StrictlyLogical

AS: Stealing presupposes "theft". What are the fundamental differences between the concepts: "theft" and "gift" and "neither theft nor gift" with regard to the physical taking or receiving of something? If someone came up to you and threatened you with a gun that you had to give her your wallet "or else", and if you proceeded to hand her the wallet... was that theft, gift, or neither and why? Would it matter if you were an altruist in general?

Selectivity can create almost any impression. For example, with a little music, narration, and a some intelligent cutting, you'd swear you would get to watch a happy movie if you went to see [The] Shining:

You need to subtract a great many from that number... but those are easy to identify given their public statements.

Eiuol: As a moderator of an Objectivist forum, who presents himself as knowledgeable of such things as Objectivist Metaphysics, and who presents his ideas and analyses of other people's ideas as authoritative, your contribution will go a long way toward clarifying or obstructing curious persons truly desirous of understanding Ayn Rand's Philosophy of Objectivism. For me, her philosophy means too much, so I wish the owners and administrators of this forum, and the hapless novices of Objectivism who will be graced by your toutlage the very best of much needed fortune. StrictlyLogical

One mark of intelligence is knowing what you know (and why) when you know it, and also knowing when and that you do not know something when you don't. When there is gap in knowledge you fill it. If you identify a lack of such recognition or caution in the face of such a lack as "ambition" your concept of what ambition is is far from what I understand it to be. Moral ambitiousness like intellectual ambitiousness is about reaching for and not shying from the best one can be, and as such it is an unswerving devotion to correctness.. not obliviousness nor recklessness toward it.

I'm not sure why you are reacting so strongly. Perhaps you feel a strong need to rush to defend anything stated by a "Kitten". This is not normal for you. Your overreaction although odd, is also erroneous. The statement that a paper stands as a rejection of certain ideas rather than application of them is not contempt. It is an assessment of the relationship of the substance of that paper to those ideas. You may disagree and/or wish to submit counter evidence or counter arguments. Attacking such an assessment as contempt while ignoring its veracity or plausibility is practically ad hominem, below the level I expect from you, and not at all illuminating of the issues at hand. I suggest you try not to act differently when it comes to cats.

The document stands more as a rejection of Objectivism than an application of it.

Thank you! My stumbling block was always hearing "Oh living ... Xxxx ... A feeling of pride". Now I can hear "No living ... Without it... A feeling of pride" Thank you!

Problem is, those words don't make sense ...

Can anyone make out the lyrics just after "living" at 55:55 and just before "a feeling of pride" at 56:00? BTW: I highly recommend a full viewing!

I agree with Plasmatic on this regarding the universe at large or any collection including insufficiently interacting entities. In specific contexts some systems of existents will form "wholes" with properties emerging from their configuration, arrangement etc., an rubber ball, a brain, a molecule. In this respect Eiuol's example of an atom is correct, but wholeness does not apply to existents which do not interact in such a cohesive manner. My nose, the base of the empire state building, and the moons of Mars, do NOT form a metaphysical whole, in any sense. Even conceptually they are merely a disparate, random, unrelated juxtaposition...

I'm awaiting your discovery, what you have to say, eagerly. I'll try not to interrupt your progress but it is a very important subject and I can hardly wait to find out what your final conclusion is.

SK Care to tell us what your journey into the universe of your own making has revealed to you? Any profound transcendental epiphanies from beyond or within? Now, having come in contact with what we mere mortals dare not speak of, can you pronounce to us once and for all that indeed all things are made of some nothing?

It can be, but sometimes not. Imagine a master and a slave off fighting off an invading horde. The slave (if he is broken) fights from two motivations, 1) to preserve himself, and 2) to protect his master to whom he is loyal, devoted, obedient and dutiful. Imagine a man and his wife fighting off an invading horde. The man fights off the horde to protect his life and to protect his most important value, to his life, his wife. A man fighting off an enemy for himself and his "fellows" could be in either of the above frames of mind... and possibly a mixture... possibly including many other kinds of frames of mind, e.g. does the man fight partly out of a sense of "duty" as such... without any real sense his fellows are really a value to him? Not clear cut, depends on the person.

Justice by what standard? Were not the Holy Wars just in the eyes of those who launched them? Was not Communism just to those who killed for it and imposed it upon others? Were not all the lynchings and genocides throughout history not perpetrated by those who though they were dispensing justice? What significance -really- should be given, in face of WHAT a purported hero is portrayed as doing, to the mere fact that that purported hero is portrayed as doing what he or she does out of a sense of justice? Differentiating between a hero sacrificing herself FOR the sake of others' very lives and a hero sacrificing herself FOR the sake of only ensuring others are not denied justice... is a perplexing distinction (in my humble opinion) of little significance.

Er. ... people ARE persuaded by "art" (I'm including TV....) How many popular heroes do you know of are NOT heroic because of self-sacrifice? How many heroes are portrayed as heroic in the act of self-preservation? How many Heroes have a climatic moment of self-preservation or accomplishment versus one of reckless endangerment for the "good of the many"? I'm not so sure about your thesis... In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is because of popular art (TV, novels, movies) that people generally ONLY conceive of the hero as one who sacrifices himself to a higher purpose, a greater good, or the greatest number...

PM Perhaps a clearer definition of what you mean by "material" or what you mean by "immaterial" would be helpful. Certainly, as you know, Objectivism rejects the supernatural, hence, whatever "immaterial" you are speaking of, it must be natural, possess identity and behave according to causality etc. You also know that Rand speaks of "life" going out of existence. Literally disappearing when a living organism dies, whereas the matter remains. These may be clues to what you could consider material versus "something else". If you take a person and squish him with a car crusher, you do not have consciousness, nor life, but you do have material. If you consider there not to have been any loss of "material" by virtue of the squishing, i.e. the material that remains is the same material (at least in terms of amount - no more and no less) that was there before, then something other than mere amount of material was operative/present. This leads to the question whether or not you take arrangement, processes, function, etc. of material, to be "immaterial" i.e. are the properties, relationships, attributes, functioning which arise from the collective arrangement of a complex collection of material "immaterial" or are they aspects of the collective material which disappear when the arrangements are destroyed. A car also in a real sense is different in form, arrangement, capacity to function, after it is squished, but its material (in terms of quantity) remains the same, albeit rearranged. Rand held that matter changes forms but does not go out of existence, as does life when a living thing dies. The same obviously goes for consciousness. Although I am unsure that she ever stated this explicitly, the idea that somehow life and equally consciousness are due to the form of the matter is implicit in (or at least consistent with if not logically necessitated by) her claim that death is at once an example of matter merely changing form, and of life going out of existence.

SK, Bon voyage on your flights of fancy and adventures in fantasy, for where you go, I cannot follow. SL

Eiuol: To avoid inevitable confusion, maybe you could start a new thread under "Mathematics", while the discussion here continues to focus on objects in reality. SL

No. Culturally, philosophically, ethically society at large is still currently in the dark ages. This has momentum which leads can lead to socialism, communism, dictatorship which you no doubt speak of. If an Objectivist society were ever formed, it would have been possible only because of an objectivist culture, based on an objectivist philosophy and ethics. Because such is based on rationality and the choice to live, such is self-reinforcing. ONCE a person knows being a parasite is wrong, altruism is evil, life is the standard and men have individual rights, only a small number of insane criminals would reject it. By the time an Objectivist society is formed Man WILL know better, and will never look back.

SK: At this point I think it would be most useful to understand what your motivation is re. your presentation. Do you want to figure out why the conclusions are wrong? i.e. which premises definitions etc. are flawed? Do you want to feel more confident that the conclusions are true? Secondly, you must understand that Objectivism is quite different from other philosophies and academic "frameworks". From your arguments I get the impression that you do not quite yet know what Objectivism is all about, and hence where we are coming from in our comments, i.e. Your level of surprise would be much less, if not eliminated if you understood Objectivist epistemology. I'm NOT telling you to "go away" and read OPAR and ITOE but I am encouraging you to read them while exploring ideas on the forum... it will provide you with many insights. Back to substance. You seem to be of the view that a discussion of objects (i.e. REALITY) can somehow be arbitrarily carried out, using any definitions and formalisms of our choosing. According to Objectivism this is not the case, not for anyone, and not where reality is concerned. I will not go into an explanation of Objectivist metaphysics and epistemology but I will address a few particular areas: 1. Substances and Objects - if they are to mean anything objective these words must stand for valid concepts, concepts to be valid must be ultimately based on perceptual data. Although "object" in its common usage is a valid concept, we have no evidence that "substance" (in the form you are attempting to use it) is a valid concept. Why should it be surprising that when an arbitrary concept, not derived from sense data of REALITY, is used in an argument, it ends up contributing to the generation of an absurd conclusion? Seriously why would it be surprising? 2. Your "Nothing" (object-language) - Again, if we constrain ourselves to speaking of reality, (rather than fiction, imagination, mathematical games, which are not constrained by reality) then your attempt at formulating the concept "nothing" cannot be an arbitrary concept or formalism without any regard to reality. Although you argue for its validity your explicit definition of it and the implications in your statements reveal it to be invalid This is a complete fiction. If we are talking about metaphysics (not imagination), your "nothing" object uses the concept "object" while at the same time invalidating the concept "object" upon which it is based. This is the "stolen concept" fallacy. What "object" means, is something observable in reality, a table, an ant, a dog, a rock. An object IS a something. To arbitrarily claim a "pxcgfh" is an object BUT that it is not a something, logically relies upon an attempt to (re)define "object" and what it means. Such redefinition, unless attended to with care, leads to destruction of the lower ("object") concept's cognitive usefulness, ties to reality, i.e. its validity (which is what happens here). (see the "stolen concept fallacy" online) You define the nothing as an object while simultaneously destroying what the concept "object" means. If you do this sort of thing unchecked you end up totally detached from reality, essentially playing with a set of imaginary fictitious ideas which all depend upon one another, perhaps fitting beautifully together and stating something wonderful about a reality which exists ONLY in your mind. THAT is NOT philosophy (according to Objectivism) it is fantasy. What do you get when you take an object and remove all of its constituents? You do not get an object of ANY kind. In fact, what does it even mean to "remove ALL" of an objects constituents. presumably while "refraining" from removing the object itself? Take an M&M house sitting on a table for example, if you remove all of the M&Ms, you have also necessarily removed the house. There is NO object left behind. There is no object to point to and designate as your "object-language" thing (which you would have labeled as the "nothing"), no object what-so-ever. Compare this to what you had before the M&M house was ever build on the table. With total disregard to the invalidity of distinguishing between the concepts I will indulge in using your so called "meta-language" nothing and your "object-language" nothing, assuming for the nonce there is some distinction to be made. Prior to buying the M&Ms, above your table there was "nothing" (meta-language) i.e. "no thing", an absence. After we removed the M&Ms from the house you (impliedly) claim there is a "nothing" object left on the table. If we look metaphysically at reality, what is the difference between this empty table before and after the M&M house was assembled and respectively removed? Can you identify any difference in reality (other than points in time, past or future)? No, you cannot. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO difference whatever in reality. If there is no difference, what then is the status of the "object-language" "nothing" as distinguished from the "meta-language" nothing? In reality, it is a superfluous imaginary term having no referent in reality, adding nothing to understanding or cognition of reality: it is therefor invalid. Once again, objects ARE somethings, they have properties/attributes, identity. There are no objects without identity, without properties or attributes. To claim such an object, a "nothing" (object-language) object IS, is an attempt to claim an OBJECT LACKING EXISTENCE somehow metaphysically exists. THIS is insanity, according to Objectivism. In a discussion of reality, this is jibberish. If you have created some arbitrary mathematical framework, with operators, definitions, rules of operation etc., that sort of game is perfectly fine. Define your nothings and some things and not non-things any way you want... play with null pointers and empty sets, etc. but don't pretend to speak of existence or reality. All "things" in reality qualify as a "something" because "something" MEANS "some thing". To claim there are "things" that are not "something" is to try to (re)define "thing" or "something" to the point of invalidity of one or both concepts. You are attempting to claim: "THIS thing is not 'A thing' because 'a thing' is 'some thing', but THIS thing is not a something." which is an EXPLICIT contradiction -> "THIS thing is not a thing" Over and above this contradiction, one can see that here specifically again you are attempting to rely upon a purported difference in reality between "nothing" and the "object" you call "nothing". In fact, as discussed above, such a difference does not exist, and your "object", the "nothing" object does not exist in reality. IF you have ANY evidence whatever (based on perceptual data of reality) which tends to show the existence of your "nothing" object in reality then please provide it. It would serve at least as some basis for anyone to entertain the idea of the "nothing" object and serve as at least as some finite amount of validity for the concept. In the absence of ANY evidence whatever for the existence of the "nothing" object, according to Objectivism such a claim would be arbitrary, and must be dismissed outright.

SK Further to your response, please know that "Reductio ad absurdum" is a perfectly valid way to show a set of premises and definitions is flawed, or to show a particular definition or premise is in error-> when an absurd contradictory conclusion is reached then something in the premises, definitions, or arguments must be wrong. IF this is the sort of exercise your OP was meant to engage in, then a close examination of the premises, definitions, and the logic used is crucial to the Reductio's being able to serve as a useful illustration of WHAT the errors ARE which led to the contradiction. You must also understand that any "attack" on an argument, a premise, a definition is NOT an attack on you personally. We (or at least I) do not care that YOU made any particular error, but when an error is stated and leads to an absurd conclusion or erroneous assertion I have every motivation to reveal the flaws leading to that. Rather than to let some odd mystical statement like "things are partly made of nothing" dangle out there as if it were a thought that had any merit, I prefer to show why it is nonsense. As for your being selfish, I encourage and applaud it, it is imminently moral, but be sure to remember that rationality is its greatest ally. IF you would like to set down some "ground rules" about how would prefer us (or me) to analyze your "premise-definition-conclusion" OPs, please relay that information in the OP. We (or I) don't want to be too tough on you. I will address your arguments in another post. Sincerely SL

I note from your premises and definitions, either you are confused between reality and concepts or you are attempting to confuse other people. Problematical use of "defined" and "in" Entities in reality are not "defined", they exist. Definitions are mental contents. An object is not metaphysically "defined" by anything, it simply IS what it is. The distinction between objects and substances is arbitrary here in premise 1, because all things simply ARE what they are. Compound objects which are groups of objects arranged in certain ways are simply groups of objects arranged in certain ways. A house made out of M&Ms is not a house + a bunch of M&Ms it simply is a house OF M&Ms, or a group of M&Ms in the configuration of a house. There is not some metaphysical schism of some things making another thing, it is ONE WHOLE THING, which is a group of things which happen to be M&Ms in a particular configuration of a house. Moreover, existents in reality are not containers as such. The M&Ms are not "in" the house, they CONSTITUTE the house itself, they are not contained BY it. Groups of things surely can contain OTHER things (physically according to a definition of how the things are spatially related), as a bucket contains water, but a thing does not contain itself nor any part of itself, because a thing IS itself. You are attempting to use of the term "container" in its conceptually hierarchical sense (or possibly stolen from the concept of geometric shape), but you are attempting to attribute that to metaphysics and the thing itself. This is an error. An entire egg IS an egg. An eggshell contains (physically) the white and the yolk. The egg does not contain the yolk, the egg IS the yolk the white and the shell. The concept egg, includes the yolk, and mentally one can look at the "shape" or "outer extremity" of an egg and say the geometrical volume occupied by the entire egg, contains all of the egg including the yolk. Neither the concept nor the shape, however, IS the metaphysical egg itself. This is problematical as above re "in", it also confuses reality with concepts. Here you are referring to "one" and "another" and that the "two" are the "same" as if you were introducing statements about reality, but they cannot be statements about reality because they are contradictory. This is bunch of fumbling nonsense. You are trying to say essentially "Suppose there exists one thing and a different thing, if they are really the identical same thing, they are not two things but one thing, and are not one thing and a different thing." This contains a contradiction which means that part of it is not a statement about things in reality (no contradictions in reality) but is a statement about an error of knowledge. "Suppose I first thought there existed one thing and a different thing, but then found out they are actually one thing, then I was wrong thinking there was one thing and a different thing" This is a fundamentally useless statement. 1. Nothing preceding Definition3 leads to an infinite regress. Your arbitrary premise 1, that objects are made of objects or substances logically leads ONLY to the conclusion that (whatever substances are) objects ultimately are made of substances. Again, here there is confusion between metaphysics and epistemology: entities in reality are not "defined", they exist. Definitions are mental contents. Again, entities in reality are not "containers" of themselves or containers of any portion of themselves, they ARE themselves. Note also, you have a completely empty definition (assuming it was sensible) for substance, it is defined as a negation and only in terms of itself... Such is not a definition of anything... "ishdatriddle is defined as that which is not defined by anything else except itself" is not a definition, it is a loose set of constraints FOR a definition which HAS NOT BEEN supplied. In a sense your definition of "substance" has defined nothing... (to avoid confusion, technically, it has not defined anything) which although ironic, is not of any substance for your chain of "logic". This, renders Definition 4, and anything which depends upon it, invalid. "Nothing is the object which" is a contradiction. The word "nothing" does not refer to any metaphysical object or entity. Trying to redefine the word "nothing" to refer to "something" is foul-play even in a silly word game; it is the exemplar of trying to define "A" as "non-A". Definition X: Dog means a non-dog... This attempt invalidates the sentence, the definition, destroys any possible meaning for the "word" being (re)defined. The word "nothing" is used to designate absence, in the context, of an existing thing, which would qualify as satisfying the requirements of the sentence. "Nothing in that box is red", means, of all the things that exist, there is no thing, which is both in that box, and is also red. "Nothing is longer than itself", means, of all the things that exist, there is no thing, which has a length which is longer than its length. "Nothing, other than air and lint, is in my pocket", means, of all the things that exist, there is no thing, other than air and lint, which is within my pocket. Simply put, here you have tried to (re) define nothing as a something, which is as successful as trying to define a contradiction; it is invalid. As shown above, the premises are flawed and thus the conclusions invalid. The errors are too numerous to correct, and I have no suggestion for what kind of conclusion you could hope to reach using anything similar to this line of "logic"...

In the recently published "A Companion to Ayn Rand", in chapter 12, Gregory Salmieri takes on the task, and successfully so, of exploring and summarizing (with clarity and accuracy) Rand's Objectivist Epistemology. At page 293 Dr. Salmieri discusses "Rand's rule of fundamentality" and her concept of "essential characteristics" and the related concept of an existent's "kind": "The "essential characteristic" is the one "without which the units would not be the kind of existents they are" (42). Rand reinterprets this traditional Aristotelian idea in light of her view that concepts are objective rather than intrinsic. If kinds are not intrinsic features of reality, but objective products of human cognition, then the status of an existent as a member of a kind (i.e., as a unit of a concept) is not intrinsic but objective, and so there cannot be any characteristic of the units that, wholly independent of the mind and its needs, makes them members of the kind. Essences in Rand's view are epistemological rather than metaphysical. A person properly forms a concept that classifies the existents into a kind when he has observed that they are similar to one another. This initially observed similarity will typically be complex: it will include many related respects in which the units are like one another as opposed to other things..."[Emphases in Bold Added] This is just an example of the high quality, clarity, and accuracy of the work of its many contributors, and I encourage anyone interested in an academic treatment of Objectivism, Ayn Rand, and her ideas and works, to buy the book, and learn from its wealth of scholarship.

You fumbling speaks for itself. Re-creating instructions, a manuscript, patterns of ink, is not re-creation of an idea, it is recreation of a communication which explains the idea, not re-creation of an idea. Your example of forgetting an idea and in an independent exercise of creation, creating the same idea in your mind is not recreation of an idea from that idea. I note: 1. It is a "provident" coincidence that the exact same idea is the product of your second act of idea creation absent any causation by the original idea ever having been in your mind. 2. It is "convenient" (to your example if not the person wanting to come up with the idea) that you have irrevocably lost the original idea in your mind, and that you would not be able to recollect it after thinking about it. In reality a person after having had an idea in their mind would likely recall it after thinking about it and trying to remember it. 3. If the idea was not your originally, you could be reminded of the idea by exposure to the media or persons who exposed it to you originally. Here, however, the idea is the same idea not a new one and not a duplicate, you merely gain knowledge of the idea. Assuming for a moment that the original idea we are speaking of was created by someone else and you wish to exercise your "right to duplicate", your hypotheticals do not serve as examples of duplication or re-creation of an idea from an original idea, your fumbling points to: 1. recollection of the idea already possessed but forgotten (this is causally linked to the original) 2. independent coincidental creation of the idea (this is not causally linked to the original, and is an example of independent creation of an idea not duplication) 3. gaining knowledge of an idea (after irretrievably forgotten or never having been known to a particular person) (this is causally linked to the existence of the original idea) None of these is re-creation or duplication of an idea from the idea. There are creators of ideas and receivers of ideas, no re-creators of ideas. So far all you have been able to show is 1. "Stuff" can be duplicated or recreated I will add the following conclusions [which I have always held and patiently hoped you would discover and arrive at]: 2. ideas cannot be re-created of duplicated, they are only created 3. independent creation of the same idea is possible absent any causative link between the two i.e when the creation of one idea is not causally linked to the independent creation of the same idea