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Olex

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Olex last won the day on December 27 2014

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About Olex

  • Birthday 05/17/1983

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  1. Olex

    Eve Online

    When were you in Taggart?
  2. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/modern_art.html “Art and Cognition,” The Romantic Manifesto, 76 Bold is mine. The first image that was shown was a good example of "something piled together." How can that not be obvious?
  3. Olex

    Eve Online

    I second that as an ex-CEO of TTI in EVE Online. Look for the channel TAGGART, we'd give you a good exercise for the brain - in order to get membership, you'll have to write a bit of an essay. That's how we filter the good from the bad in EVE.
  4. This is a form of insult, an indirect form of insult to Ayn Rand.
  5. Yes. See my post above #43. The following is a great and simple explanation of a double slit experiment. http://speicher.com/tew1.html
  6. http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?act=boardrules Has the rules been changed on this forum?
  7. For those who wish to find a simple layman explanation of Dr. Lewis Little's theory, I highly suggest taking a look at the following 3-part article here: http://speicher.com/tew.html http://speicher.com/tew1.html http://speicher.com/tew2.html http://speicher.com/tew3.html
  8. I find these thoughts completely bewildering. Here's why. Let's remind ourselves that this is what supposed to be comments on a physical theory. But yet the first 3 sentences that we see is a random detour that "ttn" talks about various possibilities as to why the author misspelled "Innsbruck." Excuse me? The topic is physics not an analysis of an individual and his spelling ability. How would it look like if you were replying to Einstein's theory and your first few sentences were discussing that he misspelled some word? It would look ridiculous. In a scientific debate one ought to challenge the argument not the author. Yet another name calling. If one wishes to leave a comment aside, one should leave it aside, instead of saying an equivalent of: "Oh, yeah, I have an irrelevant comment that my scientific opponent's comments are stupid. However, I would like to leave that aside for now." Huh? Excuse me? What is the point of asking questions, which have to do with the personal intention of the author instead of his arguments? Furthermore, these questions are arbitrary. They cannot be answered without having a very close friendship with the author where you can get at least get some insights into this actions and intentions. Otherwise, what is going on here is "psychologizing:" "It is very curious to me," "Little feels," etc. You cannot know what Dr. Little feels or doesn't feel on this subject, so it's arbitrary to bring it into this discussion, AND to do so in the first few paragraphs before even beginning to discuss his arguments. This is one of the lowest point of ttn's post. The quote above by Dr. Little is taken completely out of context. "ttn" drops the context and then proceeds to show the (non-existent) internal contradiction that Dr. Little makes. Here's the actual full relevant context of the quote that "ttn" shows here: (The underline below is mine.) And now consider how "ttn" twists that into: The twist of context-dropping boggles my mind.
  9. An objective rebuttal of a scientific proposition or theory should not start with a personal attack and name calling towards the person. One should attack the argument not the person. You've committed the fallacy of ad-hominem. I am appalled that the moderators are allowing this to remain unchallenged.
  10. So, in essence: " Language is just labels that humans hang on things. We as humans can only hope to understand only part of reality anyway. Economics come from what little part of reality we humans can get. Through this tiny amount, we hopelessly try to come up with more labels. First, we come up with an idea, without any relation to reality ( "First there is a hypothesis" ), then we check to see if it happens to match reality, and formulate as much as we can to best fit the idea to reality. Therefore, the 'science' is born. " ?
  11. I don't see it. Entities and their actions are inseparable. So this primacy only exists in your mind when you break them into parts. But in reality it's one whole. So I don't see your point. I don't know what you mean here. Actually, epistemology is in the same position as metaphysics is. So why are you separating metaphysics only? I think you are taking this too far. I'm pretty sure that many people today have a separation between action and thought. So they could act while denying the axiom. Furthermore, they often mess themselves up so bad, that they can't even understand what "Existence exists" means. They begin to wonder in circles about second word having the same root as the first, etc. Now, it's true that in order to properly claim any knowledge, one must build from those axioms. However, this only happens when one goes through the entire process correctly, of correctly building knowledge. A wrong example is a rationalist who says that one can't be certain that reality exists, since one can't prove it by deductive means. How would you assess such case? That sounds too vague for me. In essence, you are saying that one needs a conscious and develop it somewhat to be able to grasp axioms consciously ? EDIT: clarifications
  12. Some minor corrections that I think you should be careful of. Be careful here. It's certainly true that there are no "floating" (i.e. cause-less) actions, and that's a decent start for induction to arrive at the principle of causality. But the final argument shouldn't be using that. Causality is really an extension or specification of principle of Identity. In short: if a thing is what it is, then it will act according to what it is as well. Once you say that, then in your argument you ought to provide some concrete examples to illustrate what you mean in reality. So "balls" should go here. I don't think I would use "primacy" in this context, b/c it seems to mean metaphysical primacy. It's not as if first an entity comes into existence, and then a split second later, its actions and properties come in with appropriate causes and effects. In reality, it's all happens at the same time, and it's indivisible. However, when we think of this, we have to break it up into parts, and when building the argument, one part certainly has to come first (entity and its identity) and then show the second (cause and effect). But that's not what "primacy" means. As far as I have seen "primacy" in Objectivism only refers to metaphysical primacy. For example, existence over consciousness. But in this case, it is so b/c consciousness is subject to existence in many ways. #2 is correct, however, the more essential statement is that knowledge requires a foundation. So, it's not that we happen to assume certain things when we think but rather that our knowledge is hierarchical and requires a base, a first step - and that's what axioms are. To be honest, I'm not sure why you have to outline things about axioms. It's not like you have to constantly be on lookout for axioms in philosophy. There are only 3 of them after all. But given that, how would you defend that all axioms MUST be metaphysical? I have doubts over this. For example, a child wouldn't be able to grasp an axiom. He would have a ton of work ahead of him. While axioms are the basis of knowledge, they are not "easy" to grasp. Another example is that a child goes through bunch of work being able to separate between existence and consciousness. Keep in mind that "existence" and "consciousness" are very 'fat' concepts. They include a lot of concretes and involve a long road from 'table' to 'existence' for example. I'd suggest you pick a different verb for "grasp."
  13. Of course, one idea was built on another idea. But this is wrong. Electromagnetic communication != WWW. Using transistor for switches != computerized communication. Just b/c an idea was based on some previous idea doesn't mean, nothing new was created. I think you missed my point. Of course, one must think of an idea and then make it. The point is that somebody had to invent the idea, which didn't exist before. Otherwise, you might as well claim that Newton didn't invent anything new at all with his laws.
  14. So, there was a concept of "world wide web" (i.e. Internet) before it was invented? Nonsense. That's what invention is - creating something that hasn't existed before.
  15. I would suggest then while reading Atlas Shrugged paying a lot of attention to Dagny Taggart - why she keeps fighting while others have already shrugged - try to stick to every bit of information there to the very end of the book. You could also consider all others characters and see what made them quit. The novel is very deep in terms of how much is going on there. This should give you more food for thought.
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