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Suppose that Objectivists take control of the government. What are you going to do about the Fed? Remember that it's owned by private individuals (source: the movie I posted).

We'll have to convince the Jewish Illuminati to relinquish their control of the Fed in exchange for us removing our tin foil hats.

Edited by softwareNerd
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Suppose that Objectivists take control of the government. What are you going to do about the Fed? Remember that it's owned by private individuals (source: the movie I posted).

It's "private" in a sense except also with government involvement. This isn't even on topic. No idea what you want to convey either. You called it scifi and it seems your intent was to lie to get people to watch Thrive. It just... makes no sense. You made more sense earlier on, but your positions only got into ignoring people telling you about your misunderstandings.

Edited by Eiuol
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It's "private" in a sense except also with government involvement. This isn't even on topic. No idea what you want to convey either. You called it scifi and it seems your intent was to lie to get people to watch Thrive. It just... makes no sense. You made more sense earlier on, but your positions only got into ignoring people telling you about your misunderstandings.

You are right, they are involved with the government. And you just want the gold standard, so that also makes sense. I liked the movie and wanted to discuss it with you--that's all. There was no need for you to believe in the ideas from there, only imagine their possibility, as if you would have watched it as a scifi movie. I do not ignore what I observe, and I observed interviews and comments given by government people who were independent from the Thrive movement. That movie had little to do with "paranoia and persecutory delusions," in contrast to many other conspiracy movies. Instead, the movie provided a positive lookout, ethics and worldview very similar to Objectivism, and a way to create a safety net to be independent from the government and taxes.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ops, I meant the philosophy of Neo-Objectivism is epistemological physicalism, since Neo-Objectivism is not just philosophy but also economics.

 

Shall be named. 

Here is a definition of Neo-Objectivism: "A Neo-Objectivist is someone who subscribes to certain beliefs which notably differ from but do not appose [sic] in basic principle those of the Objectivist movement."

My Neo-Objectivism is, first, physicalism [and economy] (the Neo- part that I import) and, second, epistemological (Objectivist theory of concepts, consciousness, perception).

Edited by Ilya Startsev
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What's that?

It is the Objectivist Theory of Knowledge (Epistemology).

 

"Consciousness, as a state of awareness, is not a passive state, but an active process that consists of two essentials: differentiation and integration.

Although, chronologically, man’s consciousness develops in three stages: the stage of sensations, the perceptual, the conceptual—epistemologically, the base of all of man’s knowledge is the perceptual stage. (ITOE, Ch.1)."

 

So, basically, consciousness is a state (or faculty) of awareness. And the theory of concepts has three stages: sensation, perception, and conception. In my own words, sensation pertains to physical sense data received from external sources. Perception pertains to identification of these sources of sense data (usually expressed in a form of a word). Conception pertains to theorizing a memory framework to optimally retain identified sense data sources. I also like Harry Binswanger's identification of perception as (a field of) awareness. In his view, perception and conception precede sensations, since sensations are higher level abstracts from the external world.

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@Ilya #112

 

"Perception pertains to identification of these sources of sense data (usually expressed in a form of a word)."

 

This is, obviously, not how Objectivism uses the word perception/percept.  A percept is the automatic sorting of entities in the sensory field (all sensory data: vision, hearing, tasting, touch, sound).  It is pre-verbal and pre-conceptual.   

 

However, once a young child reaches the stage of conceptual thought, a percept is not grasped as a percept - it is grasped as a table, chair, keyboard, monitor, etc.  The move from sensory stage (a very young child cannot even focus his eyes) to perceptual stage (focusing eyes, sorting grouped shapes that retain form over time) to the conceptual stage (that is my mother, father, crib, cat, etc.) is what Rand is describing.    

Edited by New Buddha
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@Ilya #112

 

"Perception pertains to identification of these sources of sense data (usually expressed in a form of a word)."

 

This is, obviously, not how Objectivism uses the word perception/percept.  A percept is the automatic sorting of entities in the sensory field (all sensory data: vision, hearing, tasting, touch, sound).  It is pre-verbal and pre-conceptual.   

 

However, once a young child reaches the stage of conceptual thought, a percept is not grasped as a percept - it is grasped as a table, chair, keyboard, monitor, etc.  The move from sensory stage (a very young child cannot even focus his eyes) to perceptual stage (focusing eyes, sorting grouped shapes that retain form over time) to the conceptual stage (that is my mother, father, crib, cat, etc.) is what Rand is describing.    

Yes, I should have said that it is expressed in a form of a word pre-conceptually. By identification, I should have used "focusing on." Thanks for clarifications. Epistemology is not a field about which I wish to argue with Objectivists. Rather, it is your metaphysics qua metaphysics that I do not accept. To explain our conflict further, consider the following quote:

 

ITOE, Ch.6:

"An axiomatic concept is the identification of a primary fact of reality, which cannot be analyzed, i.e., reduced to other facts or broken into component parts."

This is the Objectivist metaphysics. Metaphysics is made to analyze the nature of reality, but Rand said that it cannot be analyzed, so she made reality into an axiomatic concept. I disagree. Nature of nature cannot be analyzed because it is the analysis of the nature of nature. What Rand is talking about here is that there should be no Meta-metaphysics. I agree, but we do not need metaphysics as the focus of analysis. Instead, we need physics in the original Aristotelian sense to be analyzed metaphysically. So, existence will become the metaphysical expression of physical nature. And physical nature, or physicalism, allows us to analyze it. Existence as physical existence becomes 32 concepts. Along with nonexistence (or absolute nothing), existence composes the final, purely metaphysical 33rd concept. See the model below.

 

The Model:

Model.jpg

Edited by Ilya Startsev
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ITOE, Ch.6: "It is implicit in all facts and in all knowledge."
An implicit concept is a priory concept. Concepts are epistemological. Either it's a concept or it's not. Metaphysics cannot escape the rules of epistemology. If it's an exception, it's a flaw, a logical error.
Ibid.: "It is the fundamentally given and directly perceived or experienced, which requires no proof or explanation, but on which all proofs and explanations rest."
Either it's a physical perception or it's a metaphysical conception. You do not perceive conceptually, neither do you conceive perceptually. A is A.

Here are some quotes in support of my argument. They are from an intriguing critique Objectivism and the Corruption of Rationality, p.91: "[Rand] must presume the existence of real universals in the very process of trying to demonstrate that we do not need them."
Ibid., 107: "her allegedly “epistemological” account depends on a good deal of implicit metaphysics."
Ibid., 110: "if, according to this conflation of sense and reference, our concept “means” all the specific attributes of its referents, then we appear not to have omitted specific measurements after all. Nor, if we have not omitted them, have we really generated an abstraction."
Ibid., 190: "axiomatic concepts are an exception to Rand’s usual rules for concepts: concepts don’t change, but axiomatic concepts do."

Edited by Ilya Startsev
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From #114

 

Metaphysics is made to analyze the nature of reality, but Rand said that it cannot be analyzed, so she made reality into an axiomatic concept. I disagree. Nature of nature cannot be analyzed because it is the analysis of the nature of nature. What Rand is talking about here is that there should be no Meta-metaphysics.

 

Why do you spend so much time misstating Objectivism and making straw man arguments?  Wouldn't it be easier and save you time if you understood Objectivism before you try and over throw it?  The statement "Metaphysics is made to analyze the nature of reality" isn't even remotely true of any philosophy, much less Objectivism, and it doesn't even make grammatical sense.

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From #114

 

Metaphysics is made to analyze the nature of reality, but Rand said that it cannot be analyzed, so she made reality into an axiomatic concept. I disagree. Nature of nature cannot be analyzed because it is the analysis of the nature of nature. What Rand is talking about here is that there should be no Meta-metaphysics.

 

Why do you spend so much time misstating Objectivism and making straw man arguments?  Wouldn't it be easier and save you time if you understood Objectivism before you try and over throw it?  The statement "Metaphysics is made to analyze the nature of reality" isn't even remotely true of any philosophy, much less Objectivism, and it doesn't even make grammatical sense.

You have taken my comment out of context without the supporting, preceding quote by Rand:

ITOE, Ch.6:

"An axiomatic concept is the identification of a primary fact of reality, which cannot be analyzed, i.e., reduced to other facts or broken into component parts" (my emphasis). In other words, she said that metaphysics cannot be analyzed. I stated that metaphysics is the method of analysis. What Rand stated and I stated are not the same.

 

edit: clarified some more

Edited by Ilya Startsev
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From #118

 

"In other words, she said that metaphysics cannot be analyzed."

 

"It is not only not right, it is not even wrong."

.

Compare this (thanks to Greg, for pointing out):

OPAR, p.5:

"Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the universe as a whole."

and ITOE, Ch.6:

"An axiomatic concept is the identification of a primary fact of reality, which cannot be analyzed, i.e., reduced to other facts or broken into component parts" (my emphasis).

 

So, metaphysics is used to study the nature of the universe as a whole, which is existence, an axiomatic concept. An axiomatic concept is the identification of a primary fact of reality. Objective reality is existence, which is the subject of metaphysics. Yet, you cannot analyze this fact, the fact of existence. But existence is the universe as a whole! You cannot analyze the universe?

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llya said:

So, metaphysics is used to study the nature of the universe as a whole, which is existence, an axiomatic concept. An axiomatic concept is the identification of a primary fact of reality. Objective reality is existence, which is the subject of metaphysics. Yet, you cannot analyze this fact, the fact of existence. But existence is the universe as a whole! You cannot analyze the universe?

Analysis is the process of reducing things to their constituent elements. Metaphysically there is NO ALTERNATIVE to existence. The epistemic grasp of this fact is the recognition that the symbols used to refer to this fact e-x-i-s-t-e-n-c-e can have no genus, that is, it is the widest abstraction and therefore cannot be analysed-REDUCED to any prior concepts!

In the process of performing the "study" of metaphysical facts one discovers that there are metaphysically simple facts that cannot be analyzed any further. There is nothing besides the universe so no you cannot find what is beneath the universe because there is no beneath the universe....

Edited by Plasmatic
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llya said:

Analysis is the process of reducing things to their constituent elements. Metaphysically there is NO ALTERNATIVE to existence. The epistemic grasp of this fact is the recognition that the symbols used to refer to this fact e-x-i-s-t-e-n-c-e can have no genus, that is, it is the widest abstraction and therefore cannot be analysed-REDUCED to any prior concepts!

In the process of performing the "study" of metaphysical facts one discovers that there are metaphysically simple facts that cannot be analyzed any further. There is nothing besides the universe so no you cannot find what is beneath the universe because there is no beneath the universe....

You are correct, metaphysically speaking. You are like a true philosopher, but not a true scientist. A scientist does not care about meta-metaphysics. He simply analyzes the matter from which the universe is composed and calls the products of his analysis concepts.

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And you cannot understand my previous post because you conflate the (metaphysical) fact of the universe and the (physical) universe. You do not understand that in order to have your implicit concept, you must have the physical universe first. Then you must be born into it. And then be captivated by the concept of existence. You know what, I will simply abandon the concept of existence in further argumentation with you. Otherwise, it's like arguing with religious fanatics.

Edited by Ilya Startsev
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And you cannot understand my previous post because you conflate the (metaphysical) fact of the universe and the (physical) universe. You do not understand that in order to have your implicit concept, you must have the physical universe first. Then you must be born into it. And then be captivated by the concept of existence. You know what, I will simply abandon the concept of existence in further argumentation with you. Otherwise, it's like arguing with religious fanatics.

Ilya statements most statements you make don't even make grammatical sense.  "...to have your implicit concept..."  "....the physical universe first."  "...be born into it...."  "....then be captivated by the concept...." ???

 

Read and re-read and re-read Plasmatic's post #121 until you get it, if you are truly interested in understanding Objectivism.  He does a very good job of explaining the irreducible nature of an Axiom.

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Ilya statements most statements you make don't even make grammatical sense.  "...to have your implicit concept..."  "....the physical universe first."  "...be born into it...."  "....then be captivated by the concept...." ???

 

Read and re-read and re-read Plasmatic's post #121 until you get it, if you are truly interested in understanding Objectivism.  He does a very good job of explaining the irreducible nature of an Axiom.

Substitute God for your "Axiom" and apply my argument. Also, see how useful Plasmatic's post #121 is for pious life.

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