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A is not B

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A is not B last won the day on February 15 2015

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About A is not B

  • Birthday 04/15/1988

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male

Previous Fields

  • Sexual orientation
    Straight
  • Relationship status
    Single
  • Interested in meeting
    Interested in dating. Female Objectivists are a rare breed. Where y'all hiding? Lol.
  • Chat Nick
    Bryan
  • State (US/Canadian)
    Florida
  • Country
    United States
  • Biography/Intro
    My name is Bryan Wirthlin and I am a truck driver for Prime Inc. Kind of a long and rather weird story about how I became a truck driver. Not enough room to talk about it here, but it involves a lot of previous time in the medical profession, hitch hiking, cross country cycling, backpacking, and the occasional hurricane and sandstorm. :-) I've always had an interest in all things medicine, biochemistry, health and wellness. So it only makes sense that I'm studying to be a personal trainer and and producing YouTube videos on how to be healthy and fit as a truck driver, addressing issues that are specific to truck drivers. It's not easy being a truck driver. It's lonely and isolating, it gives you way too much time to think, and it can be really difficult to juggle the very awkward schedule we have; trying to fit in a workout, and healthy cooking, and time to meditate, and time to do stretching, and read books, and clean... etc
  • Experience with Objectivism
    Atlas Shrugged, Reading ITOE and Objectivism: the philosophy of Ayn Rand
  • Copyright
    Copyrighted
  • Real Name
    Bryan
  • School or University
    PRIME Inc
  • Occupation
    Truck Driver

A is not B's Achievements

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  1. This might be tangential, but the purpose of life, at least from a biological point of view, is to combat entropy. This is a achieved only by the CONSTANT input of energy and a constant expenditure of energy. In a fundamental way, to stop moving is to start dying. If a man must keep his mind in constant action I.e. use reason, does this principle not extend to his body? To keep his body in constant action as well as his mind, ON PRINCIPLE. Ya know what? Im doing it. The battle is on!
  2. Awesome! My work here is done. There's a special feeling a man gets when he thrusts The Sword of Reason up the to the hilt into the Heart of Evil... Bonus points for twisting the blade. :-D Enjoy your workouts. Don't overtrain.
  3. Strictly logical, Oh yes, my life will be instantly improved as a trainer. Being a truck driver kinda blows. No social life, hard to find a gf, crazy schedule, I earn lots of money but there's nothing to spend it on (maybe thats good lol). Mentally... WAY better. I'm climbing the walls in this goddamn truck :-). That being said, I drive 10 hours a day and its wicked boring, unless I reread (listen) to the Fountainhead for the fifth time (always enjoyable) so if anybody wants to chat about Objectivism, PM me. Seriously, I have a headset, so its legal and safe. Shameless self promotion over. Strictly logical, you bring up another good point, "What is a rational, concrete value?" I get Rand's ethical abstractions as values, but her Ethics aren't exactly making concrete statements like, "You ought to workout, make lots of money, and get a college degree." Its up to the individual to determine how to apply her Ethics, using a solid grounding in her Epistemology, to their own very complicated lives. And since our lives are finite... we better get after it.
  4. Jon, that is an excellent post and those were the thoughts behind my quest for clarity. I DO have "reasons, beliefs, etc" for why I like training. In the end they all seem like really complicated ways of saying, "because I like it." Short version: Strength training seems to be the one activity I am drawn to that explicitly requires my favorite virtues. Honesty, integrity, goal directedness and integration. Another very short explanation is that of "Strength training as a Kinesthetic concretization of philosophy" I.e. Art. We often think of art as a visual or auditory concretization of concepts so those concepts can be accessed perceptually. But training as a way of perceiving elaborate concepts like "what man could be and ought to be" doesn't happen for me "out there" on a wall or in a radio, it happens "in here," concretely and in my own body and I experience such concepts as "man the hero" on the perceptual level through the Kinesthetic sense. In a way, it is an artwork that has to be recreated each time it is to be experienced and it can ONLY be experienced by the one who creates it. Its art that is profoundly, uniquely, and selfishly MINE. And I couldn't give it away, even if I wanted to because sense perceptions can't be shared. ...or something like that. I also like watching other people strive for "man the hero." I was training the other day and I sat in a leg press machine my gaze fixed on a tiny old woman-- had to be 90 years old-- who was doing very laborous body squats while holding onto a set of blast straps to take some of the weight off her legs. That little old woman was trying so HARD and as I walked out of the gym I overheard her tell her daughter that she was bound and determined to be able to walk again before she dies. That's hardcore! That gives me hope for the human race. That insolent, defiance of her condition is the living example of what Dagny said to Galt, "We never had to take it seriously..." So... Those are a few reasons. Is that rational or emotion driven? I'm not sure, but I like it. Lol. By the way, my name is Bryan.
  5. The reason that I ask these questions is because many times I will start progressing towards what I think is a worthy goal, only to find that I lose interest and fizzle out. I'd rather have a clear idea of what makes my goal "worth it"at the outset, than optimistically plod along. I want to be able to say, "I value THIS goal. This is WHY I value it. And this is how it fits together with the rest of the other values I have. And THIS is how it connects to the overall vision I have for my finite life. There are many things I cannot control, but getting clear IS something I can control. Being clear about my motives is what insures against "wishy washy" behavior. Does this make sense?
  6. I'm in Bradenton when I'm not in the truck, if there are any other Florida objectivists.
  7. I find myself reflecting on my values and motives and I am discovering that many of my actions and interests don't have any explaination beyond "because I enjoy it." My interest in strength training for example. I'm not doing it for health, or vanity, or money. I train simply because I enjoy seeing myself grow stronger week by week. I have entertained the idea of changing careers to health and fitness, but the idea isn't solid in my mind. At this point the only explanation for training is "because I like it." Is "because I like it" a valid reason to act if I can't explain clearly WHY I like it? I said I was thinking about training as a career move (personal trainer.) I have no reason for wanting to do that beyond "it interests me." Is that a valid reason without further elaboration? What would it mean to integrate the idea of training and being a trainer within the wider context of a goal directed life?
  8. I love audio books. I'm going through two lectures of Leonard Peikoff's at the moment and relistening to the fountainhead for the second time. I can't seem to find introduction to Objectivist epistemology in audio format. However, Peikoff's OPAR+ Intro to Logic+ Art of Thinking seems to make reference to it enough to probably be a good grounding in it.
  9. Lately I've been studying Objectivist epistemology more than any sane man should :-) (6 hours a day is a LONG time to stare at a glass jar and differentiate it from a cotton pouch and identify the.similarities and integrate it within the broader concept "container") I want to present something to you guys and see if I understand the concept formation and integration. Starting with sense perception-- I've visually see three shapes ( which later will be two pouches and a glass jar) and I touch the 3 shapes and sense their heft and texture. And I can see visually what their function is, to put stuff in them. From here my senses note the similarities and the differences between the shapes, the textures, and the function. ( I suppose function can be perceived sensually, I.e. visually.) I assume that separating the jar from the two pouches, cognitively, based on their differences is an automatic process? And that grouping the two pouches together based on their similarities is also an automatic process? From here the two concepts are solidified by omitting the measurement, that is to say, forgetting about any particular instance of these existents while retaining their distinguishing characteristics namely their shape and functions, then symbolizing these new concepts with a word, in this case jar and pouch. To go further than this, you could note the similarities between jar and pouch, namely their use of "holding stuff" and you could form the concept "container," grouping earlier concepts based on utility. Now was that a proper concept formation? Was that also an example of hierarchical integration?
  10. I'm sorry, I never meant to suggest that Objectivism wasn't sparking and satisfying my curiosity. On the contrary, Objectivism has given me endless subjects to consider and I would personally say that my life was instantly improved the moment I wrapped my brain around Rand's metaphysics. I reading the OPAR now and listening to Peikoff's Introduction to Logic. The nature of my questions is meant to convey my lack of understanding. I suppose my focus at this point in my life is "what to build and how to build it?" Rand's metaphysics and (what I understand of her) epistemology have "cured" me of a lot of mystic nonsense. Now the question is, Where to go from here? Now that I have an understanding of how NOT to act, of the goals NOT to strive for, it's time to think about the goals I should be setting, what's worth doing, and how do I do it? I'm not claiming to have answers. I'm just throwing my thoughts out there. :-)
  11. It has occurred to me that although my ego is more self sufficient than most, I still can not honestly say that I'm not motivated by others. I'm at a point where I am reflecting upon my goals and motivations and discarding those that no longer mean anything to me as well as setting goals that are more in line with what I want. Then the question hits me: What do I want? I have found a surprising amount of my goals to be motivated by a desire to be "thought" great, rather than actually do anything great. For example, when at the gym I can always lift heavier when watched by others. When alone, my workouts are less intense, it seems I don't push myself as hard when in my own company alone. This is a problem to me, not only because I pay the price next week (no effort no strength gain,) but also because it terrifies me.to think that my psychology is jerked around by the "zombies" I disdain. Am I like them psychologically? Am I a second hander? Am I a zombie making fun of other zombies? How does one test for "secondhanderness?" How does one correct it? Off the top of my head, I would suggest to myself that training the mind is like training the body; it responds and adapts to demands placed upon it. When you want to train a muscle, you look at its function and make it "do that" against resistance. Well, I suppose virtue doesn't exists in a vacuum either. There is no strength apart from the action which requires it; there is no virtue separate from the action that requires it. To train virtue, look its function and make it "do that" against resistance. If a self sufficient ego is a virtue, what is its function? To my mind a self sufficient ego allows one to draw motivation and courage from within and for oneself instead of from and for others. So, if I were going to train it based on function against resistance, I would purposefully perform tasks alone, tasks that I would have a tendency to perform well on only if I had an external motivation and then... TELL NO ONE. Because doing something great and then posting it all over Facebook to get the approval and envy of others is exactly NOT having a self sufficient ego. Hmmm... I feel like something is missing from my thinking. There's something I'm overlooking. I can't quite place it though. I wonder if even asking this forum for its thoughts on my life is itself an example of secondhandedness? What are your thoughts? (My hypocrisy knows no bounds :-) )
  12. Bump. Seriously, nobody is going to touch what 2046 wrote? Objectivism led me to AnarchoCapitalism too. In fact, until I read On The Nature of Government in Ayn Rand's Virtue of Selfishness, I too thought Rand was promoting a rational Anarchy. That's been one of the things I can't wrap my head around; why Rand considered a government necessary? Except when she explicitly states her approval of some type of government, I'd have bet money that her Epistemology and Ethics were leading up to a renouncing of that secular religion known as The State; with the same argument and for the same reason as her rejection of Mystic religion.
  13. Also, THIS is my last post from my tablet. Posts from my tablet appear to be spam free. Future posts will be from my cell. Please inform me if future posts contain spam.
  14. This is very interesting to me. I'm one of those new drivers you speak of, been driving for 2 years. I've recently switched from Company driver to independent contractor with PRIME. I like PRME. A lot actually, but I've often wondered what the advantages might be if I buy my own truck and work with a company like Landstar. And yes. Atlas Shrugged is near and dear to my heart for its emphasis on transportation. My favorite character is the truck driver in Galt's Gulch who did not intend to remain as one.
  15. thank you for the welcomes. I didn't mean to imply that OPAR (or Objectivism for that matter) is 'merely' a "bashing of non objectivists." I was speaking about its "presentation." I grant you that Objectivism has a major task in front of it, namely dispelling an incredible amount of bullshit (Zen, Judeo/Christian/Islam, spiritual virtues derived from Quantum Mechanics ETC,) but nobody likes "That Guy" who sits in a corner and rants all day about why the world and it's philosophy sucks. So I'm simply saying I would to see what Objectivism can "build" as opposed to what it can tear down. Its great for destroying irrational nonsense. Now, what can it create in its stead and how do we go about building it in our personal lives? P.S. I'm very familiar with Eastern Philosophy. You might call me a "recovering Buddhist" lol, so I'm am keenly aware, (I think, I could be wrong,) of Objectivism's Metaphysical and Epistemological... Rarity. :-)
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