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Boydstun

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  1. Welcome to Objectivism Online, QpQ! What about limit concepts such as a frictionless plane? The common denominator is friction of physical plane surfaces, but they come in different degrees of friction, which we can imagine extending on down to zero, and that could be useful in our thinking. Although, we would not ascribe concrete existence to such a plane surface. Similarly, one might predicate of the concept God the feature of being all-knowing. That feature could be a limit concept having common denominator with how much the deer know, how much I know, how much people a century from now will know, and on up to being all knowing. Offhand, I don't see "a being who is all-knowing" as failing to have a CCD, which would be degree of knowing. Of course, it would be a further step, one needing argument, to proclaim the existence of such a conceived being. Additionally, there might be thermodynamical and information-theoretic reasons and limitative theorems of logic (I'd have to research it) that might bear against the validity of the concept all-knowing.
  2. Somewhat in step with necrovore's comment, it has seemed to me that various areas of knowledge warrant continued trials for disproving, others not. And this does not seem to be simply a function of the level of one's certainty about one's present conviction. We know ways to continue to improve our measurement of the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass, and we know ways to continue to test whether the speed of light in vacuum is a single value that is measured to be the same in any inertial material frame of reference regardless of the speeds those frames themselves are moving relative to each other. Those two principles are often thought of as axioms in general relativity and special relativity respectively, although not in the sense of philosophical axioms in metaphysics and epistemology. They surely are basic premisses of those physics theories GR and SR, and they have enormous experimental confirmations to date. Yet we subject them to further test. On the other hand, at this point, and indeed really after about 1908, we don't have any idea how we might experimentally challenge the atomic theory of the chemical elements. From my 1991 paper Induction on Identity: So within science, it seems we may have no reason to doubt the correctness, although in some cases it is sensible to keep challenging the well-established, and in other cases, we'll have better work to do. Reliance on experiment and observation and mathematics and computers, as we do in physics and chemistry, is justified, in my view and I'd say in Rand's also, by philosophical reflection informed by ordinary and scientific experience. Doubting the correctness of such reliance is not philosophically tenable. That is, the logical refutation of such doubt is feasible. Concerning philosophical fundamentals, from my 2022 paper "Existence, We": HRSD, Rand thought of the ability to be self-critical of one's thoughts, beliefs, and perceptual presentations as essential to the human level of mind. Other animals don't possess that ability, in her understanding, and I agree. Admittedly, that much does not give one guidelines on when it is rational to doubt and shuffle for possible alternatives. One regular occasion in which one has to detach for a while from the falsity one holds an idea to be is when trying to understand as fully as possible the idea as it is held for true in the mind of someone else.
  3. Those two quotes are sensible. The one from Bacon is perhaps a bit mysterious until one knows about his championing the experimental method in science. Those two quotes are not supportive of the stands of epistemological skepticism in the history of philosophy from the Late Academy and Pyrrhonism to Nicholas of Autrecourt (Hume four centuries before Hume) to Montaigne and Bayle. Rand could readily join Leibniz in rejecting the hobby of doubting for the sake of doubt. And fundamentals of her theoretical philosophy are diametrically opposed to those philosophical skepticisms, moderate or radical, I listed in that first sentence of this paragraph, as well as to Cartesian skepticism, whether in his enlistment of it for arriving at secure knowing or in subsequent wallowing in the Cartesian skeptical phase for lifelong sport supporting an academic salary in our own era. In fundamental philosophy, as distinct from her conception of proper science (most touched on in Atlas Shrugged, Rand put forth positive proposals and set out refutations of alternatives. That anyway, was her order of presentation—set forth truth first, not doubt about it nor doubts about everything—whatever may have been her personal order for discovery of philosophical truths.
  4. A thread concerning personal liberties and overlapping this one is here.
  5. Jon, sorry to hear that that is your position on law concerning abortion, but delighted to finally learn what is your position. Rethinking you. Where do you stand on the use of fetal tissue in medical research? Where do you stand on legality of birth control pills? Where do you stand on physician-assisted suicide? Where do you stand on legality of same-sex sexual relations? Our governor in Virginia is Glenn Youngkin. He defeated Ralph Northan in the most recent election. Youngkin is a Republican, and he has indicated that when both chambers of the Assembly become Republican, he will be willing to sign legislation prohibiting all abortions. One chamber is now Republican; the other needs to pick up one more seat to turn over to Republican. At present here in Virginia abortions are illegal in the third trimester of pregnancy, which is consistent with Roe and was also how our law was before Dobbs. During the Roe era, around the country, there were a few times that a physician performed an illegal abortion in the third trimester, abortions in circumstances that were prohibited by state law implemented in conformance with Roe. Those physicians were charged with murder or manslaughter (an actual case is discussed here; I concur with the authors concerning it), and that would be how it would go down were such a violation to occur here in Virginia. For those of us who regard prohibition of pre-viability abortions as involuntary servitude: The specific roles of Left- and of Right-congresspersons in THIS bears at least dishonorable mention, and really it needs to get to front and center of attention. Those massive expenditures of 7.6 trillion dollars are not covered by government revenues. Might that ultimately be why grocery prices have gone through the roof and the value of people's savings have shrunk? Since 2015, the Spending-to-GDP ratio has increased from 20% to 25%. Top questions to a candidate should not be "Where do you stand on the impeachment charge against so-and-so of inciting an insurrection?" or even "Where do you stand on the criminal indictment charge against so-and-so of corruptly obstructing a congressional proceeding?" In the criminal matters, naturally, violent acts at the Capitol on Jan. 6 have been prosecuted and will continue to be prosecuted as surely as the man who blew up the OKC Federal Building was prosecuted. We don't need candidates' opinions on those matters, though, of course it's thumbs down on any who praise such acts. Top questions to a candidate should be: A. Where do you stand on legality of pre-viability abortions? B. What is your plan for balancing the federal budget? If their answer is merely to oppose expenditures favored by the opposing political party, they are useless on this problem. They have to have a global view, such as when Obama and Boehner agreed to a "I'll cut this, if you cut that" process of reducing expenditures to match revenue. (They did not get to implement this reduction agreement because some of the caucus under Boehner were more set on simply opposing anything appearing as cooperation with Obama than on balancing the budget or any other substantive issue.)
  6. Jon, The Republicans who should not be voted for are those boosting the outlawing of abortions prior to viability ~ 26 weeks (during which 99% of abortions take place). Among the Republican Presidential contenders, that would be: Donald Trump – vacillating; promised voters in 2016 he would appoint Justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, opening the way for anti-abortionists to criminalize abortions prior to viability at the state level. (It was already criminalized after viability in every State, which was in conformance with Roe.) Ron DeSantis – criminalized abortions in FL after 6 weeks of gestation. Tim Scott – supports a national ban after 15 weeks of gestation, and even less if politically feasible. Vivek Ramaswamy – supports criminalization after 6 weeks of gestation. Nikki Haley – supports a national ban after 15 weeks of gestation. Mike Pence – supports a national ban after 6 weeks of gestation, preferably even less; supports federal ban of mifepristone. Chris Christie – vacillating. Asa Hutchinson – supports a national ban after 15 weeks of gestation. Doug Burgam – criminalized abortions throughout pregnancy in ND. Will Hurd – supports a national ban after 15 weeks of gestation. Francis Suarez – supports a national ban after 15 weeks of gestation.
  7. Jon, the freedom-contracting reforms are being made on the 99% as in the states listed below, not the !%. The deception is to distract from that fact and pretend it is not so. In Virginia there has been no change in the law since Dobbs: abortions remain illegal in the third trimester. Arizona Arkansas Florida Georgia Idaho Indiana Kentucky Louisiana Mississippi Missouri Nebraska North Carolina North Dakota Oklahoma South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah West Virginia
  8. Tad, I haven't studied the philosophy paper in the medical ethics journal thoroughly, but one thing that is sour about it to me is use of the idea of self-ownership, which on its face has always seemed to me a reversal of correct conceptual dependencies. I doubt that mixed-up concept is actually required for their conclusions. That individual life is an end in itself and that autonomy of autonomy-capable individuals is the value protected in protections of individual rights will do the job fine, pretty sure.
  9. Jon. True to backers of the anti-abortionists' wrong metaphysics in its imposition by law: distract from the 99% of actual cases of abortion occurring in the earlier trimesters where the anti-abortionists are taking away freedom, by always shifting to late-term abortions, where 1% of abortions occur. Anything—any sales trickery—to prevent abstention from voting for a Republican, whatever he or she now boosts in the law. Decision by attending medical professionals in particulars of individual cases is better than external mandated decisions by politicians seeking votes from citizens crazing under revivals of the witch doctors.
  10. Wherein first-trimester abortions are never mentioned, even though that is what is the main fight in the USA. Wherein Christianity introduced humane treatment of women (Ha!). Wherein the Christian authorities rushing homosexuals to burning at the stake is never mentioned in her fondling over that era of alleged sympathy against suffering and the Christian-era contrast with its pagan predecessors. And she admits she does not believe the Christian faith; she's just a sweet rambling agnostic essayist smearing the modern sexual revolution with mention of infanticide in ancient Rome, leaving unmentioned any merits of modern personal freedom. Like when someone opposed to homosexuality drops ye ole association with bestiality. After skimming her essay, I'm going to try some Listerine. A paper straightforwardly addressing these issues, no deceitfulness, much intellect: https://jme.bmj.com/content/medethics/5/3/133.full.pdf
  11. I see. Alaska Colorado New Jersey New Mexico Oregon Vermont DC Those have no statutory gestational limits. I gather they have opted to put the decisions into the hands of the medical profession. I like it. Thanks, Tad, for this information of which I was unaware. I mentioned upstream that 99% of abortions in the US are prior to the point of viability. It will be interesting to see if that changes as the years go by in those jurisdictions with no statutory gestational limits. I bet they do not. Similarly, will watch for change from the 93% that occur in the first trimester, which is the term in which the anti-abortionists are having some success in drawing the line for criminality. (By "anti-abortionists," I mean in the law. I've Catholic friends who would never have an abortion, but who are for legality as in Roe. I've one atheist MD friend who would not perform an abortion at any stage (I think he meant elective abortion, not medical-necessity one), but he also has supported legality of abortion as in Roe.) The significance of candidates for federal office, especially Senate or President, concerning the abortion issue is mainly whom they would nominate or ratify as a Justice on the Supreme Court. There are abortion legal controversies headed to the Court, and I'm sure there will be for a long time to come. If Thomas, for example, were to kick the bucket soon (he is the same age as me, Donald Trump, King Charles, and the State of Israel), a replacement who is not an anti-abortionist could be some help with protecting the autonomy of women in making their life. AMA
  12. Tad, the right to procure an abortion in the third trimester in DC is not a right to an elective abortion in that interval, only a medically appropriate abortion, as determined by the physician. Sounds reasonable. If during that last trimester, the pregnancy has to be terminated to save the health or life of the mother (extremely rare, I imagine), then the halt of fetal life and the spoiling of the would-be guardians' project is part of the bad fortune of nature. The health and life of the mother cannot be sacrificed to someone else's personal project involuntarily. (And perhaps a woman forced to carry [denied legal power of elective abortion of] an unwanted fetus/infant through that interval to full term should be compensated by the state. I'm undecided about this, because it seems to treat the personal services of the woman as in imminent domain, which looks suspiciously like treating her as for public use.) During the Roe era, around the country, there were a few times that a physician performed an illegal abortion in the third trimester, abortions in circumstances that were prohibited by state law implemented in conformance with Roe. Those physicians were charged with murder or manslaughter. (Where on earth, Tad, did you get your information on history of this? Got a link to particular cases?) Late term abortions are typically requested by women in which medical issues have arisen. It is a standard practice of the anti-abortionists to switch attention to those late-term abortions in order to take attention away from the first trimester in which 93% of abortions are performed and point of viability by which time 99% of abortions take place. The anti-abortionists' reach in state law now is to drive the legal limit for elective abortion so early in the pregnancy that by the time the pregnant woman realizes she is pregnant, it is too late to get a legal abortion. And that reach is not the end of the reaching. The continuing aim, as those folks readily proclaim, is to criminalize abortion at all stages of a pregnancy. I expect the RC Bishops would want to go further and reverse legalization of the Pill (1964). But the fact is that American Catholic laity take the Pill, and that reversal is not going to happen without a revival of mysticism throughout the citizenry at the level of the Dark Ages.
  13. "Abortion on demand" is a different thing than a right to procure an abortion. The former means someone else (taxpayers) is being forced to pay for the service. The latter is only a right to pay someone for an abortion and that party's right to provide it. (Furthermore, if there are no doctors willing to perform the abortion, even if it is a legal one, then they cannot be forced to do so.) I erred in writing "first trimester." I should have written "second trimester" because it is near the end of that one (~26 weeks) that viabiity of the fetus will typically be reached, and viability is the exact proper legal turning point. (So: A. Where do you stand on legality of elective abortions until the point of viability in a pregnancy?) Abortions should be permissible in the law at the option of the pregnant woman until the developing embryo/fetus has a reasonable chance (judged by the attending physician in the individual case) of sustained survival outside the womb, with or without artificial support. That, as you likely know, is what is meant by "the point of viability." It is not that this is the mark of personhood, and for sure, just as with any neonate, the little one continues helpless to survive and develop further without close adult care. Rather, it is the mark at which adults not the mother can in principle take up the project of bringing the potential toddler, walker, and talker to actuality without impressing the mother into the service of their project. All of the legal rights in play are rights, correctly conceived, among feasible caregivers of the potential child. From the time the developing brain of the fetus has gone from resemblance of a vertebrate brain to mammalian brain, to primate brain, and begun to acquire features of a distinctly human brain, I think the potential child has reached a stage at which it should be especially precious to the human community—a profoundly serious possible project—and would-be guardians should be taken for right in wanting to bring such a fetus to actual child and their possible project have legal standing of a parent raising a child. Fortunately, by that stage, the fetus, if normal, has reached viability and is rightly protected (I say) against intentional harm until birth, as under Roe. So, until viability, termination of the pregnancy should be simply elective by the pregnant woman (meaning it's legal to engage a willing doctor to perform the operation or prescribe the chemical). No special condition threatening the health of the mother need obtain; the woman to that point should be able to simply decide she does not want to carry to full term and live birth. Overwhelmingly, abortions in the US are during the first trimester; women mostly have made their decision by then. It would seem therefore that keeping abortion legal at least through the first trimester is especially important for the liberty of women to maintain their own life plans.
  14. The specific roles of Left- and of Right-congresspersons in THIS bears at least dishonorable mention, and really it needs to get to front and center of attention. Those massive expenditures of 7.6 trillion dollars are not covered by government revenues. Might that ultimately be why grocery prices have gone through the roof and the value of people's savings have shrunk? Since 2015, the Spending-to-GDP ratio has increased from 20% to 25%. Top questions to a candidate should not be "Where do you stand on the impeachment charge against so-and-so of inciting an insurrection?" or even "Where do you stand on the criminal indictment charge against so-and-so of corruptly obstructing a congressional proceeding?" In the criminal matters, naturally, violent acts at the Capitol on Jan. 6 have been prosecuted and will continue to be prosecuted as surely as the man who blew up the OKC Federal Building was prosecuted. We don't need candidates' opinions on those matters, though, of course it's thumbs down on any who praise such acts. Top questions to a candidate should be: A. Where do you stand on legality of elective abortions throughout the first trimester of a pregnancy? B. What is your plan for balancing the federal budget? If their answer is merely to oppose expenditures favored by the opposing political party, they are useless on this problem. They have to have a global view, such as when Obama and Boehner agreed to a "I'll cut this, if you cut that" process of reducing expenditures to match revenue. (They did not get to implement this reduction agreement because some of the caucus under Boehner were more set on simply opposing anything appearing as cooperation with Obama than on balancing the budget or any other substantive issue.)
  15. Jacob, I don't see why you made this post in the sector for political philosophy. It seems that what you are addressing in the post concerns political activism, and there is a separate sector at Objectivism Online for that. Concerning your thoughts on political activism, have you ever seen a group or a movement among pro-capitalist Christians favoring a political alliance with Objectivism? All I have noticed is a few individual politicians, such as Paul Ryan and Ted Cruz, who like to convey warmth towards both Christianity and Objectivism in order to pick up votes for themselves from both groups. Or are you suggesting that if the pro-capitalist Christians would get over the atheism of Objectivism and the Objectivists would get over the theism of Christianity, then an effective alliance between the two against the welfare state could happen? (And against other improper jobs of government, such as disaster relief?) Do you have quotations from any of the Founding Fathers championing individualism? The American War of Independence was not a war over independence of individuals from the state, but a war for independence of these former colonies from the British state. Protection of individual rights in America has come about, so far as it has, not only by contributions of the Founding Fathers. (Further)
  16. A few days after the preceding post, the SSRS/CNN poll showed: Trump beats Biden by 1%. Haley beats Biden by 6%.
  17. I know that these issues are a far drift from the topics in Binswanger 1990, the topic of this thread, and in particular the nature of teleology in organisms that are without consciousness or are under some direction by their consciousness, which is much less autonomous and discerning than human consciousness. But that is all right with me if we chat a bit on these interesting byways, because the intervals required for me to produce the substantial segments of the essay view of that book, including putting it into historical perspective, is long, at least weeks. I'll peg what is here so far, for convenience: Part 1, Part 2 – Aristotle I am working now on the remainder of Part 2, which is Suárez, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. Part 3 will return to the layout in the subject book, which is cast in our contemporary biology. Tad, on your two questions: No. No. Neither Rand nor I would concur with the dualism of Descartes in his sense that thought (he means anything mental) and spatial extension are two fundamental substances, the only two we have, each depending on nothing else, aside from God who brought them into existence. Clipping it down, neither Rand nor I would concur with the dualism of Descartes in the sense of thought and extension being two fundamental substances, each depending on nothing else. Rand stressed the distinction and fundamentality of existence and consciousness. "Whatever the degree of your knowledge, these two—existence and consciousness—are axioms you cannot escape, these two are the irreducible primaries implied in any action you undertake, in any part of your knowledge and in its sum, . . . " (AS 1015–16). Both are present for one's discernment of them from day of birth to now, although, one would be on towards an age of being able to understand Rand's 1957 writing about it to get explicitly in mind those two things, existence and consciousness. What Rand says there is fine by me and important, but I go ahead and incorporate what we know about the biological character of consciousness by modern science and make a somewhat more general distinction in place of that one of Rand's. She had the division: existents and existents that have consciousness. I wrote instead (in EW) the division: existents and existents that are of-existents. The latter includes the living activities that are consciousness (awareness of existence) but as well any living action whatever. So in my terms, here is how I think about your second question. Potentials are featured only in concrete existents and only pertaining to them in their aspect of being not also of-existence. Possibilities are in existents that are of-existents, such as when we sort out the potentials of things for possibilities of our control and possibilities of our inventions and possibilities of our behaviors, or when we grasp the belonging-formalities of concretes and grow vast tooling-formalities upon them for use in our inventions and actions and for our satisfactions of mind, or possibilities are in our story-making entertainments, our fictions. So it's worth making this distinction I've labeled potentials and possibilities. I don't think Rand would have thought of a line segment as not really real. I guess she could get into that sort of trouble with talk of only concretes being real and then denying that spatial relations are concretes (if she did). However, I should say also for Rand that she recognized that there are relationships in the world independently of our mental grasps of the world. Perceptual similarities are in the world, in her understanding. So are quantities, which we get under our scaled rulers. I am with Descartes and with Newton on the reality of lines in physical space. Our procedure for bisecting a line segment using compass and straightedge reflects formalities of physical space around us and what it is possible to do with them. Hero of Alexandria said that a straight line is a line stretched to the utmost, and like him when I want to approach getting stones laid in a line, I stretch a string. The things we do in the mind in synthetic geometry, as in Euclid, are not without connections to the world, even though our method in geometry is quite different than our method in chemistry or geology.
  18. “Being-at-work” is indeed an apt description of living existence, I should say. Even when an animal, such as a tree squirrel, appears to be playing, it’s a working system. It is perhaps also an apt description of the chemical self-regulative processes that emerge in biochemical reactions, emergent self-regulation such as in allostery, in phosphorylation-dephosphorylation, and in end-product inhibition. However, being at work is not an apt description of oxygen in the air tout court. We might say the oxygen put to work in an animal is an occasion of being at work in an externally induced sort of way. Existence per se is not something being put to work in an external sort of way or a being at work of itself, say by being concrete with the manners of concretes such as them enduring through some time or having certain causal interactions or having some random activities.The ways of existence per se are its identities of category; its state of actuality-potentiality; its being (in my system) possibly a concrete or a belonging-formality of a concrete; and its (in my system) perchance being an existent that is also a living of-existence. Among the ways of existing, speaking most fundamentally, there should be no ascribing existence per se any more specific elements taken from among its fundamental manners of existence, such as the more particular manner: being at work. Aristotle is getting no real explanatory traction, I’d say, by taking a more particular manner of being (being-at-work), planting it in general existence, then using its presence in existence per se to explain its presence in living existence.
  19. Tad, I think I get your conception. I think it is incorrect to ascribe active or passive to existence per se. We can reflect on existence as such, and that is what Rand called metaphysics. Our reflection of course is an activity, a living one goal-directed. Existence, as I think it, has states of actuality and potentiality for any existent. (For only concrete existents really, in my vocabulary; in speaking of the susceptibility of a line segment in the Euclidian plane to bisection, we should shift from potentiality to possibility.) But the existence common to those states, actuality and potentiality, should not be thought of as having those states as traits nor as those states being equivalent to existence per se. Existence simply is and is singly that is across both those states, actuality and potentiality. Then too, the facets of identity such as specific passage and activities and standing in specific relations to other things should not be ascribed to existence most generally. Any existent has exactly the identity it has. The having of its specific identity and its being equivalent to its full complement of identities are not activities, I’d say, and are not any being-at-work in that having or in that being equivalent.
  20. Thank you, Eiuol, for that layout. I won’t be ready to address Binswanger’s account in relation to Aristotle’s account until Part 3, but at this time, I want to register my own disagreement with the layout you gave insofar as its correctness for general metaphysics. Rand’s relevant remark in ITOE, 39, is a handy place to start: “If anything were actually ‘Immeasurable’, it would bear no relationship of any kind to the rest of the universe, it would not affect nor be affected by anything else in any manner whatever, it would enact no causes and bear no consequences—in short it would not exist.” I’d say in perhaps a little friction with Rand, the truth is: “If anything were actually ‘immeasurable’, it would bear no relationship of any kind to the rest of the universe—in short it would not exist.” Period. Then I’d be off to construct a proof or two of that proposition being necessarily true. “No relationship of any kind” suffices for not being in existence. The relationships do not have to be causal. They do not have to be the relationships of action, even taking the category ACTION very broadly so as to include not only dynamics, but kinematics and statics. They do not even have to be dependency relationships at all. That something bears no relationship of any kind to things not itself suffices to show it does not exist. (Existence taken as a whole is the exception in the sense that it bears no relationship to anything entirely outside itself. It yet has the relationship of a whole to its parts.) I endorse Rand’s thesis “Existence is Identity.” I go a fraction of an inch beyond that in saying that the existence of an existent is nothing more or less than the existence of its complete identity. My thesis contracted from Rand’s statement quoted above then says that some of the complete identity of an existent must be relationships to things not itself, relationships of some kind, whatever kind. (One relationship in which my left-hand glove stands is that upon spatial inversion it would fit my right hand. I mention this for an example of a standing in an external relationship that is not at root causal or action, but by morphism-character of space.) I take the sense of the concept existence to be univocal across its category divisions. That is, the term is not applied analogically across the categories. In Rand’s system, those categories are ENTITY, ACTION, ATTRIBUTE, and RELATIONSHIP. Instances of each of those can exist and in the same sense of exists throughout. ACTION, ATTRIBUTE, and RELATIONSHIP are so intertwined and not exclusive of each other in Rand’s metaphysics (though worth calling out distinctively nevertheless in tracing taxonomies up in highest reaches) it would not be plausible that the sense of exists could be not univocal across them all three. Then too, whatever ontological primacy we discern of ENTITY over its actions, attributes, and relationships: since existence is identity, it is not plausible that the existence of an entity should be not univocal with the existence of the other categories composing its identity, such as the existence of its external relationships, relationships of any sort. Existence per se, spanning all four categories, should not be cast as fundamentally characterized by any one of them, such as action. I think Aristotle errs in planting energeia in being (insofar as energeia means anything more than actuality as distinct from potential). In Rand’s system, or mine, we are of course dealing with only qualified being, which we term existence, and we acknowledge no more comprehensive being than that. So I should say as well, to be exact, that Aristotle errs in planting energeia in existence per se.
  21. I just mean that Aristotle's metaphysics is false in this respect. Contra Aristotle, existence per se is not an activity or a being-at-work. Existing per se is inactive. I mentioned (cited) a nearby correct conception of Rand's that the existence of anything entails that it have some external relations. Many times those relations include causal relations. I add now, from my own metaphysics that 'existence is passage' (one strand in 'existence is identity'), but this passage is sometimes only succession in time (not, additionally causal), and most fundamentally, my category passage is succession through time. That error of Aristotle is one in his wider pattern of endowing some of his metaphysics with dynamics, which should be left purely at the level of natural science.
  22. Trisco Nuclear Fuel Delivery to NASA Nuclear Fuel Cell for Moon Colony Rolls Royce Reactor
  23. EC, on July 3, you wrote: If I understand you correctly in your most recent post, you claim you are 100 per cent certain that BENEVOLENCE was an entry shown on the previous day at the online site of the Lexicon, but on 2 July it was not there. And it is not there now. Nor should it have ever been there, because it is not in the book itself. (I gave you relatives of such an entry in July, but you think it had shown simply an entry BENEVOLENCE.) And against such a bizarre sequence of events at such a site, you do not consider it the more likely that you had simply misremembered having previously seen an entry BENEVOLENCE; rather, you are 100 per cent certain you saw such a thing? Have you ever found that you have misremembered something? I have, and it is just one of the regular innocent errors of cognition. And I'm not insulted, let alone beyond insulted, when someone helps me to realize something in the past was not as I had remembered it. Good connection to reality requires continual self-correction, and whatever cue one can get from others in fidelity to reality is a boon.
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