that man has "natural rights", even if there is no agreement upon them. Rand's argument goes like "everyone needs others not to inflict physical force upon his mind or the things he created with it." So you have all human beings needing the same thing. But I don't see how this then goes the other way round. She thinks you can somehow continue from there and finally land at natural rights. Sure, you can say that it's useful to make an agreement that no one is to inflict physical force upon OTHER people's minds or the things THEY created with it, it is useful to make such an agreement in a group as mentioned above, since it would be in everybody's interest. And the group could at best comprise all of mankind, leaving no threat from other groups, which would be the most useful agreement. But all that doesn't make it a "natural right". It is just like a useful option that wise people will choose. And the next question is on the "initiation of physical force". The goal of retaliating against the initiation of force is to make such a thing distasteful, so it doesn't happen. The reason why an initiator of force creates harm for himself, even if he is never caught, is because of the chance of being punished that he is creating. But this chance could be relatively small in bad cases, so small it doesn't even need to matter to him. Therefore I find it also hard to say that there would neccesarily be a disadvantage for him. Comments on this are appreciated, but my main question centers on the "innocent lives" aspect: Remember, it is in your best interest, at all times, to do whatever is neccesary to make your life possible for the longest timespan foreseeable. This is the basic rule and it contains your basic guide to action. Retaliation can be a neccesary action, but if it would include harming innocent lives, how can you deny that you are initiating physical force against them? The standard argument is that the moral responsibility lies upon the original initiator. But what is initiation of physical force then? I had understood it to be an attempt of action, by choice, that involves inflicting force upon innocents. Isn't that what you are doing in the case of creating innocent casualties? You are confronted with a choice. And whatever your main intention is, you are retaliating, knowing that innocents would be harmed at the same time. You are implicitly performing two actions at once, since one cannot identify an action merely by its intention: Even if you are using a factory with the intention of production, your action is at the same time called "pollution" if you're polluting foreign property. I don't see how the other aspect of your action, i.e. the causing of collateral damage, simply goes "away" or doesn't "count", since it is still an action by choice, not a reflex of your body or something. Well if you're to loose your legal right to live because of retaliating with collateral damage, you would have to run away after that and live like an animal without rights. Retaliation with collateral damage would then be proper for you to do only because an animal's life is better than no life at all. I feel that something is wrong with that theory, but I can only point to impracticality as its "error". I would like to have the grounds set before discovering such dilemmas and be able to deduct that such retaliation doesn't bare the aspect of initiating force on innocents. It looks to me like "initiation of physical force against others" should be more properly defined as "initiation of physical force against others without the aspect of retaliating against an initiator of physical force. But then we have a circular definition, which doesn't lead us anywhere. How would you then define it?