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Using the 1995 Loeb text I see no problems with the translation (though some say "pale" is better than "white). Whiteness doesn't make for beauty in a man or in a horse; these are simply examples of attributes an entity might have.

I've read about something called "lucid dreaming" which might be worth looking into if we're going to talk about dreams.

Though I can't vouch for the scholarship or authenticity the name given as translator is the name of a translator of Aristotle. (I do think the item mistakenly attributes to Aristotle recognition of white as a beautiful aspect of man,pretty sure he was talking about the horse,lol). But in regards to old time thoughts on dreams : http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/dreams.html I would think there is an intuitive sense of the mind or intellect being "situated in" the head based on sense organ placement, no? A rudimentary intuitive engineering schema, put the stuff you need right where you need it? I think though the 'host' spot of the soul, an old timey concept could really go anywhere. There may be something to the idea that 'modernity' has changed our semantic description of or even perhaps conditioned our apprehension of the 'person' perspective of various states of consciousness, but with my newly acquired ochre colored glasses I am hyperfocused on awareness, on the subjectivity of experience and I do not see that as differing even when dreaming. I can sense that when coming out of dream state and trying to re-enter I will try and guide the content to reengage especially a dream I felt as pleasant. But for most of remembered dream experience, it is as though "I" am subject to all the vagaries of cause and effect while being 'present' in the dream.

I’ll try. The most basic component of reason is sense perception, it is what reason acts on and reduces to. Sense perception is not voluntary, that is, you cannot decide “I didn’t see that”. Concepts are created on the basis of sense perception, and concepts are unquestionably chosen, and highly variable (they are specific to a particular language since language – the word – is the file folder that organized definitions). That is 1/3 of the volitional part. Finally we have logic. The elements of logic are much fewer than the set of concepts which are open-ended, but they still must be recognized and chosen. We (here) choose to accept the three fundamental laws of logic identified by Plato and Aristotle (identity, non-contradiction, and excluded middle) but not everyone makes that choice. Even if identity and non-contradiction are ultimately inescapable, we still are not born knowing these laws (I’m taking the Lockian line), not to mention the handful of other secondary laws of logic that actually play a role in reasoning. So that is two out of three aspects of the faculty of reason that must be learned.

Can you clarify?

No comment https://www.jns.org/biden-ends-the-us-israel-alliance-at-a-fortuitous-moment/

No, it hasn't. Yet. Read carefully your own quotations. Your activism blinds you.

Let me elaborate that paragraph even further.

@tadmjones There is something about dreaming I experience, and I was wondering if this is also evident to you in your dreams. It is as though there are two selves involved. One is behind the theater making up storylines, and the other is experiencing the story, being anxious, surprised, and so forth as the story (meandering stories and shifting identities of characters in the stories) unfolds. You mentioned dreams coming from our minds. I mentioned that some things from experience in the preceding waking period show up as material used by the dream maker. Dreams have a deliciousness about them, and when we come awake out of them, it is fun (and often amusing) to exchange dreams with a friend or lover. That much seems a constant with humans over thousands of years, but in old times, people did not seem to have our modern sense that the dream is coming from ourselves. Rather, the dream is a story being created and communicated by something beyond oneself. So I wonder if our first-person experience of dreams is colored by our waking, third-person understanding of dreams and their situation within the daily cycle of life experience. This reminds me of the way we think of our mental selves as being located in our heads, whereas, in old times, if I understand correctly, people thought of their mind-self as being in their heart or in their breath. Separately from all that, I suggest that in comparing one's experience in dreams with experience in waking experience, think about specific dreams you have had and not some widely used general conceptions of what it is like to be in a dream. By the way, I composed a poem that runs together scenes from my actual dreams and from waking life across my past (ending with a very early boyhood memory from waking life). That poem is "Dream to Sleep"* (where of course the sleep by the end and in the title is metaphor for death). My poems themselves have a dream-like quality to them if they are at all narrative. There is something common to our dreaming and some of our waking creative states.

The ICJ has issued arrest warrants for both Hamas leaders and Israeli leaders:

"The fact of birth is an absolute -- that is, up to that moment, the child is not an independent, living organism. It's part of the body of the mother. But at birth, a child is an individual, and has the rights inherent in the nature of a human individual." -- Ayn Rand*** A report at Popular Information reveals the the still-growing threat anti-abortion theocrats pose to reproductive-age women in Louisiana. The headline is bad enough: "Louisiana Lawmakers Insist Child Rape Victims Must Carry Their Pregnancy to Term." Yes. An attempt to add an exemption to the state's abortion ban for minors who have been victims of rape was shot down. But the real news is a proposal covered a bit later:Anti-abortion lawmakers in Louisiana are also pushing a bill that would classify abortion medication as Schedule IV drugs, the same treatment as opioids. If the bill becomes law, Louisiana would be the first state in the country to classify mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled dangerous substances. Under Senate Bill 276, anyone who possesses mifepristone or misoprostol -- the two pills used in a medication abortion -- without a valid prescription could face up to "five years in prison and $5,000 in fines." The bill includes an exemption for pregnant women who use the drugs for their "own consumption." But it still makes acquiring abortion drugs for future use -- a practice known as advanced provision -- effectively illegal. If you live in Louisiana (or any other red state) and have a daughter, pay attention to this. The article goes on to note that -- on top of violating the rights of women -- such a move will pose problems for anyone who needs mifepristone or misoprostol (which is often used with it for medical abortions) for other reasons, and complicate prenatal care. This is horrible news, but unsurprising: By being fundamentally mistaken about what constitutes a human life, anti-abortionists are trampling over the rights of actual human beings as they instead protect the imagined rights of potential human beings. -- CAVLink to Original

Yes that is quite the trick, a little leaky though ,lol, at least in the mammals I’ve known. One of our dogs used to run sleep, and another was a dream yipper. I remember some episodes as a youngster of sleep walking , the last few decades I developed the habit of finding myself propped up on my elbow after have been asleep, surprised I don’t have nerve damage the wrist isn’t designed to be in that position ,lol. Freud is speaking to the content of the movie , I’m still concerned here commenting on the subjective experience.

Tad, we are able to put our first-person awareness together with our third-person observation of brain conditions, at least with a little help from our friends. Neuropsychology It is only in the waking state that one has straight awareness of existence, which is sensibly taken as the focal sense of consciousness relative to which all other corners of consciousness are ancillary. Sleeping is necessary to remain sane in the waking state. What Freud call "day residue" is part of the material in our dreams, and one can learn to identify such material from the previous waking period put into a new twist in one's dreams for dreams one is able to remember upon waking. Dreams are in service of good waking awareness, which is directing actions. Possibility of action while asleep is unplugged (specific brain disconnection) normally during sleep for obvious safety advantage. The manifest content of our dreams, by the way, has been shown to be overwhelmingly about social relations. The functions of sleep and dreams continue to be uncovered by scientific research. Not where serious thought is today, though entertaining to the dreamier, lazier set for ages: Descartes. Worthwhile, I'd say: Brain and Psyche (1985) by J. Winson The Dreaming Brain (1988) by J. A. Hobson Dreaming (2015) by J. M. Windt When Animals Dream (2022) by D. M. Pēna-Gutzmán

Does the first person experience of awareness change or fizzle when dreaming? The world you are aware of or experiencing while dreaming is generated by the mind and is different from the world you are aware of when you are awake, but 'your awareness' is the same in both and ' you' experience both in the first person, no ?

My suggestion is that for Objectivism to become the dominant political ideology, it needs to first become the dominant philosophy. OO provides ample evidence for the dominance of political questions as matters of interest to Objectivists, but political questions strongly tend to tainted with contradiction (mis-)management typified by contemporary US presidential elections. I am not entirely satisfied with the first philosophical stage because the edges of Objectivism are not clearly defined; and in the context of the present question, the dichotomy between primary and secondary philosophers is in my opinion questionable. For example, Aristotle had a theory of propositions, Rand did not: what does that imply for Objectivism? Is Frege’s theory within Aristotle’s framework? I don’t propose that anything is glaringly amiss in what counts as the foundational principles of Objectivism, but the first-wave applications in Metaphysics and Epistemology, and non-political Ethics, are still quite sparse. The key question which should be answered by university professors is, what Objectivist-influenced works do you incorporate into your syllabus (*crickets*)? Tomorrow’s high school teachers are taught by today’s university professors, who were trained by last decade’s university professors who were of course prepared by high school teachers of generations ago. Part of the problem is indeed a willingness to publicly engage the principles of Objectivism, but the other part of the problem is the stark lack of appropriate course materials. That’s the problem, from the “Objectivism as movement” perspective. The other perspective is the non-social ground-preparation stage, which is both essential and the hardest to carry out. I am generally speaking of ordinary conversation which evince a lack of reasoning and a reliance on emotion. Some years ago I started to pay attention not to what I thought people were trying to communicate, but how they were trying to communicate it. For example, many political topics are prefaced with unsupported emotional assertions like “We don’t want…” or “You don’t want…”, reducing politics to a simple principle – pander to people’s desires. Versions addressed to “you” are extremely presumptuous and trivial to refute by self-report, “we”-versions have a slight advantage that they include the speaker and it’s hard to refute a person’s report of their own emotions. When stated as “I don’t want…”, you can at least move the conversation off of the agent of wanting and on to the irrelevance of emotion for socio-political questions. An assertion “I don’t want homeless people to have to sleep in the park” can then be countered with a different desire: “I don’t want my taxes to increase” or “I don’t want my land to be confiscated”. It is vastly easier to just keep quiet and let people talk this way, thereby avoiding social conflict. This enables crippling diseases such as wokeism and the criminalization of “insensitivity” viz. non-conformity to the dominant ideology. I propose that there are two fundamental impediments, both needing to be addressed: course materials, and social interactions. I believe that these are related, in that most people do not have a conscious understanding of the difference between what words and sentences objectively mean, and how people manipulate language to achieve ends. I do not claim that attention in this area will solve all problems, I claim that this particular area of epistemology and psychology is in greatest need of dedicated attention.

Where in that Peikoff article did he use Rand's analysis of concepts in terms of measurement-omission? That is, where does Peikoff maintain that the sharp divide of truths between analytic and synthetic is a false divide provided that with the suspension of which particular a particular is when subsumed under a concept is also (Rand's distinctive innovation) a suspension of particular measure value along a dimension(s) common to particulars subsumed under a concept? The following relation of Peikoff's article and Rand's ITOE does not invoke her account of concepts by measurement omission:

Free-Speech is a necessary condition. Elimination of Government Subsidy is good to have, but not fundamental, at least in high income countries. Further however, these two are not sufficient conditions. The movements I highlight are needed for Objectivism to become dominant.

Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy article, while crucial, is not fundamental. It is the application of Concept Formation through Measurement-Omission(discovered by Rand), applied to Kantian Epistemology.

Bar Coding in Neuronal Activity Patterns May Be a Key Element in Episodic Memory Human Invention of Bar Coding for Efficiency in Commerce (from Morse Code to Checkout/Inventory to Marketing)

You'd have to be able to defend it militarily, not only from full-on invasions but also from foreign countries abducting people, or robbing banks, or destabilizing your new country in other ways.

I am in the DC area, would be great to meet other Objectivists. Let me know if any of you are interested in meeting

Or short circuit it all and create our own nation. And yeah, I've heard I believe it was Yaron Brooks objection that governments won't allow even floating nations at sea. The thing is its none of their business how a new nation is created as long as they are rights respecting free nations which a new Objectivist founded nation would be the shining example of. ***Actually I'll go a step further and make it official. I'm founding the Constitutional Republic of Atlantis right this second. I need no person, group, or government's sanction nor approval and it now officially in existence. Let's start building it!***

But were they arrived at via reason as a consequence of man's nature in reality without being linked to supernatural entities? Again, coming to correct conclusions for the wrong reasons still means that the answer is incorrect. That said, I have no interest in any form of mysticism from any culture. It's a direct rejection of reality, and not worth any type of discussion as the arbitrary should only be dismissed without discussion.

Intentionally harm without necessity, and with malice. And an added connotation, among others, that wanton action ignorant of or purposefully ignorant of possible harmful consequences is unethical. At least that is the impression I have of a more general and overarching frame of the moral character of principles of dharma. Morality tainted by Abrahamic religions and rejected on the basis of the concept of sin. Where as Krishna was not justifying or prompting Arjuna to take action against sin/sinners, but to perform his duty as situated in possible action or inaction for positive ends as against negative ones.

I agree that "choosing" by the populace should be the core principle, but it is not practiced, as it may not be practical. Objectively speaking, and prescriptively speaking, should Chenyia belong to Chechnians or Russians? Some will argue it should be Russian based on tradition or some form of "deserving". I think you would agree (although there is no indication) that it ought to be based on some principle of ownership. It ought to belong to Russia or Chechnia because they deserve it because of "Y". Chechnia did not choose to be Russian voluntarily but rather like a person choosing to hand over his wallet to a mugger with a gun. Any religion or tradition can't be a basis for ownership ... but then it does. Zionism can't be the foundation of Objective laws unless ... there is a principle where a piece of land belongs to a religious group. Does the Catholic church inherently own the Vatican? I would argue that Mecca can only belong to a moslem state not only because "they choose it" but beyond that, they will likely fight if it was not that way. The most murky case is the Malvinas. Why do the islands Objectively belong to Argentina? It is not about religion, no massive migration, no major settlements. From a practical standpoint, Argentina will fight for it and they are closer to it than the UK. China will be powerful enough that at some point, it will invade Taiwan. The US is not as close as China is. In the same way, Israel will maintain its ownership because of its might. Does that mean it owns the land because of its might? It is the current state of affairs. Violence or the threat of are usually at the core of national jurisdictions. After the American Revolution, this land did not belong to the UK. Ownership and jurisdiction were attained through violence or the threat of violence. So there seems to be a principle that It belongs to x entity (or they have some claim to it) because it is believed that they will likely fight for it. That is the common theme I see in all cases. I am not arguing that jurisdiction is the same thing as ownership. But jurisdiction is something to be owned. Something that is owned. The US "has" jurisdiction means jurisdiction is owned/had/possessed by the US.