RedWanderer

Greetings, amiga! Sorry to disappoint, but no, I am not Herr Christopher from OL. I've only anonymously read some posts on that site since the owner, MSK, appears to be an alcoholic and a substance-abuser. Why should I waste my time posting there? However, your quote from this Christopher guy is very apt, and I agree with it. In this regard, I recommend an excellent 3-part article in the old "Objectivist" magazine by Robert Efron, M.D., a neurologist (and brother to the journalist Edith Efron, an early Rand acolyte). It's titled "Biology without Consciousness: Its Consequences", and does a very good job of describing and critiquing various reductionist theories of mind, such as the traditional "psycho-neural identity theories", which claim that every thought is identical to some surmised physical change in brain tissue. >>>how much do you need to reduce "thought" for it to become "meaningful"? But you see, that's just it: thought becomes less meaningful the more you try to reduce it to a material substrate (e.g., electrical discharges, hormonal changes, etc.) >>>I bet that even if that question could be answered, it still wouldn't satisfy your search for "meaning." That's right! In other words, even if some researcher found a very exact correlation between a thought, such as "I like HoneyCrisp apples!" and an electrical discharge of X-volts always at one specific spot in the brain, it still doesn't show that the the interior thought "I like HoneyCrisp apples" is identical with that discharge. It's simply a correlation, and a correlation always implies at least two things, and not an identity. I don't think meaning can be reduced to material entities (even if there are correlations between them), because then the interior experience of "meaning" disappears, or is defined away. I think we have to think about this analogically: "meaning" is to "mind" as "particles" are to "matter." "Meaning" is itself a fundamental particle (for lack of a better word) of thought within a non-material realm called Mind, which is separate from, but complementary to, matter. Rand used to say that consciousness is an irreducible primary. I agree. But I take it literally: it's irreducible metaphysically. It wasn't created by matter, or particles, in complex arrangements, and therefore, can never be reduced back to those particles by way of explanation. Karl Popper was very critical of linguists for a similar reason. In most technical linguistics, the fundamental "unit of sound-meaning" is called the "morpheme." In the view of linguistics, these morphemes appeared first among human beings, and then got combined and recombined to form words, and then sentences — complete thoughts in the form of an assertion. Popper claimed (rightly, I believe) that this was backward. The morphemes only have meaning that was imputed to them from previously existing complete sentences, or thoughts. The thought-meaning came first; the precipitating-out of smaller units, such as morphemes, came later — later, both in actual social and linguistic history of mankind, and logically, in terms of analysis. I believe the great question in philosophy today is the following: Science tells us, with quite convincing arguments and evidence, that the only things that actually have fully objective existence, and do not depend on any sort of interaction with consciousness (both perception and intellect) are "particles", i.e., what Peikoff called in a lecture "Puffs of Meta-Energy" but which scientists today might call "Higgs Bosons" or "Strings" or some other odd name. These things can only be described very abstractly by means of mathematics. So the question is this: Since these Puffs of Meta-Energy are themselves quality-less — they aren't white, they aren't red, they aren't heavy, they aren't light, they aren't smooth, they aren't rough, they aren't hot, they aren't cold, etc., by what means do they interact with the same sort of Puffs of Meta-Energy that ultimately compose human eyes, retinas, optic nerves, and visual cortices, to form the entire quality-filled world that we perceive with our eyes? For example, fluffy clouds, furry doggies, rough granite, smooth marble, cold ice-cream, hot coffee, etc.? How do quality-less Puffs of Meta-Energy become quality-endowed experiences that we recognize as the so-called "world we perceive"? No one knows. Obviously, the Puffs of Meta-Energy entering our eyes from a red beach ball do not impart the quality of "redness" to the Puffs of Meta-Energy composing our retinas; and those Puffs of Meta-Energy do not add "redness" to the Puffs of Meta-Energy composing our optic nerves or our visual cortices. It's simply a very complex chain of cause-and-effect involving nothing but different aggregates of Puffs of Meta-Energy. So clearly, the qualities of "redness" and "roundness" and "smoothness" don't appear until those Puffs enter the non-material area called "Mind", which is the ONLY part of the universe that has qualities, and in which it makes sense to speak of qualitative things like "redness, whiteness, lightness, darkness, hotness, coldness," etc. So the main question is: how does the abstract, quality-less physical world of ultimate Puffs of Meta-Energy become the concrete, quality-filled world we all experience as soon as we open our eyes in the morning?

>>>I don't care what sort of assertion it is; a bodyless mind would be a ghost So because you ideologically disapprove of the conclusion, (X cannot, according to my doctrine, exist) you decide, in advance of any studying of the issue, to dismiss the premises (Major Premise and Minor Premise, must not be conceded to exist). That's why Objectivism — at least as actually practiced among today's self-styled Objectivists — is more of a religious cult rather than a system of philosophical investigation of the universe: it already specifies in advance of any investigation what the "right" answers have to be. That's scarcely a way to expand one's knowledge, which often relies on paradigm-shifting insights. And, in fact, most Objectivists I've been in contact with since my own Objectivist days aren't interested in expanding their knowledge; they're interested in reifying and re-confirming their belief system. That's typical of cults and religions. I believe this was first stated openly in Rand's lifetime during Branden's hegemony by Dr. Albert Ellis. As far as bodyless minds are concerned, many have claimed to have experienced such phenomena personally, including people who were previously complete philosophical materialists, such as Dr. Eben Alexander, neurosurgeon, who just published "Proof of Heaven." Another who claimed there was theoretical justification for bodyless minds was Dr. John Eccles, a Nobel laureate in medicine who himself had made major discoveries in neuroscience. Read "The Mind and Its Brain", a series of dialogues between John Eccles and Karl Popper on the mind/body issue. And finally: I have no opinion one way or the other on "ghosts." But I certainly see no logical absurdity in the idea that they could exist, irrespective of whether or not I find the statements convincing by people who claim to have experience with them. It's highly weird of you to suggest that that those who only believe in matter and energy have lives that are full of nothing but good dreams and benevolence, while those who entertain the notion that the material and the non-material co-exist as complementarities , and as irreducible primaries in the universe, have lives that are "nightmares." Truly, you're one weird dude. I do see the great convenience, of course, in habitually turning to one book (Atlas Shrugged) for knowledge and guidance in all issues, rather than turning to many, many, many books, in many subjects by many authors, for doing so. It saves a lot of time and energy.

>>>As for deliberately altering it. . . If he wants to then he should change the name and sell the movie as his own idea. That might have had better results, both artistically and commercially. >>>You don't edit the thoughts of someone who's too dead to say otherwise; if not then, really, Thomas Jefferson was a Communist and Moses was an atheist. Nonsense. It's done all the time. Sometimes the result succeeds, sometimes it fails. The writer of the original work (e.g., a novelist) usually hates it, of course, but so what? Movie-making is essentially "the director's art", not the writer's (even though a movie, of course, absolutely requires a great "blueprint" or screenplay). That's why often writers SELL the film rights to their books: they can make lots of money up front; if the movie succeeds, it often leads to even more sales of the book; if the movie fails, it often has no affect on the sales of the book at all (for example, the failure of the film version of Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities"). What prevented Parts I and II from being successful in every way were the fat egos of the production team members, combined with their shocking lack of filmmaking experience and ability. And when the free market comprising the ticket-buying public rejected the film, the producers (including the Objectivist Compliance Officer, David Kelley) stupidly asserted that it wasn't their fault the movie died; it was the public's fault, compounded by the critic's fault! Alas. Movie critics have very little influence on the ticket-buying public, just as literary critics have very little influence on the book-buying public. If critics actually had such influence, then the novel "Atlas Shrugged" would have been the same kind of commercial failure as the film. What caused the success of the novel was: word-of-mouth. What killed the film was: word-of-mouth.

LOL! I especially love the fact that Aglialoro wrote in his own blog interview that he would not bother making Part 3 if Obama was elected to a 2nd term because it would prove that the country was too far gone down the road of collectivism and that no change was possible. Then he makes a recent YouTube video called "Atlas Shrugged Part 3 Production Diary" in which he claims he's going ahead with production of Part 3 because "this time, the movie's for us" — "us" meaning, Objectivists. Sounds to me as if he's resigned himself to the idea that Part 3 — with the same production team as Part 2 — will fail with the general public and with the professional critics, just as Parts I and 2 did. Someone claimed on YouTube that Aglialoro changed his mind about producing Part 3 because he's still optimistic that the country can be changed away from collectivism. But if that were his reason, why would he also claim that the movie is for "us"? If the movie is for "us", i.e., the few hardcore Objectivists who will watch and like the movie under any circumstances, then obviously he expects very few people from the public to watch the movie. But if he expects very few people from the broader public to watch the movie, how will it be able to change the country? How can an unwatched movie change the country? And, just out of curiosity, I still want to know why the first director chosen for Part I, Stephen Polk, was summarily fired two weeks before shooting? At the time, Polk claimed that he would litigate, because he accused Aglialoro, Kelley, et al., of using ideas he had come up with for the shooting of the film without paying him or giving him credit. Perhaps the critical failure and box-office failure of Part I made Polk think twice about doing anything public (like suing) that would associate his name with a failed project.

>>>I was trying to be civil with you. By posting that I'm a pig and that you hope I rot in hell? You must be chairman of the Welcoming Committee in Galt's Gulch. >>>You still haven't explained what pattern in nature could exist without being the product of a mind. Lots of them. Blades of grass form patterns that are not intentional from a mind; smoke swirls from a lit cigar form patterns that are not intentional from a designing mind; clouds form patterns that are not intentional from a designing mind; sand on a beach forms patterns that are not intentional from a designing mind; boiling oil can form convection patterns in the geometrical shape of a hexagon that are not intentional from a designing mind; sugar crystals in the form of "rock candy" forms a pattern that is not the intentional result of mental purposefulness; water crystals in the form of ice form patterns that are not the intentional result of mental purposefulness; all crystals, in fact, are regular repeating patterns of something called the "unit cell", repeating over and over, and completely predictable from the nature of the atoms of the given substance and how they interact with the atoms of their environment; erosion from wind and weather forms patterns in mountains that are not the intentional result of mental purposefulness; many more. Not a single one of these examples has anything in common with the statement: "Let '—' mean the English letter 'T'." That's not a pattern; that's a code. The assignment of meaning between two arbitrarily chosen symbols in two different sets of symbols is the essence of a code, and it has nothing to do with patterns. Since you've been so civil, I may as well ask: anything else I can help you with?

>>>You form the concept "mental entity" only after you have formed the following concepts: the concept "man," the concept "consciousness," then you identify certain mental states or events in your own mind, such as thoughts, let's say, which you call "mental entities." Then you infer that other human beings also possess the ability to have mental entities in their minds. Therefore you have gone through a long conceptual chain, making differentiations as you went along. You didn't start by looking at reality from scratch so to speak, and as a first-level concept form the concept "mental entity" as distinguished from "physical entity." That would not be possible. They would be incommensurable. Any evidence for this?

Plaz's brain particles self-configures themselves into the following arrangement: >>>We arent getting anywhere. Correct. That's the inevitable upshot of your materialist position: extreme solipsism. "Your material particle arrangements" vs. "My material particle arrangements" vs. "Anyone else's material particle arrangements." Obviously, there's no way to get beyond material particle arrangements to say which one is THE TRUE material particle arrangement, because configurations of material particles can't be "true" or "false" or "good" or "evil", etc., they simply ARE. >>>Maybe I'm "dumb" Don't worry. By your own lights, "dumb" simply corresponds to some sort of material particle arrangement, and there's no way to claim that such an arrangement is worse than anyone else's material particle arrangement. >>>help me understand your position Sorry, but you'll have to translate that for us. Words like "help", "understand", and "position" derive from, and make reference to, the old, "mystical" belief in a non-material, purely mental, non-physical realm of existence. Please translate those terms into YOUR vocabulary derived from spatial arrangements of material entities. Do NOT duck this question: what is the spatial arrangement of material particles that specifies "help", or "understand", or "position"? >>> I have a theory of concept formation ... Sorry, but you'll have to translate that for us. Words like "theory", "concept", and "formation" derive from, and make reference to, the old, "mystical" belief in a non-material, purely mental, non-physical realm of existence. Please translate those terms into YOUR vocabulary derived from spatial arrangements of material entities. Do NOT duck this question: what is the spatial arrangement of material particles that specifies "theory", or "concept", or "formation"? >>> I have no Idea, based on what youve said, why you think the above is true. Sorry, but you'll have to translate that for us. Words like "idea", "based", and "true" derive from, and make reference to, the old, "mystical" belief in a non-material, purely mental, non-physical realm of existence. Please translate those terms into YOUR vocabulary derived from spatial arrangements of material entities. Do NOT duck this question: what is the spatial arrangement of material particles that specifies "idea", or "based", or "true"? >>>How do I form the concept non-material? You in fact are pressuposing the concept "non- material" before you justify it. Sorry, but you'll have to translate that for us. Words like "form", "non-material", and "presuppose" derive from, and make reference to, the old, "mystical" belief in a non-material, purely mental, non-physical realm of existence. Please translate those terms into YOUR vocabulary derived from spatial arrangements of material entities. Do NOT duck this question: what is the spatial arrangement of material particles that specifies "form", or "non-material", or "presuppose"? >>>And my position is that consciousness is a relationship amongst objects. Sorry, but you'll have to translate that for us. Words like "consciousness", "relationship", and "amongst" derive from, and make reference to, the old, "mystical" belief in a non-material, purely mental, non-physical realm of existence. Please translate those terms into YOUR vocabulary derived from spatial arrangements of material entities. Do NOT duck this question: what is the spatial arrangement of material particles that specifies "consciousness", or "relationship", or "amongst"? >>>It is neither in the object itself alone or in the hearer alone. Sorry, but you'll have to translate that for us. Words like "is", "neither", and "the" derive from, and make reference to, the old, "mystical" belief in a non-material, purely mental, non-physical realm of existence. Please translate those terms into YOUR vocabulary derived from spatial arrangements of material entities. Do NOT duck this question: what is the spatial arrangement of material particles that specifies "is", or "neither", or "the"? >>>How does one conclude that the mental is not a relationship amongst material objects? Sorry, but you'll have to translate that for us. Words like "How", "conclude", and "mental" derive from, and make reference to, the old, "mystical" belief in a non-material, purely mental, non-physical realm of existence. Please translate those terms into YOUR vocabulary derived from spatial arrangements of material entities. Do NOT duck this question: what is the spatial arrangement of material particles that specifies "How", or "conclude", or "mental"? Ultimately, the answer is that the category of the non-material/mental is axiomatic, ostensively defined by direct experience of introspection by each individual, and by obvious inference with respect to observing other people. We easily infer the existence of minds and intentionality in other people because we have direct introspective experience of "mind" and "intentionality" in ourselves. Later, of course, after having dumbed ourselves down with philosophy courses, we can loudly deny that the non-material exists, but in order to make ourselves understood to other people (as well as ourselves in our private musings) we must still use language as if it actually referred to, and derived from, the non-material realm. Groups of particles might move around and change position, but ultimately they simply "ARE". Groups of particles don't "conclude" or "theorize" or "hold epistemological theories". Groups of particles do not correspond to words at all: no material group of particles is representative of "the" or "and" or "to" or "notwithstanding". One final, very important question: How old are you?

>>>Im formulating my response to it and will post it in a bit. In other words, "blank out."

@ plasmatic: >>>Listen Red, if you think that reasserting that its "non-material, or consciousness and volition is an illusion" is an argument, its not. Listen, plaz, if you think that reasserting that consciousness and its products — thoughts, ideas, theories, systems, language, concepts, etc. — are very, very tiny material entities inside of a material brain is an argument, it's not...especially given the obvious fact that material particles don't "assert" or "reassert". They simply "act" under the influence of some other force. The very concept of "assert" or "reassert" or "justification" or "argument" only makes sense within the non-material mental realm. Bowling balls don't "assert" or "reassert" or "justify" or "conclude" or "argue", even if they are very, very, very small, and inside someone's physical brain.

>>>....justification... Sorry, what is the non-material concept "justification" in terms of physical entities? Do the material entities in your physical brain assume a certain shape or arrangement that specifies a certain state called "justification"? And since physical entities ALL obey the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, do you have any theory to explain how new states of mind-entities get ordered out of non-orderly states (such as when you're asleep, or unconscious, or simply staring out the window thinking about nothing)? Never thought about that, eh? Naive materialism leads to pure solipsism: your entity-arrangements, my entity-arrangements, Harrison's entity-arrangements, Peikoff's entity-arrangements, etc. Why should any one of these entity-arrangements be superior in terms of objectivity or truth status? By what standard? There can be no standard, because according to your lights, that standard must itself be an idea...and that idea, according to you, is simply yet another arrangement of entities. But if you're happy being a solipsist, I certainly don't want to ruin your fun.

>>>I have no idea where you get this nonsense from. I get it from having studied philosophy. In any case, you have nothing to complain about. Since you're a naive materialist who believes that consciousness is composed of entities, and that therefore, PRODUCTS of consciousness, such as ideas, premises, conclusions, arguments, theories, systems, etc., must also be composed of entities — and, in fact, these entities ARE the ideas — then it follows that my philosophical ideas are simply my arrangements of entities, just as your ideas are your arrangements of entities. Too bad for the poor naive materialist, but there's no way to judge which arrangements of entities are better, more true, less true, false, etc., without referring to an objective non-material notion of "judge." It has to be 1) objective, and 2) non-material. Because if it were material, the "judgment" would simply be another arrangement of physical entities in someone else's physical brain. And why should that arrangement have any more objectivity and higher truth-status than my arrangement of entities in my physical brain, or your physical arrangement of entities in your physical brain? Too bad. Without the idea of the "non-material", there is no such thing as "objective truth", i.e., true for me, you, and everyone else. >>>I cannot define away what I have not asserted to have abstracted from perception. I don't understand what the term "abstraction" can mean to a naive materialist, since an abstraction is itself an arrangement of particles, just as a percept is. And the process of performing the abstraction is itself just a stream of particles. For "abstraction" to mean anything would require, again, the notion of something that is NOT simply yet another arrangement of progressively smaller particles, but something truly "non-particle." You can call it an "entity" if you want, but it's a non-material entity. When a materialist says, "I am a philosophical materialist," that statement presumably corresponds to a thought that is simply an arrangement of physical entities in his physical brain. If someone else says, "I am a philosophical idealist", that statement, too, (according to the materialist) corresponds to a thought, which, in turn, also corresponds to an arrangement of physical entities in joe physical brain. Clearly, the materialist prefers his own entity-arrangements to someone else's, just as the someone else prefers his own entity-arrangements to those of the materialist. Additionally, the materialist could not turn to a 3rd-party philosopher (e.g., Ayn Rand) and ask her (assuming she were alive) what the "truth" of the matter was, because by the materialist's own assumptions, Ayn Rand has a material brain, and the thoughts in that brain area also simply arrangements of physical entities. Why should her arrangements of entities insider her head have more "objectivity" or higher truth status than anyone else's physical entities? That's the problem with materialism: instead of referring to a non-material objective condition called "truth", you're forced to compare "arrangements of entities", as if you were touring a fancy suburb and comparing people's lawns (who has the "objectively truthful" lawn? The one whose grass makes the most objectively truthful arrangement? I don't know. Pick whichever one you want. It's an absurd question, because materialism is an absurd philosophical position.) And in any case, what did you perceive FIRST that later allowed you to abstract the idea, "x^2 + y^2 = 1". For that matter, what did you perceive that later led to the idea, "1". (If you're going to say, "Well, Mr. Ugg, the caveman, perceived one stone and then abstracted the idea of "number...which must exist in some degree but may exist in any degree", then you'd be question-begging and concept-stealing, for in that case, Mr. Ugg, already possessed the idea of "1" and "number" and simply found a useful correspondence between his percept and his pre-existing idea. The question, however, was where did he get the idea of "1" from simply via perception?" It's utter gibberish-mysticism to suggest, as Rand appears to do, that the IDEA of "1", or "1-ness" is part of the percept itself, and that some abstracting power of the mind conveniently sifts it out for use. Dumb. Where would such "1-ness" be? Is it physically in the stone itself? No. Is "1-ness" in the light rays hitting the stone and reflecting off of it into Mr. Ugg's eyes? No. Is "1-ness" located physically in the retina? No. In the optic nerve? No. In the visual cortex? No. That's it for the material part of the process. After the visual cortex, the electro-chemical impulse gets dumped into the non-material part of the human called "the mind". How? No one knows. Does the non-material part of the mind "recognize" some non-material "1-ness" in the stone that accompanies it from light-rays, to retina, to optic nerve, to cortex? I doubt it. This is why Plato thought the idea of "1-ness" was already there, in the non-material mind, and the abstracting process in this case was really just matching what was already there to what was freshly perceived in an act of "recognition." I don't accept his theory, either, because I reject the notion of innate ideas, including mathematical ones. So the answer is, I don't know. Neither did Ayn Rand, Neither do you. Neither does anyone. >>>You see, the onus is on you. Lay out your theory of concept formation and show why Oism is wrong. I've already shown why Objectivist epistemology is nuts in another thread. You were too busy spitting out popcorn watching "Iron Man 3" to pay attention. And no, to criticize someone else's philosophy, one need not also proffer a replacement or an alternative. If you're a lawyer in a court of law defending your client (who is innocent, of course), you don't have to proffer an alternative crime scenario to the prosecution, the judge, or the jury. You merely have to point out why the prosecutor's argument is full of holes and unworthy of serious consideration. Same with philosophical argumentation. You don't have to specify what is right in order to point out why someone else's nonsense is wrong. Suffice it to say that no one really understands what concepts are, how they are formed, and how the mind grasps them. It's enough to say, however, that Rand's arbitrary assertion that just as "1 gram is one unit" and "one meter is one unit" that therefore "one stone is one unit" is gibberish. Read my previous post on the subject.

@ Mormon Church: >>So any pattern found in nature, any pattern at all, must be the product of an intelligence? Not quite. Intelligence is obviously able to create patterns, but things that are products of intelligence can (and often do) go beyond mere pattern-making and into the non-material area called "meaning." Furthermore, things can have meaning even without any pattern. Concepts, as expressed by written words, are not mere patterns. Does the word "C H A I R" look like the material object it codes for? No. Could a tide, or a storm, or a tornado, have produced marks in the sand that look like "C" then "H" then "A" then "I" then "R"? Let's suppose it could. So what? By themselves, the marks mean nothing. But when an intelligent designer, such as a human, comes along and using his intelligence, mentally assigns those five scratches to the physical object he has experience with (even if only in his imagination as something he intends to invent), then he is inventing a code. The code is in the assignment of the scratches to a meaning that is not part of the scratches themselves. So even if a tide or a tornado accidentally created those scratches, it had nothing to do with causing the human to assign meaning to it. Tornadoes don't create codes. Only intelligent designers do. >>>An "effective probability of zero" would be identical to "basically zero" which is the same as "vanishingly improbable". Not impossible. No, "impossible" need not mean "numerically zero probability." "Impossible" means "below the threshold probability that defines the area of rejection." (LOL! I can just see you working security in a casino. Some guy walks in and wins repeatedly at roulette, blackjack, craps, and the slot machines, and beats the house for an entire month at odds of 1-in-10^50. When the owners demand to know why you didn't stop the guy from cheating, you reply, "Just because the odds were 10^50 to one that he beat the house for a month straight, that doesn't prove he cheated. After all, the probability "1/10^50", while very improbable, is not exactly zero! It's not actually impossible. The owners, of course, will sack you for being an insolent buffoon and incompetent. They're right to do so. >>>Try building a rocket, let alone launching one, with statistical descriptions. "Yes, we're 76% sure that it won't explode and 99.9% sure it actually exists." It's done all the time. The engineering is within certain statistical tolerances. Nothing is 100% exact, especially in rocket science (or in any other applied science). You've never studied physics or engineering, I see. Pity. (Hint: you won't learn any science, math, or engineering, by rereading Atlas Shrugged. It's not in there.) >>>And I am a naïve materialist. We've established this and agree, here. Actually, I would be proud to be categorized with the minds of the Renaissance. Except naive materialism had little to do with the Renaissance. It's associated with the Victorian era, from 1837 to 1901. Also, if you're a naive materialist, it means you believe your consciousness is ultimately composed of physical entities such as atoms, or perhaps even smaller, more fundamental particles. How can small material particles be "proud"? Is "pride" a certain energy-state of those particles, for example, or perhaps a certain spatial arrangement? Is "truth" a certain PATTERN or spatial arrangement of those material particles? >>>You tell me your thoughts, your ideas, your memories; you tell me about every moment of every day you've lived since your earliest memories, up to reading this very sentence, and I'll tell you far more than who you'll email tomorrow and what you'll say. You already have it. It's all there in my previous posts. There is nothing else. Everything I wrote previously constitutes my initial conditions. You already have the general law (I assume). Just put it all together and tell me the first letter of my first post this coming Monday. And while you're at it, my clever Mormon, calculate what the last letter of my last email was 10 years ago. Ten years isn't such a long time. It's nothing for an astrophysicist to calculate the position of a planet or comet ten years ago, so you should be able to do the same with a teleological entity such as a mind. Impress us with your intellectual prowess.

>>>I mean only the general form as was accomplished when light was identified with electromagnetic radiation. It was learned that light was electromagnetic waves of a certain frequency range. Yet light did not then cease to be light, or become some sort of prior delusion now dispelled. It's a common error committed often by Objectivists: confusing identity with correlation. Light is the name of a subjective experience (along with color). The experience is precisely that; an experience. The experience is not electromagnetic radiation (or quanta called photons). The experience we call "light" correlates with radiation in a certain range of the electromagnetic spectrum, but that's about it. Other things also correlate with that spectrum in different parts of it: heat at one end, cosmic rays at the other. Neither one is an experience we call "light." "Light" (and color) as we know it exist only in the realm of subjective experience, i.e., the mind. Light correlates with electromagnetic radiation, and color correlates with wavelength, but there's no identity here. "Identity" and "correlation" are opposites. Two things cannot be identified with each other and still be "two things."

>>>Read a little more carefully. Boydstun said feature, not attribute, and I suppose there is a reason for that. Boydstun's reason must be very idiosyncratic, so perhaps he'll share it with us. According to Apple Dictionary, the primary definition of "feature" is "a distinctive ATTRIBUTE…"; viz., feature |ˈfēCHər| noun 1 a distinctive attribute or aspect of something . . . >>>All unification really means here is that mind and body is inseparable, But they're not inseparable. They are separable mentally (as distinct notions that need not rely on each other), and they are separable physically (non-living bodies appear not to have minds, as do certain kinds of bodies: plants, microbes, viruses). As to whether mind can exist physically apart from, I don't think anyone can answer that definitely — though Aristotle thought so, as do a number of researchers especially in the field of neuroscience. Sir John Eccles (Nobel Laureate in medicine) believed mind could exist apart from matter, to name just one. No, you'll have to do better than "inseparable" in defining "unification" of mind and body, and neither "feature" nor "attribute" will work. >>>but a bodyless mind and a mindless body makes no sense, Sure they do. First of all, you posted previously that plants are apparently teleological but have no consciousness, i.e., no MINDS. In your view, they are bodies without minds. Second, dead bodies are bodies without minds; third, since as an Objectivist you always mean "waking consciousness" when you use the word "mind," you'll have to explain what happens to the body and the mind when you're asleep or under general anesthesia or knocked unconscious in a boxing match. >>>nor have I ever had a reason to suppose there are bodyless minds. No doubt you've never experienced it and that's reason enough to discount it as the classic Objectivist accusation of "arbitrary assertion." >>>It seems to me all your arguments come from the idea that Objectivism would suppose "strong" views on materialism are correct. Well, no... they're quite wrong. I'm confident that Objectivism doesn't hold "strong" views on materialism, just as I'm confident that, nevertheless, many self-styled Objectivists do.

>>>For one, philosophically holding entities as causal primaries in metaphysics and using Oist epistemology consisitently one cannot accept the concept of "non-material" as a valid integration. A nice way of arbitrarily defining away half of the universe. Um, define for us, please, what you mean by the phrase "philosophically holding." If only "entities" (whatever they are!) exist, and if only entities therefore can cause effects, what sort of entities cause the effect you've just called "philosophically holding"? How can entities "philosophically hold" something? And isn't the "something" they hold itself composed of other entities? And why should your entities in your physical material arrangements be called "right" and "true" and "correct" while other people's entities in their material arrangements be defined as "wrong", "false", and "incorrect'? If you define away the idea of a non-material — i.e., existing independently of any possible kind of physical, material arrangement of entities — part of existence, then you simply do away with the idea of objective truth. By your lights, everyone has his own set of material, physical, entity-arrangements causing them to have certain ideas (the ideas are simply "effects" of those physical arrangements). Thus, there is no right, wrong, moral, immoral, true, untrue, etc. There is simply "my entity-arrangements", "his entity-arrangements", "your entity-arrangements", etc. And pretending to defend this sort of naive materialism by saying, "but I justify it according to principles of Objectivist epistemology, so it HAS to be right!" is absurd, as well as self-serving. What arrangements do material entities make when leading to the phrase "principles of Objectivist epistemology"? and why should those material arrangements of entities be "better" or "more true" than someone else's material arrangements of entities leading to the phrase "principles of Kant's analytic-synthetic dichotomy"? Sorry, but when looked at closely, ALL forms of materialism are simply absurd.