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Regi F.

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    Regi F. got a reaction from Craig24 in What is Subjectivity?   
    The question of, "What is Subjectivity?," has two answers, because the same word, "subjective," refers to two different things.
    The first refers to the nature of consciousness itself. Every conscious experience is subjective in the sense that it cannot be known to anyone except the individual having the conscious experience. Whatever one consciously perceives by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, or feeling it, or their perception of their own body by interoception, or their consciousness of their own thinking and feelings, are subjective experiences, because they cannot be known or examined or detected by anyone else. Every individual consciousness, in that sense, is totally subjective and private and beyond the ability of anyone else to perceive or know it.
    The other meaning of subjective pertains to how one thinks and makes their choices and is based on the difference between objective and subjective.
    The objective refers to the reality all conscious individuals perceive, however they perceive it. It is called objective reality because it exists and has the nature it has independently of anyone's consciousness or knowledge of it. It is that objective reality that determines what is true and not true. Objective, in contrast to subjective, means allowing nothing but one's knowledge of objective reality to be one's guide in all one's thinking and choices.
    Subjective, in that sense, means allowing one's own subjective experiences, their whims, their feelings, their desires, prejudices or sentiments to influence or determine what they think, believe, and choose, in defiance or ignorance of objective truth.
    Randy
  2. Like
    Regi F. got a reaction from Grames in What is Subjectivity?   
    The question of, "What is Subjectivity?," has two answers, because the same word, "subjective," refers to two different things.
    The first refers to the nature of consciousness itself. Every conscious experience is subjective in the sense that it cannot be known to anyone except the individual having the conscious experience. Whatever one consciously perceives by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, or feeling it, or their perception of their own body by interoception, or their consciousness of their own thinking and feelings, are subjective experiences, because they cannot be known or examined or detected by anyone else. Every individual consciousness, in that sense, is totally subjective and private and beyond the ability of anyone else to perceive or know it.
    The other meaning of subjective pertains to how one thinks and makes their choices and is based on the difference between objective and subjective.
    The objective refers to the reality all conscious individuals perceive, however they perceive it. It is called objective reality because it exists and has the nature it has independently of anyone's consciousness or knowledge of it. It is that objective reality that determines what is true and not true. Objective, in contrast to subjective, means allowing nothing but one's knowledge of objective reality to be one's guide in all one's thinking and choices.
    Subjective, in that sense, means allowing one's own subjective experiences, their whims, their feelings, their desires, prejudices or sentiments to influence or determine what they think, believe, and choose, in defiance or ignorance of objective truth.
    Randy
  3. Confused
    Regi F. got a reaction from Harrison Danneskjold in Need concrete examples of virtues being practiced and virtues being violated   
    Mine is. I do not form my opinions about Rand or her philosophy based on anything other than what Rand wrote herself, and what I know factually about her life. I certainly would not rely on anything her philosophical enemies write about her which many of those referenced in the links you provided are, perhaps the worst are those from ARI.
    Why not form your own ideas using your own reason examining what Rand herself wrote, instead of accepting other's opinions about her second-hand?
    Thanks for the comment, Kyary. (Is that right?)
    Randy
  4. Like
    Regi F. got a reaction from dream_weaver in Need concrete examples of virtues being practiced and virtues being violated   
    Ayn Rand made two lists of virtues, one published in The Virtue of Selfishness, the other unpublished in her Journal, in a section called, "The Moral Basis Of Individualism."
    The published list of virtues includes: Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem, Rationality, Productiveness, and Pride.
    The unpublished list of virtues includes: Integrity [which Rand described as, "the first, greatest and noblest of all virtues"], Courage, Honesty, Honor, Self-confidence, Strength, Justice, Wisdom, and Self-respect.
    The following links pertain to the moral source of virtues. The first directly addresses your question:
    Integrity: The Virtues Of The Moral Individual Principles Ethical Principles Ayn Rand's Ethics Objective Ethics for Freedom and Happiness (The Is/Ought Fallacy)
  5. Like
    Regi F. got a reaction from Plasmatic in "Emergence" succinctly   
    Would kindly provide the source of your Rand quote. I've never run across it in any of her published works, letters, or journals.
     
    Thank you!
  6. Like
    Regi F. got a reaction from StrictlyLogical in Weak vs. Strong Emergence   
    "Emergent properties," is a pseudo-concept. The properties of physical things are always explained in terms of their components and the relationship of those components to each other, their structure. Nothing is "just a collection" of components or parts. When is anything ever explained by reducing it to its component parts, without including the relationship of those parts to each other? In some rare cases, the structure of an entity will be determined by the properties of its components, but that structure is still part of the understanding of the entity.

    Something that identifies everything, identifies nothing. If emergent properties are whatever properties a thing has when its components are organized in a certain way, then the properties of every existent there is, are "emergent." It identifies nothing new because the fact that a thing's properties are determined by its components and structure is all that can be known.

    If "brick-buildingness" is a property of brick buildings emerging from the way bricks are organized into a structure, than when bricks are dumped higgily-piggily into a pile, the attribute "pileness" is emergent. Absurd.

    All these pseudo-concepts: emergent properties, self-organizing systems, symmetry-breaking systems, holism, etc. are the inventions of physicalists to argue that physical components can be organized in such a way that life just, "emerges," as a property. Let it be demonstrated, just once, that physical components without life (not already living components) can be organized into a living organism. By inventing concepts for processes or attributes that have never been observed to "prove" something is the worst kind of rationalization. Nevertheless, some very intelligent people are taken in by them.

    [i know the pseudo-concepts I've listed are used to put over a number of other very bad ideas, like societies being "emergent" organisms, etc.]
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