TickledPink

"consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists." Rand "an entity of a specific nature [must be] made of specific attributes." Rand Consciousness substantiates existence, existence substantiates consciousness. There's a piece of circular reasoning for you. Our sensory organs are severely limited, I suspect, in their capacity to experience and catalog "reality". Since our "consciousness" is the intellectual internalization of said sensory organs and their experiences of "reality", and since specific attributes are conclusions we come to through imperfect investigation (faulty senses) there is little cause to suggest that we may infer the fixed existence of anything. There's an old programmer phrase that comes to mind, "Garbage in Garbage out". If you are being fed faulty information (having an imperfect understanding of sound, taste, touch, sight, etc) then by what means could you ever hope to be assured of a physical reality? Consider our experience of time! How unruly and imperfect are the senses we possess which supposedly mark its passage. Not even our machinations keep decent track of the stuff... look into those experiments concerning muon degeneration rates. This will hopefully humor most of you... The Buddha, supposedly, once spoke with a man who was blind, concerning the nature of reality. The blind man, in his inexperience with the world of sight, posited that only those types of reality which he experienced were true, that sight was mere delusion. He concluded that since he could not experience sight, it must not exist (this seems to follow rather closely with Rand's three axioms, and the notion of experiential reality). Not one to take any guff, especially from blind philosophers, the Buddha suddenly cure the blind man, restoring him to sight. By this act, the Buddha sufficiently explained that the man's error had been in presuming to know what was true, by what was felt. I digress... Ayn clearly states that she believes in an objective universe, where matter exists independently of identity, or "consciousness". But this can no more be proved, than might the existence of God. How can we escape consciousness to observe consciousness objectively? We cannot, or do not know, at least, that we can at this time. For all we know, our nursery rhymes might have been correct. Row row row your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily merrily merrily merrily, life is but... a dream.

Belated hello. As for Humility, let us consult the good doctor. “What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility." Albert Einstein

Actually, I'm saying that you have an emotional reaction, prior to any intellectual process. I didn't mean to suggest that you RESPOND verbally, to a stimulus, emotionally. I am not discussing whether man can control himself, in the sense that he can control himself in terms of a perceived reaction to a stimulus; but whether man can ever gain control of his biological or nature/nurture "reaction", which precedes the intercession of logic or the ego.

Neanderthals are known to have buried their dead, co-habitated with Homo-Sapien-Spaiens, and may very well have had, by extension, "deistic" leanings. Perhaps we picked the habit up from them, for that matter. Who is to say? I would venture to state that animistic practices are not necessarily "arbitrary", because they are based upon the seemingly natural observation that all objects, however infinitesimal, are (atomically) interrelated and possess some form of "life force", "spirit", or "energy". I am as reluctant to dismiss, off-offhandedly, that interpretation of reality as I am the optimistic existentialist's. I meant "rendering" in the sense that one renders a view of a person, say... onto a canvas when painting, as a portrait of what THEY see. There are many "portraits" or renderings of God therefore. There are as many interpretations of the possible divine as there are painters, in this horrid analogy, and as is the case with the abstract... often times what we render we have in fact "seen", though not in reality. Anytime you visualize something which does not exist in reality (such as in the case of Plato's theory of forms... ick) you are "rendering" something which is pure conjecture. I'm disappointed that in all of that, you elected to nit pick my use of the term render. Oh well, TickledPink

UNF is in Jacksonville. Unfortunately, we do not have an objectivist group of any flavor. I suspect that such discussion gives way to a healthy dose of fundamentalist Christianity. But hey, living in the trenches (the south) can be a lot of fun.

All the environmental conditions you listed are factors which you take into account when making your choice. They do not dictate your behaviours. I wouldn't dream of disagreeing with you, that we have some say over the internalization of our experiences; instead what I mean to propose is that we react prior to undergoing that internalization process. For instance... if someone screams at you, there is an emotional response which precedes any intellectual evaluation. Your blood pressure rises, your palms sweat, perhaps you scowl or elect to distance yourself from the contentious person. Quite right, that afterward you are free to examine the experience and draw your conclusions, but for that moment, the moment in which you experience said stimulus it seems unlikely to me that there is much avenue for self control. I guess what I am trying to work out here, is the biological influence on behavior. But I suppose, as I say this, there is something more to it. Have you ever had a verbal engagement with someone, perhaps they insulted you, and a few moments later you come up with a quick-witted bit that would have been just the perfect quip to throw in their teeth? I feel that our experience of stimulus is something along those lines. We are not ourselves, or at least not individuals until after the biological or nature/nurtured inspired response takes place.

Well, simply put: a feral child's inability to cultivate language has much to do with the way the human brain develops. Unless language is introduced at an early age, the brain will essentially atrophy, as with any other muscle. But! This does not simply apply to feral children, as this same "pruning" process if you will, is applicable to all human beings: as you mature physically your ability to learn language decreases drastically. I wouldn't dream of condescending animal communication, since I've no way of knowing the breadth or depth of what any particular animal might have to say; I will say that they are most likely incapable of communicating abstract thoughts however. This would be one manner in which we could distinguish the language of men from other animals. I suppose a succinct example of this might be, our own discussion. Perhaps the wolves have their equivalent of Objectivism, and are discussing it at length, though I highly doubt it. As my anthropology of linguistics professor once said, "If you tried to learn "language", you would invariably fail." I doubt that will translate very well, but there are a host of linguistics and psychological journals you're welcome to rifle through.

Okay. Much of your argument is contingent upon fallacious (culturally derived) conditions of existence. 1. We have no way of knowing whether or not the universe is a closed system; given the interjections of string theory, it is highly unlikely that the universe is a closed system. 2. As JMeganSnow pointed out, "They don't call it "space-time" for nothing." I might add to this, time is NOT constant (as Einstein proved) and is therefore very dissimilar in actuality to our cultural, or popular understanding of time: as a unit of measurement. If rulers were of varying length, or alternatively changed shaped due to environmental considerations (like speed), what meaning would the measurement of a "meter" have? 3. Keeping that last bit in mind, notions such as "beginning" and "end" are entirely contrived! They are fabricated, human, conventions which have no reconcilable place in nature (this is probably due to the historically social, human, experience of death). You yourself have agreed that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, and yet you insist upon a beginning and an ending (which is reflective I believe of your misunderstanding of time) of the universe? I feel as though you might be better served in your endeavor to understand cosmology, were you to understand time as an unreliable and fluid machination of the universe, rather than as a box into which it must uniformly and neatly fit. 4. The scientist in me balks at the severe limitations of our own sensory organs and their subsequent inability to interpret reality accurately. If you disagree with this premise, then I defy you to explain color blindness (or blindness for that matter), varying notions of hot and cold (which are relative), and most especially the relative experience of time. Enough with the numbers... Onto evolution! Evolution is, quite literally, adaptation over time. We refer to this process as selective pressure, because of the pressure an environment exhibits on an organism. Someone mentioned earlier the similarity in eyes, and how remarkably profound that statement is! But it doesn't stop with eyes... look at the basic skeletal structures of mammals (or other organisms for that matter). All spines, at least to my knowledge (including fish vertebrae), are sectional (which by the way enables an animal to flex... turn, which is why they are not singularly rigid) and appear in much the same arrangement, uniformly featuring an atlas which joins the spine to the skull. Look how many species have skeletons, period! Why would we all (at least mammals and reptiles) have similar skeletal structures were it not for our enduring similar selective pressures? Indeed... if there were a creator, what would preclude a greater, or more imaginative diversity, why the uniformity of purpose and function? I think this reflects a social habit we westerners are typically fond of; which is the tendency to perceive difference rather than similarity. Perhaps it is a biological function; nevertheless we often categorize objects based on presumed discrepancies, imposing distinctions where the natural environment has otherwise failed to. (The rain falls on the reptile and the avian alike!) I believe what frustrates the majority, when it comes to evolutionary theory, is again the troublesome notion of time. We're talking a loooooooooong time here. Billions of years in fact. Imagine how incredibly vast the universe is, and then consider that it took only 14 billion years, roughly. When you consider the fact that earth is 4.5 billion years old and that life began to evolve appx. 3.8 billion years ago, the notion of accounting for such a "diversity" of life on a single planet in regards to the diversity present in say our universe, is substantially less difficult to grasp, intellectually speaking. Furthermore, evolutionary theory is probably one of the more certain of modern science's claims. Merely look at the difference between heirloom corn, and that corn which is sold today in the local markets. That occurred only in the matter of a few decades! This is classic Mendel. My apologies for any sarcasms, or smartassedness. I truly hope this helps. TickledPink P.S. The Wrath, you are quite right... I should be ashamed of my Greek. In any event, while human renderings of "God" have often proven arbitrary, they do not through their absurdness refute the possibility of a creator's existence. I guess what I hoped to imply by my remark is that many who are Atheist, or who claim Atheism, do seem to project an air of certainty. While I agree with you so far as similarly not wishing to base my life upon "arbitrary" doctrines, I am somewhat reluctant to be assured of such an entity's non-existence.

Forgive me, I want to re-read some of your remarks and make a more considered response. I'll update this shortly.

Okay... so, being an Archaeologist, this lil' inquiry strikes a sticky-string on my proverbial harpsichord. Does Rand's philosophy preclude the necessity of human cooperation, or interdependence/interreliance? Who could argue that man, as with other mammals, evolved outside of a cooperative society? Evolutionarily speaking, we are "hard-wired" for language (communication). Such genetic pre-dispositions are rather suggestive, in terms of an inherent dependence upon other human beings for our own survival. Does this relationship of co-dependence, by extension, incorporate into our quest for self-actualization? The thought that we could ever achieve personal independence, I begin to suspect is necessarily, extraordinarily modern. In the absence of technology and labor specialization, one could not hope to eek out much of an existence in the pursuit of individuality. That is, unless we all sought to be individually fulfilled by hunting and gathering. More plainly... Howard Rourke wouldn't break ground on very many buildings if he were terribly busy with the business of surviving. I know Dawkins and Woolf would likely agree that such "cooperation" is superficial at best; that any mutually beneficial arrangement (i.e. survival of a tribe) is simply a reflection of necessity, in the pursuit of the preservation of the self, but genetics do not "think". What I mean by that is, its rather anachronistic to apply such philosophy to our evolutionary upbringing, since an individualistic, philosophical understanding of cooperative behavior was impossible at that time. We developed the biology to behave collectively before we ever conceived of individualisms. Maybe this only fascinates and perplexes me. Moreover... and I'll shut up after this, promise; what control do we ever have over environmental influences on behavior (never mind genetic ones)? Hypothetically speaking... you are very limited in your ability to control environmental influences on your life. In fact, key particulars of your behavior are cemented long before you ever reach a state of true self-awareness (adulthood). You are internalizing experiences prior to cultivating an understanding of what those experiences imply. I bother to say this, because, essentially to my mind this suggests that we have very little say in the development of our "individuality's". On a more mundane level... think of this in terms of daily life. You CHOOSE to go to the grocery store, which carries with it a multitude of prescribed experiences, but you do NOT choose who you will run into there, what they may say to you, how the weather will turn out, if your favorite pudding will be on sale, etc. All of these environmental conditions influence you and by extension your behavior rather terrifically. TickledPink

Oi vey. I suppose your politeness begs my cooperation. I studied at a tiny little Uni in the heart of Jacksonville, Fl. UNF, or the University of North Florida.

Making myself known, what a dangerous feat! Given the intellectual nature of this forum, I suppose I'll start with my academic pursuits. Suffice it to say, I have had the enormous pleasure and loathsome habit of studying Anthropology and Archaeology at one of our nation's highly bureaucratic University's. I've taken a minor in religious studies, and have gone so far as to dabble in the arts of philosophy, history, and a plethora of other financially worthless avenues of inquiry. Truly, I couldn't be the happier for it. I am a consummate gardener and collector of antiquated literature. I read voraciously, but seem to learn very little for all my efforts. I'm perplexed by language, cosmology, and human cultures. I abhor television; pop-culture, and by extension any person(s) attempting to incorporate or indoctrinate me into said malaise. People fascinate me, and I enjoy the company of most anyone. But I quote a terrifically brilliant woman when I say, "Bore me and I shall have my revenge." Thank you to those of you who have taken the time to read this little blurb, and I hope our exchanges (should they take place) are mutually rewarding, humorous, and continuous. Tickled Pink

Perhaps we miss the pomp and ceremony, but I rather think we suffer from a loss of a social cohesiveness. The term religion itself, is a derivative of the latin "religere" which means "to bind together". I believe historically, religion has always first and foremost served this purpose... The experience of religion, is most likely dependent upon the individual. If one is sure of himself, of his perspective, and of his individuality: the experience can be quite uplifting, since it serves to unify one's own philosophy with a practice. On the other hand, if we are wholly unsure of ourselves, we are likely to fall victim to homogeneity. Here the individual seeks to fulfill himself by uniting with a whole, who cooperatively withdraw from the social fabric, relishing their beliefs as tools of derision and self-aggrandizement. Plainly put, the latter can be quite trying for those of us seeking self-discovery through religious perspective. As for rationality... I often find myself perplexed by the use of logic or scientific terminology, by the unruly masses. More often than not, someone will use a word like "logical" or "scientific", without any understanding of the term's insinuations. One cannot be an atheistic scientist. (Hear me out) The Scientific Method, popularized by Bacon, suggests that we must suspend judgment in the absence of irrefutable evidence. Since evidence is seldom (if ever) present to the degree of absolute certainty, we must (as scientists) always withhold judgment. Let me say this another way! The existence of God cannot be disproved, however unlikely it may seem. Granted, a theoretical entity such as God is not (and probably cannot) be subjected to the processes of scientific inquiry, but that in no way precludes God's possible existence. Since we cannot establish, scientifically, whether or not God exists... it is erroneous, scientifically speaking, to state that Atheism is rational or again, "scientific". Since, atheism, unliek agnosticism, implies that a decision on the existence of God has been made. Whew... So now for a more personal touch. Whether or not one should practice a given religion, should depend, probably entirely, upon one's own enjoyment of the practice. Applying a rationalist's perspective, perhaps you might ask yourself what it is you hope to gain from the experience of religion, and whether or not said practice suffices in that regard. In the end, its a personal choice. Favoring Hegel's dialectic approach... we can say that everything has an inherently ambiguous nature, that every action can have beneficial and contradictory consequences. Thanks for your considered post, and I wish everyone the very best. TickledPink