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My Ethical Theory and Rand’s Perception of mind-independent existence is fundamental to human consciousness, though not the whole of what is fundamental in human consciousness. “Existence exists, we live.” The act of grasping that statement implies that things exist, including you and I conscious living selves, our consciousness being something alive and being the faculty of perceiving that which exists. No one understanding the statement “Existence exists,” whether uttered, signed, or written, has such an occasion of consciousness without co-referential history and ongoing context of his or her language and intellectual community. The reader is not without the writer, and the thinker addresses a standing audience of others, however unspecified, as well as self. Co-reference precedes the one-word stage of language acquisition, and ever after the acquisition of language, the standing suitability for co-reference attends every thought that something is the case. Co-referential potential of thought, and the mutual recognition of intentional being that requires, is a condition of one’s existence as a thinker in language. Indeed, pronominal other person is in and with oneself as existence is in and with oneself. In one’s conscious and subconscious existence is resonance with existence in general, resonance with living existence, and special of the latter, resonance with other person. “Existence exists” is registration of existing among other existents. Further, the act of grasping the statement “Existence exists,” I observe, implies performance of and grasp of acts, not only acts of consciousness, but acts of living body. There are no acts of and grasps of consciousness without acts of and intentional grasps with one’s living body. There is no grasp of the externality of existence to subject without grasps of externality to one’s body. If one observes one’s consciousness, one is acquainted with one’s living body and one’s actions with it. Moreover, one knows in any episodes of post-linguistic observational consciousness others of one’s acting and conscious kind. Then too, one had always (in a practical sense of always) known Mother or other caregiver. “Existence exists, we live.” The act of grasping that statement implies that things exist, including you and I conscious living selves, our consciousness being something alive and being the faculty of perceiving that which exists. There is normativity in that most basic metaphysical frame (mine, not Rand’s). We are given, dedicated to grasping reality in awareness concerted with other and in coordinated acts with other. This is automatic animal engineering-performance-norm of operation. We are given, already loving truth, truth-getting, act, self, and other. With later education, we learn that life ends, that it requires maintenance, and in our human case, that it requires production and education and social cooperative conventions. We learn that those means to life require a waking state and adequate sleep. Going beyond the original grasp of life in breath and cry and suckle, learning more of life and its requirements requires some focused effort. The plenty and exuberance of human life of today required individual creativity, initiative, and freedom coordinated at the large social scale by moral- and rights-constraints on treatments of others. Human moral life arises in the milieu of learned character of life, all within and ever with the basic frame “Existence exists, we live.” In learning life beyond the basic knowing, we can grasp the concept of “alternative” mined by Ayn Rand: Only with advent of the ends-getting organized matter that is life do alternatives enter nature. I observe, in addition: We say that when we've got the accelerator on, a given electron is either going to encounter a positron or not. That saying is true to nature, but it, unlike identity, is not something in nature independently of a striving mind. Either-Or, I wrote in "Existence, We", is based in identities in nature, but is only in nature where living systems are in nature facing nature. That is, the Law of Excluded Middle for thought rises as high-animal mind rises by organic evolutionary layers on vegetative neuronal control systems of animals. The electron will either encounter a positron or it will not, but the electron does not face an alternative of continued existence or not. We see the possibilities, but the electron, unlike a living cell, does not face them. We and all living things face the alternative of continued existence or not, and from that fundamental alternative, all alternative is born. In moral life, we elect to keep life going, including to keep going life known in the basic frame. Once we have the developed powers, we elect to keep thinking, coordinating, creating, and producing. The moral virtue of truth-telling is rooted in the basic frame, constantly at hand. Life known in the basic frame is striving and growing, and doing so with other. Those were given; they are given engineering specs. Keeping such life operative in oneself is moral life. Striving and growing with other becomes joint thinking and production, and, as well, joint generative, out-flowing love of nature, the creation nature affords, and such love of such selves. Living selves. Moral life is elected allowance of continued resonance of life among selves. Selves living ever under the alternative of cessation, which is death. The call of moral conduct is the call of life in its form that is living selves. The preceding is my proposal for a biological basis of distinctly moral proprieties. As with Rand’s, in my proposal, biological operations as they resulted in the course of nature on earth resulted in such things as needs and functions coming into the world. It is upon the organization that is life and its character we have the fact upon which oughts can have objective ground. Functions had come into the world before humans emerged. We and our ancestors were each of us functioning, more and less well, at any stage of our existence. Famously, for part of Rand’s ethical base, she characterized life in complete generality as self-generating and self-maintaining. This she took from standard biology along with the findings that all organismic life is cellular the findings of ontogeny and of evolution from Darwin to the present. It is quite true that self-generation and self-maintenance are features of any life. Even if we humans become creators of life from inanimate matter, our success will mean that we created means for the appearance of matter organized such that it is self-generating and self-maintaining. We are relying on that character when we plant, water, and fertilize crops, even if we only dimly notice that the crops do the growing themselves and possess various ranges of adaptability themselves under changes in surrounding conditions. That living things have functions in their subsystems to the preservation and replication of the whole organism and that living things have powers of self-generation and self-maintenance might better have some elements such as growth drawn out more, but I’ll stay with Rand’s broad meanings of self-generation and self-maintenance. Notice that these steps are not necessarily only suited for a ladder to ethical egoism. To be a fair characterization of life in general, we must understand “self” in self-generating and self-maintaining in a broad and indeed rather shifty way. Overwhelmingly, life gets started from life. Other life. Self as individual organism and self as its species work back and forth for continuation of those two selves. An individual life can be just a quickly disposable trial tool in the function of preserving the species, although overall, the species requires individual organisms. Of course. I stress that functions are operating in each one of us in all one's ontogeny. Rand noted that the pleasure-pain mechanism of the body is the progenitor of what is joy and suffering in organic elaboration and that all of those are indicators for good or evil for life of and proper functioning in the individual animal, including humans. I stress that it is not only other animals in which all of that is part of its overall individual control system. Our high-level, socially instructed conscious control system in maturity remains tied to the automatic one still running. Rand centered on a choice to live in the case of human life. I think that element is better characterized as a choice to continue living. And that means continuing to pursue the facts and the coordination with others in that pursuit. Rand has it that rationality is our overarching method for getting the facts and making good uses of them. That is fine, but I contest the picture in which one was just going along alone rationally pursuing the facts and how to use them and then as it were noticed, secondarily, that the existence of other people is enjoyable, knowledge-boosting, and economically advantageous. The higher intelligence of humans does indeed have launchings spontaneously in individuals. Young children will spontaneously seriate a group of rods according to their lengths; none of our closest primate pals do that. But we have been in intelligent human company all along our individual active existence, from precautions and playing to learning common nouns, proper names, verbs, classification, and predication. Rationality is profoundly social in one from the get-go, even as its acquisition by each person consists in individual facility in its operation independently of direction from others and self-direction in seeking information or in seeking specialized skills from others. Rationality is seen by Rand as the basic moral virtue because it is the necessary general operation needed for the human form of life. She takes the other virtues in her ethical system to be salient strands of rationality aimed at individual survival. I say, rather, that rationality is the given proper being of a human and the proper responsiveness to persons, other and self. Rationality is the grand means of human survival, as Rand held, but that is not the whole of its story. Rand had proposed that the virtue of rationality is not only virtue in a social setting, but virtue—main moral virtue—for a castaway on a deserted island. This is because in the isolated setting rationality is necessary to the individual’s survival. That is so, however, I say that enabling survival is not the only source of the goodness of rationality. There is a person on that island: the castaway. Rationality is proper responsiveness to and continuation of his self. It is call of life in that life form that is his personal self that is the distinctively moral in the virtue of rationality for a castaway. Though the castaway carries along other in foundational frame, he is now the only human present. He is an end-in-himself with much rightness to continue himself. (A pet might go a ways for fulfilling the need to love and interact with another human self.) Returned to society, an individual remains an end-in-himself rightly making his life, a fully human life with interactions and mutual values and interactions with the other ends-in-themselves that are human selves at centers of making lives. Ayn Rand offered an ethical egoism in which rationality took its place as central overall virtue for a person due to the need for rationality in making one’s reality-according individual human life. She tried to weave the prima facie virtue of truth-telling to others as a derivative of the need to be honest with oneself about the facts. That is not plausibly the basic reason one wants to and should want to be honest with others. Rand’s account of honesty is inadequate by reliance on a purely egoistic basis. Ethical egoism, a genuine one such as hers, one attempting to derive all its moral virtues purely from self-interest, is false. It rests on an inadequate view of what is the constitution of the human self. Caring for human life includes caring for rationality in human selves, indeed caring of the entire human psyche supporting its rationality. What good would be a person having all she desires but her rational mind? Distinctively moral caring is caring for human selves, notably in the great psyche-constituent and power of rationality—caring in the sense of concern and caring in the sense of tending. The power of human rationality is discovery and utilization of nature, and it is also our fundamental human love, which is an originative, out-springing love for the natural world and, as well, for we humans in nature, for human selves and our attainments. It is the love of creation and production, the love of intelligent conversation and commerce. That rationality is the fundamental human virtue. One failing to have it is in human failure, including moral failure. Although my account builds on a social nature of human individuals running deeper than social nature as characterized by Rand, I land in much agreement with Rand on general characterization of life as self-generated and self-maintaining action and as teleological action (even for vegetative actions such as gravitropic plant roots) and with life as the phenomenon among existents with which such things as function, needs, alternatives, problems, and solutions enter the world at all. All of those features are in stark contrast to inanimate matter in our ordinary experience and as in our modern science. In the case of human selves and lives, all of those glories are reached in coordination with others, living or long deceased, and humans have greater choice than other animals in shaping longer arcs in their lives. As with Rand's ethics, Rationality remains the overarching human virtue, although, into my reasons for that there is not only the instrumental value of rationality (solo and in cooperation) for successful continuation of life, but the inherent value of rationality to human self and life, including joint participation of rationality in lives and selves. Rationality is inherently self-directed, so independence in a social environment (in thought and in making a life) remains a virtue, as with Rand. Creativity and productivity and integrity and benevolence and voluntary association are also part and parcel of my broadened notion of rational human nature. There is an additional distinctive feature in Rand's general characterization of life I'd like address: Life is an end in itself. I endorse that characterization also, although what constitutes individual human life is deeper in its connections to others, than in Rand's characterization of it, and that is so, even though in maturity choice is a factor in which relationships are instituted. Rand had the circumstance that life is an end in itself in a beautiful dual role in her ethics. (i) Directed to one's general moral conduct in all circumstances, it has one rightly treating oneself as an end in itself; self-interest is the ultimate criterion for any decisions or actions. (ii) Directed to one's conduct towards others, Rand adds that they too are ends in themselves and that conformance to individual rights correctly has each treated as an end in himself and makes possible each continuing self-direction all together in coordination. The second (ii) is correct within my system. The first (i) is not, because self-interest (or other-interest) are inadequate moral criteria stemming from inadequate understanding of human nature. Life known in my basic metaphysical frame is striving and growing, and doing so with other. Those were given; they are given engineering specifications. Keeping such life operative in oneself is moral life. Striving and growing with other becomes joint thinking and production, and, as well, joint generative, out-flowing love of nature, the creation nature affords, and such love of such selves. Living selves. Moral life is elected allowance of continued resonance of life among selves. Selves living ever under the alternative of cessation, which is death. The call of moral conduct is the call of life in its form that is living selves. Caring for human life includes caring for rationality in human selves, indeed caring of the entire human psyche supporting its rationality. What good would be a person having all she desires but her rational mind? Distinctively moral caring is caring for human selves, notably in the great psyche-constituent and power of rationality—caring in the sense of concern and caring in the sense of tending. The power of human rationality is discovery and utilization of nature, and it is also our fundamental human love, which is an originative, out-springing love for the natural world and, as well, for we humans in nature, for human selves and our attainments. It is the love of creation and production, the love of intelligent conversation and commerce. That rationality is the fundamental human virtue.

I have long praised a happy result of the free market: It discourages racism. Two memorable examples I have brought up here include commercial desegregation in Houston (when segregation was called "bad for business") and the universal reach of the Sears catalog across the South. Both of these show capitalism blunting the force of segregation, or helping end it outright. Notably, thanks to a recent John Stossel article, we can now add a historic example of capitalism actively resisting Jim Crow due to the power of self-interest:Image by Unknown Photographer, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain."It's often forgotten that owners of buses, railways, streetcars in the American South didn't really segregate systematically until the late 19th century," says [economist Johan] Norberg [, author of Capitalist Manifesto]. "It was probably not because they were less racist than others in the South, but they were capitalists. They wanted money, they wanted clients, and they didn't want to engage in some sort of costly and brutal policing business in segregating buses." Even when segregation was mandated, some streetcar companies refused to comply. For several years after Jim Crow laws passed, black customers sat wherever they wanted. Norberg adds, "Those owners of public transport, they fought those discriminatory laws because they imposed a terrible cost….They tried to bypass them secretly and fight them in courts. They were often fined. Some were threatened with imprisonment." The streetcar company in Mobile, Alabama, only obeyed Jim Crow laws after their conductors began to get arrested and fined. [bold added]Notice that capitalism, the system that respects individual rights, strongly penalizes racism, because it is antithetical to a person's actual self-interest: It took the active abuse of government, in the form of fines and imprisonment, to fully implement the costly folly of treating customers badly, or forfeiting them altogether. I have not myself read Norberg's book, but on this evidence, it appears to be worth consideration by any serious advocate of capitalism or racial equality. -- CAVLink to Original

Just to round off the discussion being had with you, this type of thing is the main issue. You've continually done this to people where you belittle them, only to come back and complain about the "intolerance" of Objectivists. Enough. I actually took a quick scroll through your post history, which is very short, and I've come to a conclusion about you that I feel pretty justified in. You have never actually considered yourself to be an "Objectivist" and you're here to try and get a rise out of people, convert them to your way of thinking, or both. You made your first post in 2008 where you criticized Rand's epistemology and defended Kant. Then you disappeared for 16 years only to come back and criticize Objectivism some more, claiming that you were previously a devotee who had spent "hundreds of hours" studying the philosophy. After reading your posts here, I really don't believe you, and I'm almost completely certain that you're some obsessive internet weirdo trying to mess with people. You were being rude before, but I just thought you were dumb and lashing out because the alternative is pretty wild considering your other posts. But after looking at your older posts and subsequent behavior, I can only conclude that you really are that weird and manipulative. Another example of you not addressing the points being made to you, but multiple people including myself have already pointed out how intellectually dishonest you are. I was letting you run out of steam while isolating you to this thread, and I think we've reached a point where allowing any more posts from you would be pretty much pointless. You've had your chance to say something substantive and you haven't taken it, so from here on out you're banned from this site. Bye now! PS: I asked Eiuol what he thinks and he agreed, so you really don't have a way of getting around this.

"Objectivity is both a metaphysical and an epistemological concept. It pertains to the relationship of consciousness to existence. Metaphysically, it is the recognition of the fact that reality exists independent of any perceiver’s consciousness. Epistemologically, it is the recognition of the fact that a perceiver’s (man’s) consciousness must acquire knowledge of reality by certain means (reason) in accordance with certain rules (logic). This means that although reality is immutable and, in any given context, only one answer is true, the truth is not automatically available to a human consciousness and can be obtained only by a certain mental process which is required of every man who seeks knowledge — that there is no substitute for this process, no escape from the responsibility for it, no shortcuts, no special revelations to privileged observers — and that there can be no such thing as a final “authority” in matters pertaining to human knowledge. Metaphysically, the only authority is reality; epistemologically — one’s own mind. The first is the ultimate arbiter of the second. The concept of objectivity contains the reason why the question “Who decides what is right or wrong?” is wrong. Nobody “decides.” Nature does not decide — it merely is; man does not decide, in issues of knowledge, he merely observes that which is. When it comes to applying his knowledge, man decides what he chooses to do, according to what he has learned, remembering that the basic principle of rational action in all aspects of human existence, is: “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.” This means that man does not create reality and can achieve his values only by making his decisions consonant with the facts of reality." “WHO IS THE FINAL AUTHORITY IN ETHICS?” The Objectivist Newsletter/, Feb. 1965, 7

The elegant "hierarchy of values" puts paid to conflicts of self-interest, I think. Not then, a definitive alternative between my happiness and another's, but a deep consideration of how much they mean to me, how much their requirements on my energy/time/etc. matter to them, and the rational and emotional costs of my help. Some are weighty, many frivolous. The pleasures shared of a happy major event for another's benefit, particularly someone close - certainly, life-enhancing - and selfish on her/his behalf!

Are they really different "meanings" or are they just different aspects of the same thing? Consciousness has many characteristics and it's quite appropriate to use the ones that are relevant while temporarily setting aside the ones that are irrelevant. (Of course the irrelevant characteristics are still there and may be very relevant in other contexts.) It is quite possible to tell a man that some of his facts are wrong without disputing other facts such as that 2+2=4. If a dispute can be reduced to a factual dispute, then that's real progress, because it should be possible to settle it by looking at reality (possibly with the aid of instruments) and seeing what is actually the case. Of course a man might not listen to the idea that his facts or wrong, or might not investigate the matter, but that's his problem, not a problem with reality as such. (It is also possible for a man to be wrong but undisputed, and this is part of why it's necessary to validate claims against reality as opposed to accepting them uncritically.)

According to Plato, known existents are actually shadows or copies of pure Ideas located in the Hyperuranion. Likewise, in a materialist framework, mental "existents" (percepts) are mere shadows or copies of pure Things located in the Physical™ world. The idea is that mind-stuff is unable to produce matter, because of the Law of Identity: mind-stuff has an identity that is toto genere different from the identity of matter. On the other hand, matter can easily produce mind-stuff because.. it just can, okay? Peikoff is constantly oscillating between different meanings of the word "consciousness", according to what is convenient for his purposes. At the beginning of the quoted part, he takes "consciousness" to mean passive awareness of objects; he then shifts to a broader meaning which encompasses volitional aspects, like fantasizing/desiring that the food disappears. It doesn't seem to occur to Peikoff that, as per the Law of Identity, even if a mind was able to productively create the entirety of the contents of consciousness, the creative process itself would not be "free", but constrained by certain laws. I'm free to draw a line in my mind, but I'm not free to do so without making use of point and space. The laws of geometry are the necessary "stage" for freely drawing the line, which is to say: the mind produces not just one kind of representation (drawing the line) but also the representation of the lawful backdrop (point and space). Metaphysics is not as simple as trying to make food disappear. Here is the original claim: And this cannot be stressed enough. Man can err, yet at the same time be completely convinced that he is merely "following reality". Try to challenge his assertions, and you're met with replies such as "Well.. is 2+2=4?!", implying that, since he was merely following "reality", his conclusion was pristine and perfect. The only "authority" is intellectual honesty when dealing with reality.

The objects, collectively, are existence. There is no "cause" of existence. Existence exists. Our senses have a nature such that (some) objects affect the senses and cause us to perceive the objects. (Sometimes indirectly e.g. when light bounces off the objects and the light affects our eyes.) But the objects exist whether we perceive them or not.

I have no idea what you are talking about with regard to seeking "sympathy" with anyone. I showed you the correct answers and won't have any further discussion with an irrational person that shouldn't even be allowed to post this type of complete irrational nonsense here as it's a violation of Forum rules and the site's purpose. Don't respond to me again nor send me any private messages trying to get around Euiol.

Since axiomatic concepts are identifications of irreducible primaries, the only way to define one is by means of an ostensive definition—e.g., to define “existence,” one would have to sweep one’s arm around and say: “I mean this.” Definitions Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 41 If existence is/ has axiomatic primacy, then the 'this' being ostensibly defined by the sweeping of the arm are 'all' the objects of sense perception, so the 'cause' of the objects,no? What I am questioning is , is the awareness of 'this' , the experience 'as' fundamental at least equally fundamental that 'primacy' is somehow incorrect?

And thus, you may have discovered their intentions. "Reality has no authority " , which may be used to justify, popularize, irrational thought.

Over the weekend, I heard a podcaster speculating on reports that someone was paying people to stage pro-Hamas "protests," i.e., tresspass, squat on, and vandalize college campuses, while threatening Jews or counter-protesters. Given the overall looniness of this day and age, any headlines to that effect would remind me of Poe's Law:Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article.Only now, one often needs to replace the emoji with a reputable source and creationist with conspiracy theorist, while remembering that there are some bat-#$%& crazy things going on out there because nobody is calling out the nuts, bigots, or war-mongers for what they are even as they accuse civiilized people of exactly those things. Reputable news outlets are indeed reporting strong evidence of as much. From NBC News at the first link:New York City officials said that a significant number of people arrested this week at campus demonstrations were not affiliated with the schools. Nearly 30% of the people arrested at Columbia were unaffiliated with the university and 60% of the arrests at City College involved people who weren't affiliated with that school, the mayor said. And The Wall Street Journal, in a report titled "Activist [sic] Groups Trained Students for Months Before Campus Protests" adds:Image by jakerome, via Wikimedia Commons, license.In March, there was a "Resistance 101" training scheduled at Columbia with guest speakers including longtime activists with Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based group that celebrated the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. The administration twice barred the event, citing some of the organizers' known support of terrorism and promotion of violence. Columbia students hosted the event virtually nonetheless, which prompted Columbia President Minouche Shafik to suspend several of them. ... Polat said student organizers at Columbia learned the discipline and planning needed to pull off an effective protest movement not only from their work with veteran demonstrators and outside groups, but from participating in Black Lives Matter marches or student labor organizing. Some tools they learned were practical, such as how to raise money via student fundraisers and donations from friends and supporters to buy tents for encampments.The links came from a post at the conservative Hot Air blog which asserts that these sources confirm not just that non-affiliated people are protesting, but that they are funded by George Soros. While the latter wouldn't surprise me, I see no proof of that particular allegation. (That said, I do not know nor have looked into whether Soros is a major funder of some of the groups giving aid and comfort to these non-student, non-faculty thugs.) -- CAV P.S. For anyone unfamiliar with the term, astroturfing is (or was) a smear that leftists used to dismiss any kind of campaign of protests or rallies they didn't like, on the grounds that they allegedly didn't have as much organic support from the public as they seem to. It's funny how that word hasn't come up yet, although, to be fair, many college students and faculty do support Hamas, thanks to the ideas that saturate college campuses: "Elite colleges are now reaping the consequences of promoting a pedagogy that trashed the postwar ideal of the liberal university." (HT: Yaron Brook)Link to Original

CORRECTION: "As with Rand's ethics, Rationality remains the overarching human virtue, although, into my reasons for that there is not only the instrumental value of rationality (solo and in cooperation) for successful continuation of life, but the inherent value of rationality to human self and life, including joint participation of rationality in lives and selves."

If you're talking about the expansion of the universe as in the redshift of distant galaxies and the Hubble constant and all that stuff, then no. Consciousness has no effect on any of that, just like it doesn't affect nuclear fusion in stars, or the orbits of planets. Especially with astrophysics, where the things we are observing are too far away for us to affect, we can only observe, and theorize about the causes of what we observe. Just because they are different doesn't mean that they don't "count" as existing. I'll just quote what Peikoff says in the first chapter of OPAR: And later he says: This is what I have been getting at.

We stipulated that consciousness and products of consciousness are existents, and the question about the expansion of the universe following the actions of existent producing sentient beings should also follow, no? Unless mental extistents don't 'count', that their state of being is different from the state of being or nature from the nature of 'things' that make up the finite universe.

This sounds like a non-sequitur to me. All I'm saying is that consciousness exists. How could sense perception be valid if consciousness doesn't exist?

Without an implied physicalist monism , is there a coherent argument in favor of the validity of sense perception?

Reality can't be an arbiter of anything. My chair, an existent that possesses the attribute of reality, can't be an arbiter of anything. The idea that reality is an arbiter of truth comes from Logical Positivism.

Ideas, emotions, and consciousness are existents. So as long as there are sentient beings the universe is expanding?

The preceding pair of studies of mine, joining and criticizing Ayn Rand in her theory of value, theory of moral value, and her ethical egoism were written 14–16 years ago. Since then I developed my own metaphysics, also both joining and criticizing Rand in some of her fundamentals. My account is in the OL thread "These Hours of Resonant Existence" and in the links I included therein. I have not changed my mind about anything I wrote in the 2008 studies I have quoted in this post. But now I have the affirmative alternative, neighboring Rand's ethical theory, that I think more correct and best replacement for hers. In the OL thread "These Hours of Resonant Existence," I wrote out Chapter X of the monograph. Although my account builds on a social nature of human individuals running deeper than social nature as characterized by Rand, I land in much agreement with Rand on general characterization of life as self-generated and self-maintaining action and as teleological action (even for vegetative actions such as gravitropic plant roots) and with life as the phenomenon among existents with which such things as function, needs, alternatives, problems, and solutions enter the world at all. All of those features are in stark contrast to inanimate matter in our ordinary experience and as in our modern science. In the case of human selves and lives, all of those glories are reached in coordination with others, living or long deceased, and humans have greater choice than other animals in shaping longer arcs in their lives. As with Rand's ethics, Rationality remains the overarching human virtue, although, into my reasons for that there is not the instrumental value of rationality (solo and in cooperation) for successful continuation of life, but the inherent value of rationality to human self and life, including joint participation of rationality in lives and selves. Rationality is inherently self-directed, so independence in a social environment (in thought and in making a life) remains a virtue, as with Rand. Creativity and productivity and integrity and voluntary association are also part and parcel of my broadened notion of rational human nature. There is an additional distinctive feature in Rand's general characterization of life I'd like address: Life is an end in itself. I endorse that characterization also, although what constitutes individual human life is deeper in its connections to others, than in Rand's characterization of it, and that is so, even though in maturity choice is a factor in which relationships are instituted. Rand had the circumstance that life is an end in itself in a beautiful dual role in her ethics. (i) Directed to one's general moral conduct in all circumstances, it has one rightly treating oneself as an end in itself; self-interest is the ultimate criterion for any decisions or actions. (ii) Directed to one's conduct towards others, Rand adds that they too are ends in themselves and that conformance to individual rights correctly has each treated as an end in himself and makes possible each continuing self-direction all together in coordination. The second (ii) is correct within my system. The first (i) is not, because self-interest (or other-interest) are inadequate moral criteria stemming from inadequate understanding of human natue. As I wrote earlier in "These Hours of Resonant Existence" X: This broader rationality and the individual human end-in-itself that I embrace is an extra-easy fit with respect for the rights of other individuals. I am sorry that I've needed to go ahead and develop and present the ethical sector of Resonant Existence in such an unscholarly way. I'd have hoped to set it out with the pageant of all previous thought on ethics and situation with respect to other ethicists, those leading in the philosophical profession today. But there is that cessation thing for each life, and I wanted to at least get hold of and share in these hours we have this outline for this vital subject.

I suppose I wasn't really getting into that question; I was only emphasizing that ideas and emotions and consciousnesses are existents and, like any other existents, have specific identities and natures of their own. This would include saying, for example, that anger can't exist unless there is some consciousness to be angry. That is part of the nature of anger; that is part of anger's identity. However, there is a sense in which ideas and emotions are distinct from the consciousness that has them. I can give you an idea (or possibly make you angry) but I cannot give you my consciousness. (You have your own.) It's pretty clear that there has to be some mechanism (or combination of mechanisms) that causes a brain, in a living body, to be conscious. But I suppose Objectivism considers the exact identification of those mechanisms to be a problem for the special sciences. This is not to say that the question isn't interesting.

"Consciousness" (a faculty) perceives "an idea or an emotion. . ." (an object). According to this formulation, the faculty (consciousness) and its objects (ideas, emotions) are distinct from each other. Or, more specifically, the identity of consciousness is to be consciousness-like, while the identity of objects is to be object-like. However, if we try to imagine: an idea/emotion existing outside of a consciousness, or a consciousness devoid of any content whatsoever we cannot do so. The separation exists in theory, but not in practice, so to speak. To get around this, some 19th century Romantics had an interesting concept called "productive perception" (or productive intuition): consciousness comes into existence through an action; without this action, there is no consciousness. We, contemporary thinkers, could associate this with the activity of a brain, or, if we're adventurous, with some primordial cosmic action. It doesn't matter for our intents and purposes. Now, from this action arises more than just consciousness alone. The content arises as well. To illustrate this from a materialistic framework, suppose that I hit my toe. As a consequence, I feel pain. But "pain" is not a mind-independent existent; on the contrary: my brain produced or created the pain-sensation in the aftermath of the stimulus. (For non-materialist readers, substitute whatever you want.) Hence, the "productive intuition/perception" moniker. Of course, from my perspective, my consciousness is not "productive" at all. This is because the productive operations of the brain/primordial-act cannot themselves enter consciousness. But if I wanted to observe how consciousness comes to be, I could for example: Observe the brain in a lab (according to physicalists) Freely perform a mental action, then observe any involuntary productive acts that my mind does as a result of the first act (according to idealists) Idealist systems like those of Fichte and Schelling employ the latter method, which is centered on observing your own mind in the process of generating the general categories and content of experience (Subject, Object, sensation, time, substance etc.) Now, the premise of those Romantics is that, although the "primordial action" lies outside of my awareness, I myself must have been the author of this act. Stated differently, I blindly strive for consciousness, and my striving results in attaining consciousness. So, to me it appears as if my brain acts "blindly" in order to give rise to my consciousness. But from a higher perspective, the brain is not separate from me; the brain is me in the process of striving for consciousness. Or, more clearly: in my awareness, the unconsciously-acting aspect of me looks like a brain, while the consciously-acting side of me looks like a "will" that controls my physical body from inside, as it were. ___ My sources: Fichte, Schelling

As far as I can tell, Objectivism is based on and grounded by non-contradictory identification of all of reality.

My interpretation of O'ism as being based on and grounded by non contradictory identification of physical reality is mistaken?

I thumbed this up even though all of it isn't true although somewhat better than what the other guy spewed. It does not result from consciousness quite the opposite. From the Lexicon: The basic metaphysical issue that lies at the root of any system of philosophy [is] the primacy of existence or the primacy of consciousness. The primacy of existence (of reality) is the axiom that existence exists, i.e., that the universe exists independent of consciousness (of any consciousness), that things are what they are, that they possess a specific nature, an identity. The epistemological corollary is the axiom that consciousness is the faculty of perceiving that which exists — and that man gains knowledge of reality by looking outward. The rejection of these axioms represents a reversal: the primacy of consciousness — the notion that the universe has no independent existence, that it is the product of a consciousness (either human or divine or both). The epistemological corollary is the notion that man gains knowledge of reality by looking inward (either at his own consciousness or at the revelations it receives from another, superior consciousness). The source of this reversal is the inability or unwillingness fully to grasp the difference between one’s inner state and the outer world, i.e., between the perceiver and the perceived (thus blending consciousness and existence into one indeterminate package-deal). This crucial distinction is not given to man automatically; it has to be learned. It is implicit in any awareness, but it has to be grasped conceptually and held as an absolute. “THE METAPHYSICAL VERSUS THE MAN-MADE” Philosophy: Who Needs It, 24 SHARE