StrictlyLogical

Antitrust laws are simply wrong. Employers trying to gain collective bargaining power by voluntarily associating with each other is as perfectly permissible in a free society as employees trying to gain collective bargaining power by voluntarily associating with each other. The actual effect of taking this route rather than direct and open trade needs to be evaluated in context. Certainly the best employees will be gotten by offering the best remuneration/packages, and the best employers will be gotten by offering the best services/performance, which, I submit is less hampered by avoiding being bound by rules of a group or association. In any relationship, trust and openness has its costs and benefits. Self-interest requires judicious understanding of how the presence or lack thereof affects the relationship and hence the potential benefits. Companies or employees who get a reputation for hiding things... well they don't win in the employee-employer market as against those with good reputations.

You imply "asserting a whale is a large fish" has the capability of being "false" or "true"... how can this be (or any falsity or truth for that matter) if there are no absolutes?

I think Robert's answer covers it. "Forgiveness" is in a sense something given to the person who was the "perpetrator" of the act in question. Specifically it is the reestablishment of voluntary dealings at a certain level of trust, friendliness etc. The question is what is given in exchange for the "forgiveness", I may be restating Robert but think it comes to 3 things: 1. Recognition of the error/immorality including, taking the conceptual "blame", understanding why it was "wrong". 2. Offering restitution or compensation for the wrong in a rationally measured manner, thereby taking responsibility in action. 3. Undertaking not to commit the same error or wrong in the future, i.e. showing a change of character and thus showing there is no further threat to the self-interest of the "victim". Depending upon the context of the action taken, the "level" of these three may vary and hence so varies the overall "price" for forgiveness. In the end these can only ever be indications of facts of reality which the "forgiver" must judge are such that forgiveness, reestablishment of a relationship, is in the forgiver's self interest.

It's sad we even have to discuss things in reference to terms such as "absolutes" ... in a proper philosophic/scientific culture it adds nothing to a rational conception of reality. At best it serves only to distinguish between delusion/imagination/insanity on the one hand and perception/cognition/identification on the other hand. The answer to "nothing is absolute" is "Things are" or "It is".

You raise an interesting point. What is conveyed in a work and how it is conveyed are some considerations one makes when assessing whether a work is properly termed art. I think by and large, the general medium or the general manner by which art is expressed is not in and of itself determinative of the answer, e.g. plays, sculpture, paintings, and literature can be art. Form, color, texture, repetition, allusion, allegory, symbolism, etc. and countless other techniques are used in various art media to support and present the whole of the work for contemplation by a viewer/participant. An interactive technique, for sure can be used to trigger individual artistic sequences, cause scenes, music, pictures to occur and string them together, but this perhaps would not constitute "interactivity" as such being used as a material of the art form. That said, it is very possible that an artist could use interactivity, use choices of the "participant" of the art, in such a manner that the interplay between the two, the actions of the participant and the responses of the work, present "choice forms" or "interaction patterns" which somehow per se are forms which serve as vehicles of artistic expression of the work. Not sure this has been developed as of yet...

Patents (IP) do not exclude persons from conceptualization, or from speaking. Concepts per se cannot and are not the subject of intellectual property rights. Thinking, feeling, imagining, conceptualizing, as such never were and simply are not part of the discussion of IP. You are getting way off track here.

Does not Hume miss the concept that things ARE, WHAT they ARE? I mean does not his assertion attacking induction (paraphrasing) "that things having been a certain way up to now is in no way determinative of what things will be tomorrow" amount to an "arbitrary" statement. Essentially he is arguing it is "possible" things in general are unpredictable or random i.e. "natureless", in the absence of any evidence (and in fact in the presence of evidence to the contrary). His attack rests on an arbitrary statement having no positive support in the face of facts showing that things HAVE natures and are tomorrow what they are today unless something causes them to change (I know... he denies causation too...) So Hume, far from launching an actual reputable attack on induction, has simply stated the arbitrary while ignoring all that conceptual knowledge (based on reality) tells us ... in particular: A is A.

I believe I've heard Peikoff also stating that it is misguided to try to "prove" logic. In this case logic, the means by which you arrive at proof, is what you need to presuppose I.e. rely on in order to carry out the proof... but that is precisely what you are trying to prove. It is not so much a hopeless exercise as it is simply misguided. IF you tried to prove logic is valid using logic then you would be engaging in circular reasoning. The Objectivist view of it (as explained by Plasmatic above) allows one to completely avoid forming the "circle" in the first place. The answer to Rationalism's hamster wheel... is never to get on/in it.

This irreducible fact is also rationally undeniable. Over time acceptance and full integration of this fact makes the string of words seem less and less necessary or "knowledgeful". Are we actually saying anything informative to a rational/sane person when we say "existence exists"... am I adding to any rational/sane person's knowledge by stating this to him? Certainly I understand its corrective quality with an irrational or perhaps an insane person who believes "something" else (if that is possible), but I kind of get why the author of the original post raised the issue. It's like the statement "Is is" PS: I think I may prefer Plasmatic's formulation to any of the alternatives, it relates the metaphysical to the epistemological. ISness is an irreducible fact.

I think the following could form a rational basis/analysis for the question of "shunning" another party in an economic context for a non-related (not to the service or goods of the economic context) behavior or policy of the other party: 1. What is the disvalue to me of the other party engaging in the behavior or policy, i.e. similarly what would the value of the other party ceasing the behavior or ending the policy be to me 2. What are the closest alternatives to the economic context I am boycotting and what is the difference i.e. this is the economic cost incurred by choosing to boycott versus not boycotting. eg. higher prices, worse service, slightly inferior goods, etc. 3. What are the anticipated concrete effects of my shunning, i.e. will it affect the other party and how, also will third parties seeing my act of shunning react in any way or possibly in a similar way. essentially will my shunning actually affect the non-related behavior or policy of the other party. 4. Does the act of continuing to deal with the other party actually contribute to, enable, or cause the non-related behavior or policy which I wish to be ended? I am sure there are more, but these are some rational concrete examples.

Can someone sum up meaningful distinctions between: Existence exists. Existents exist. All existents exist. Every existent exists. The sum of all existents exists. The realm of existence exists. The realm of existents exists. The realm of all existents exists. and is the first one the best and most accurate statement?

howardofski "Property" is not an intrinsic attribute of something. First look to what "rights" are (keeping in mind its foundation in ethics), and then more specifically look at what "property rights" are, i.e. on the basis of what principles do what specific, actions, contexts, etc. gives rise to an individual's rights (in a society) with respect to "something", i.e. an individual's "property rights" to that something, and what is the form and nature of those rights? Once that is clear then try to differentiate between the somethings that are physical and the somethings that are not, on the basis of essential fundamentals, with respect to the principles which are the reason for property rights, differentiate the specific actions and contexts.

howardofski What in your opinion is it about property rights regarding material things: land, objects etc. which makes it valid to use force to exclude others from acting freely in connection with them?

If both particular methods of peeling were already known, the alleged inventions would be deemed anticipated and therefore unpatentable by the DKPTO. If a specific method of peeling was not commonly known, Dixie or Diddy's method may be patentable, of course depending upon the correctness of the patent laws of DK i.e. all the other requirements for something to be patentable. This of course means that any unpatentable methods of peeling would remain options for anyone to exercise.

No one will indulge in a concrete discussion of what property rights arise in my example?

LoBagola Words in and of themselves do not elicit emotions generally primarily because a contextless word is nearly meaningless. "Anger" could mean your anger towards abuse of power or a child's anger towards a square peg not fitting in a round hole. Without the context you do not and cannot know whether to fume or to laugh. Statements however and conceptualization are not merely word play or games of the mind they are in reference to reality. Being a fully integrated and alive person means that your concepts and your thinking are not divorced from reality, they are connected to it, and more importantly to your own personal life. Concretization is an important part of chewing on any concept or idea or chain of thinking. If you get in the exercise of making it real (as to opposed to disconnected by way of some false dichotomy) your emotions and your intelligence will be more in synch and integrated. There is no abstract thought "If I get in a terrible accident and lose both arms" as apart from the concrete realization from b4lls to bone of what it would be like and how you would feel to experience that accident and also live the rest of your life. The mere "fact" of losing the arms is necessarily tied by causation to how it would affect you and to "think" about the fact while ignoring causal consequences, the real personal ones, is some kind of failure of integration and concretization. So if you have the inclination, try to indulge in fully concretizing ideas when you can.

howardovski Since a central question is whether, on principle, ideas can form the foundation of a property right in an Objectivist society, let's first validate property rights in a concrete context: You and your village live 10 miles from the lake, you find a coconut in the untamed unowned forest, hike to the lake and fill it with water, and journey back to the village. From the time you find the coconut to the time you go back to the village, at various times you place it on the ground next to you to do something else. sometimes it has water in it sometimes it does not. It's final resting place is on a table of a veranda of a popular and trusted member of the village. What is the status, to be given to the material object, the coconut and/or the water, as a property right during the process? And Why? Suppose someone were following you silently the entire time and at one point, when you put the coconut down he took it. Perhaps he took the whole thing, or perhaps he drank the water. Is this a violation of a property right? Is there a time when this would not be a violation of a property right? There are no contracts here... what is the principle by which you can say a right has arisen in regard to the material object and WHY? What is the principle which dictates property rights are created.... Is it simply because it is a material object?

Arbitrary would have been a better term to use in the context of mathematical abstraction. e.g. building an abstract class of function as follows For any member A1 in set X do dfghfj, for any member A2 in set X (and not A1) do skfhdhj, for any member A3 in set X (and not A1 and not A2) do gkjkrjk...

Be careful of disguising the idea of "intrinsic worth" with the words "objective worth". Value presupposes a valuer. Valuation is context specific. If you ask each person in a trade if they increased their own values, each would say "yes". There is nothing more to say about the issue. A socialist would of course disagree.

DA: "i.e., in order for there to be winners, there are necessarily losers." this is the "zero sum" error made by socialists. Don't fall into the traps of that false premise. When your neighbor sells you his iPhone for $300, it is because he values your $300 MORE than the iPhone. You gave him your $300 for the iPhone because you value the iPhone more than the $300. In the end you BOTH ended up with more value. A socialist would never see that... he'd just say .. "someone must have lost out on the deal" and it is because socialists are not traders, and inasmuch as they talk of a so called dog-eat-dog world, it is because IT IS THEY who think in those terms.

I think in some sense you can act on improper premises consistently because they are related to a wider system of knowledge/belief. You do not need to specifically address a mystical "the world is against me" feeling, only when you feel it. Thinking about reality, always being active in your assessment of your relationship to reality in general, and a commitment to rationality and your philosophy will have a wide effect on your "subconscious".... over time you will notice many of the isolated improper premises will have disappeared, or greatly weakened simply because they cannot occupy the same mind which in general rejects on principle anything like it. Trust that your active conscious activity eventually permeates your emotions, your feelings, your premises.. it does .. but it takes time.

Once you have much of the material under your belt you should definitely check out Understanding Objectivism by Leonard Peifoff. It describes some very good techniques for chewing, integrating, and very importantly keeping your concepts grounded in reality, connected to concretes. In the end although a tutor may help, really understanding Objectivism is not like learning something, its more like unlearning everything else... and discovering what you really knew all along... I know this is not clear. As an analogy, a tutor of Objectivism would function more like a Personal Trainer. He helps you work on what you need, but he cant "teach you your muscles", or tell "you your fitness", you have to do the work, the lifting and the running. It's like that with Objectivism, you have to independently think it through, independently do the chewing, independently do the integrating, the vigilant avoidance of rationalism, mysticism, empiricism, skepticism. In a very real sense, if one is simply "told" Objectivism, one may be able to "repeat" it. But in order to understand it and to live it... that is a completely different thing.... but YES I agree that a tutor could be very helpful!!

So there is nothing equivalent (in formal mathematics) to selecting arbitrarily one value of a range or a set ? What about a standard definition like this Let Xi be an element of [0,1] ("Be/is an element of" usually has the membership symbol which I do not know how to show here) If no mention is made of the particular Xi, is it simply arbitrary? I.e. we should not assume pattern or absence thereof, it simply is a element of the set which here is an interval.

The morality of an individual is never measured by things out of their control such as the actions of others. A person living in the context of an immoral society and immoral people still has the choice to live morally i.e. in his/her rational selfish interest or not. The constraints will change the nature of the particular actions taken but will not make a moral person behave immorally. I agree with you that it would be naïve to address "morality" from the view of absolute edicts wrt actions divorced from context. But that simply is not Objectivist morality. As an example of context, the moral action in a peaceful context is to keep your body intact, it serves you and self inflicted damage is not in your self-interest. Contrast this with the moral action in the context of the movie 128 hours - severing your own arm can be and is moral in that context. The same sort of thing applies in any context, morality is to be judged from the context, regardless of what it is. If a person is behaving immorally in a context he or she is to be adjudged accordingly.