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Hal

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Everything posted by Hal

  1. I agree 100%, but that doesnt imply that those who currently work in jobs involving coercive taxation should have no contractual rights. It would be like claiming there is no problem with a state funded university throwing out a student for no reason, since the student's education was partly funded by the state.
  2. Tenure would still exist in a fully privitised university system. I personally don't understand the objections to it - I can see why people oppose it under a state system, but not when private institutions are involved (I'm not simply saying 'a private university has the right to offer tenure if they wish' since that's a truism - I think that tenure is actually a good idea). You mean like policemen and those in the military?
  3. That isn't even remotely feasible in the current climate, either in terms of manpower or popular support. In any case, I'm wary about governments using military force to protect property rights in other countries. If you wish to venture abroad then that is a risk you take - the state cannot and should not be responsible for protecting every citizen who has ran into trouble half way across the world, even if they happen to be representatives of multinational corporations. I'm curious why you believe the companies actually have property rights there in the first place. I'm unfamiliar with the background here - did they own the land the oil was discovered under?
  4. Hal

    Moral Absolutes

    "Self defence is always justified" Although the previous posters are correct - it's generally absurd to claim that a certain action is always right or wrong regardless of context.
  5. I would disagree with that, I personally found Keating far more repulsive than Toohey, and I believe that someone who has consciously chosen evil in an intelligent fashion is preferable to someone who has drifted through life with little thought about what goes on around him. Most of the problems in the world are caused by the Keatings, not the Tooheys.
  6. I think that parts of the Bible are treated as a serious historical record, the Old Testement in particular - bear in mind that it is the primary written work detailing the development of an entire people. It's rare that a source will be entirely true or entirely false. Although I know nothing about historiography, I would imagine that the scepticism towards ancient sources is based on an inability to determine which parts of a text are accurate, and which are fabrications. But you need to bear in mind how difficult it can be to get an accurate picture of what happened at a given point in history. If a source contradicts established fact then it seems simple to treat it as being wrong, but when you are dealing with events that happened centuries ago, these 'facts' may well have been established solely by reference to other ancient sources, along with a bit of archaeology. When all you have is competiting and contradictory accounts of what actually happened, life becomes difficult.
  7. Because that's what 'reason' generally means in common usage and it's how most people will learn the word - your definition of it is fairly unique to Objectivism. Just because people don't use that term to describe non-analytic problem solving doesnt mean that they dont actually use 'reason' (as we would use the term) when making their judgements.
  8. It's unlikely that there are any truly 'random' phenomenon - most will be covered by a probability distribution of some kind. Taking measurements allows you to hypothesis which distribution is generating the individual results, which may allow future events to be predicted more easily. In any case, a collection of individual random events can combine to form an orderly whole (Brownian motion is an example of this) - no individual event can be predicted, but if you take a lot of them together, the results are entirely deterministic and can be predicted with high degrees of accuracy (a bit like the distribution of prime numbers in mathematics, or some things in quantum physics). Indeed there is a whole branch of mathematical statistics geared towards studying this kind of thing - google for 'stochastic processes' if youre interested. This particular study sounds like abject nonsense however, and I find it mindboggling that this is being put out by a team of Princeton scientists. It's certainly possible that the researchers did find certain patterns in their results, but its not hard to find structure in seemingly random phenomenon if you're prepared to look hard enough. The human mind has a tendency to organise data into orderly chunks whether or not these actually exist (consider how easy it is to see pictures in the clouds, or a face appear in steam, and so on). It's impossible to comment further without full details of the methodology used, which the website doesnt seem to provide.
  9. But it does approach either 0 or 1, depending upon how you are adding the terms. Let's say we take the terms in the above series and rearrange them to give: 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + (1-1) + (1-1) + ... which appears to sum to 3 (the fact that some 1's are being 'borrowed' from the 'end' of the series doesnt matter - you have infinite 1's infinite -1's, so you arent going to run out of either "infinity minus infinity equals infinity" (scare quotes intended)). Since the series doesnt converge absolutely, the order in which you add the terms will determine the sum in the limit. More formally: Let S be the sum of the series (1 - 1) + (1 - 1) + ..., ie S = (1 - 1) + (1 - 1) + ... = 0 but then S = 1 - { (1 - 1) + (1 - 1) + (1 - 1) + ...} = 1 - S = 1 - 0 = 0 Hence 1 = 0. here is a slightly more indepth explanation.
  10. I think the idea is that if you pick option 1) then every dollar bill gets burnt? Imagine the first 10 bills were numbered 1 through 10, the next lot numbered 11 through 20 and so on. Youd initially have to burn the dollar bill marked 1, then after you got given the next lot you'd have to burn 2, then 3, and so on. If you imagined that the 'giving/burning' thing was carried out infinite times t, then every dollar bill would eventually be burned and you'd have nothing left (the nth bill would be burnt after n*10 iterations). I took a maths class once on analysis since it seemed interesting, and we done something quite similar to this - its basically a question about summing infinite series. In maths, an infinite series is defined to be a sum of infinitely many numbers, eg 1+1+1+1+1+..., or whatever. Even though you are adding infinitely many terms, some series eventually converge to a finite value (eg 0.9 + 0.09 + 0.009 + ... converges to 1, and 1 + 1/4 + 1/9 + 1/16 + 1/25 + 1/36 (ie 1/n_squared) ... converges to pi squared divided by 6). However a series such as 1+1+1+1+1... will never converge to a finite value since it keeps on getting bigger, nor will the series (1+1/2+1/3+1/4+...). Now, some series can have negative terms as well as positive terms, such as the series 1 + (-2) + 3 + (-4) + ... If you replace all the negative terms with positive terms (in this case it would be 1+2+3+4+...) and the series converges, then it is said to be absolutely convergent. The important part is that if a series is absolutely convergent, then it doesnt matter in what order you sum the terms - it will always converge to the same value. However if the series isnt absolutely convergent then you cant do this - you will get different answers depending upon how you carry out the infinite sums - in fact you can prove that you can make the series sum up to any value whatsoever. Therefore a non-absolutely convergent series with infinitely many negative terms has no limiting value - you can prove that you can get any value Your teacher is basically asking you to sum the series 10 - 1 + 10 - 1 + 10 - 1 + ... Since this series isnt absolutely convergent, this is impossible, and you can show that the sum can be equal to anything, depending on how you add the terms. Your teacher is basically arranging the terms in a way that the sum is equal to zero in the limit. It could just as well come out to be 27 or 2343, if they were arranged in a different way. For a clearer example of what I mean, consider doing the following sum: 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + ... This series isnt absolutely convergent, so you can get different answers depending on how you do the sum. For instance: (1 - 1) + (1 - 1) + (1 - 1) + ... is going to be equal to zero, whereas 1 - (1 - 1) - (1 - 1) - (1 - 1) - ..., which is the exact same sum, is going to be equal to 1. This kind of thing caused difficulties for mathematicians before the theory of series was properly formalized, and led to people putting forward 'proofs' that 0 = 1 and so on.
  11. I've not been posting recently as I've felt that I had to do more research on OPAR/IOE to be able to contribute, but I wanted to reply to this post since you are grossly mistaken about the nature of academic philosophy. While I agree with your answer that the problem is entirely one of language ("in what sense are you using the word same?"), you dont seem to realise that the majority of modern philosophers would also agree with you and would treat the problem in the exact same way - indeed the dissolution of long standing pseudo-problems like this has been one of the successes of analytic philosophy. While your solution is correct, your attacks on academia are baseless and you are imagining a divide that simply does not exist - these problems are generally taught to students because 1) they have confused philosophers in the past (Heraclitus and Aristotle in this case), and 2) they emphasize the need to define your terms precisely. They do not, however, have any real relevance today within the literature. The point isnt to 'confuse' students - it is to make them understand that using words ambiguously (such as the word 'same' in this case) can easily create problems which do not exist. It's an exercise in critical thinking more than anything else.
  12. Maybe this is a confusion over my language, specifically what I intended to mean by 'supported'? To clarify, I meant that a bad argument can be made in support of a true conclusion, and hence showing that one particular argument for a conclusion is false does not automatically invalidate the conclusion. If you took 'a true conclusion being supported by a false argument' to mean anything other than a false argument being offered in defence of a true conclusion, this was not what I was intending. To go back to the incident that caused this, I offered an argument that existence exists implies the universe is eternal. Tommyedison pointed out that my argument was fallacious, and he was correct. This does not however imply that the universe is not eternal, only that my argument was invalid.
  13. Actually, I do have an example from the writings of Ayn Rand. She claimed that Libertarians were worse than Conservates, because they undermined capitalism by making bad arguments in its favour (or something similar). Does this mean that Ayn Rand didn't support capitalism?
  14. I don't think Ayn Rand ever wrote a treastise going through the basic rules of logical reasoning in painstaking detail. If you don't believe that a false argument can support a true conclusion, then my only recourse can be to give you examples of such a thing happening. If you refuse to accept those examples, I'd like a better explanation than because you simply 'disagree'. If I'm in a shop and someone comes in soaking wet, I might say to my friend 'it is raining outside'. If he asks 'how do you know?', I will reply that I saw someone who was wet enter the shop, leading me to believe that he was out in the rain. This is an argument for it being raining. If it so happened that the man was wet because some local school kids had attacked him with water pistols, this would not automatically mean that it wasn't raining, although my particular argument ("he is wet => it is raining") would have been false. I'm not sure why I need to cite a paragraph from Ayn Rand in support of this - it seems like common sense to me.
  15. I don't know why you believe I have no interest in learning Objectivism, but it isn't that important since I'm not really interested in your psychological evaluation of me. I gave you several examples which illustrated how a particular argument for a true conclusion could be false, which you ignored.
  16. I dislike arguing over the origins of terms, since meanings tend to change over time. However, the swerves of Epicurus represent his belief that the indeterminacy of mental events requires the indeterminacy of physical events. Traditionally, the causation of mental processes has been seperated from the causation of physical processes. As far as I know, Objectivism adheres to this distinction - all physical events are both caused and determined, whereas mental processes are caused and non-determined (feel free to correct me). Your claim that physical indeterminism implies randomness is question begging and seems to miss the point that most (libertarian) incompatibalists are getting at - they would hold that physical indeterminism is not random; it is caused by mental processes (which are themselves uncaused and non-determined). This is fundamental to the classic argument for free-will. Do you hold that mental events (ie choices) are determined?
  17. I didnt feel that the specifc question of whether the universe was eternal was relevant to the point being discussed. I brought it up as an example, and then conceded my example was flawed. Engaging in a pronlonged discussion about the timespan of the universe would have been out of place in this particular thread. I'm not entirely sure who constitutes the 'we' who you seem to be speaking on behalf of, but my initial reply was to a post by punk where I pointed out that axioms could play a role in arguments other than as premises for direct deduction, and the second was to a post directly addressed to me by tommyedison. I also wasnt aware that anything I posted in this thread 'challenged Objectivism'. If you'd like to point out anything specific that I've said that does so, then feel free.
  18. There's a similar argument where it's held that the 16th Amendment was never properly ratified: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_127.html
  19. From your diet, I assume you lift weights regularly? That makes things different since a lot of your excess calories will actually find a use, (namely repairing muscle, and hypertrophy). For the average person who isnt following a weights program, eating significantly over maintenence calories will generally cause an increase in bodyfat regardless of whether the food is clean - this is part of the reason why bodybuilders often put on fat if they stop training for several months without adjusting their diet accordingly. I agree with you regarding the exercise though, but its probably easier to convince people that eating cake is bad for them, than it is to persuade them to join a gym.
  20. No, it is an obviously true statement. It is possible to put forwards bad arguements in support of something that is true. An example of this would be if I argued that elephants had trunks because everything that was grey had a trunk (or more realistically, that the weight of iron decreases when it is burned due to the phlogiston it contains being used up). The conclusion wouldnt follow from the premises in any way, yet the conclusion would stil be true. p=>q and ¬p do not imply ¬q.
  21. Not necessarily. Indeterminism just implies that future states are not fully determined by present ones. Do you believe that the future states of a human are fully goverened by their state at any particular time (ie that full and complete knowledge of everything about a human, from their complete belief structure, to precise physical information about every atom composing their body) is sufficient to allow one to predict with 100% accuracy every future choice they will make? If not, you're an indeterminist.
  22. Whether the universe is eternal or not is irrelevant here. The issue was whether my above argument was valid. It wasnt - in order to deduce "the universe is eternal" from "existence exists", you need a further premises, namely "nothing can come out of nothing". I didn't state this. and hence my argument was invalid. A true conclusion can be supported by flawed arguments. ("no peas are nuts" & "a peanut is a pea" => "a peanut is not a nut").
  23. You are correct, I didn't think through my formulation properly.
  24. The attributes and characteristics of a particular human do not determine what it does in any given set of circumstances; if they did, volition not exist. A human can act in multiple ways under the same set of physical circumstances - I could continue writing this post, or I could stop and go to the toilet. This does not constitute a violation of identity, since it is the nature of a human to make choices. By the exact same logic, one could suppose that it is the nature of a particle to act in a random fashion, hence again leading to different actions under the same set of circumstances. We know there are some mechanisms in nature which lead to indeterminism (namely volition), so there are no grounds on which to declare in advance that others are fundamentally impossible, due to identity. Are you arguing that there is no evidence of metaphysical randomness and hence that it is a purely arbitrary assertion, or are you saying that metaphysical randomness is impossible as a result of identity, hence no evidence could possible exist? The 2 positions are very different.
  25. "Existence exists" implies that "non-existence doesnt exist" since existence and non-existence are two mutually exclusive states. "Non-existence exists" is simply a way of saying that 'nothing exists', whereas "Existence exists" means that 'something exists'. However, "rational men exist" doesnt imply that "non-rational men don't exist" since the two propositions are not mutually exclusive (similar to how "big dogs exist" doesnt imply "small dogs don't exist" - both big dogs and small dogs can exist at once). Also there seems to be an equivocation on the word rational here: saying that "man is rational" doesn't mean that every man is rational, only that man is unique amongst animals in having the capacity to function rationally.
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