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Severinian

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Severinian last won the day on September 30 2013

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  1. Some prominent Objectivists were open to the possibility. 'Most members of my survey panel believe that the human soul passes into complete non-existence after death. This is the hypothesis one would expect from the atheist perspective. But a few respondents expressed a slightly more agnostic view about the human afterlife. Chris Matthew Sciabarra says: "Who knows? I've not experienced it yet." Nathaniel Branden replies: "What happens? Well, I really don't know, do I? But I'm inclined to believe it's pure non-existence." Barbara Branden confesses: "I would love to believe in reincarnation, so I could come back and live again and again and again, as long as it was as a human being like myself. But since there are so many contradictions in the idea of reincarnation, I suppose I'll have to do without it. And I would love to believe in an afterlife, so that I would once again be with the people I love who have died. But apparently I'll have to do without that, too. Yet, since energy is not destroyed, perhaps one's soul is not utterly destroyed; perhaps it continues to exist in some form; it is so wondrous a possession that it seems wasteful of reality to allow the soul to cease to exist. But that would be of no use to me unless the form in which it continues to exist remains myself. So perhaps the best answer is, 'Who knows?'" ' Rand herself stated that she would instantly commit suicide if she believed in the afterlife, in order to see her dead husband. But keeping in mind that that's based on the idea that your memories, personality, etc follows. That's not necessarily what we're talking about. Just your qualia. https://www.atlassociety.org/post/dying-of-the-light
  2. Your conclusions don't seem to follow from your premises. How is it relevant that there are different kinds of infinities? Nietzsche's eternal recurrence does seem logical, assuming that it's physically possible for things to turn back the way they were. After all, eternity is eternal... So sooner or later, it will happen. But that's also a separate issue than the question of life after death.
  3. I realize that the standard objectivist answer is that the afterlife/reincarnation is arbitrary, but is it really? After all, we know that consciousness is real, and we don't have the scientific explanation for it yet. Isn't it then at least a possibility that, if there's an entity which contains the essence of your consciousness, that entity might later come into a physical formation that gives you a life as a living being again?
  4. I originally posted this as a question to Leonard Peikoff for his podcast, but he never got to it before his podcast ended. I want to know what you think. What if someone with the moral character of John Galt was the heir to a dictatorship? What would he do? Would he just leave the country, or would he take the position as dictator and try to subtly govern the country towards a more Western society, or at least prevent it from getting even worse?
  5. In this podcast, Peikoff says that animals in slaughterhouse should be treated as humane as is economically viable: Doesn't this imply that it's irrational to care about the suffering of others, unless preventing it is a means to another end? (A premise I don't agree with) What if it's more economically feasible to slaughter them in painful ways, but you don't want to inflict such suffering on others, so you're willing to go home with a slightly lower paycheck? I don't see anything irrational about that.
  6. That's the way in which some people use the term nihilist, but as far as I understand, Rand (and others, like Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche) used it to mean hatred of the good for being the good. I.e. the mentality of a drunk obese man who beats his wife into a pulp if she's laughing.
  7. In The Fountainhead, I got the impression that Gail was supposed to be a semi-good, life-loving person who simply made a philosophical mistake, and this made him crave power. However, in Galt's speech, it seemed like Rand's position was that all powerlust came from subconscious nihilism? (I.e. hatred of the good for being the good)
  8. I'm currently living in a condo in an urban area, but I fantasize about living "off the grid" when the time comes for upgrading to my own house. By that, I don't mean living in a primitive house with no electricity like a hippie, but just a house without reliance on public piping, electric cables, etc. Also, no immediate neighbours. Maybe even a spot where it's possible to grow food, even though I might not do that, so long as I can buy it from the grocery store. Now, of course, this is a bit unpractical, since it will be more expensive and one can't have shops, malls and so on in the immediate vicinity, so I'm wondering what the psychological cause of this desire is? Do you have any ideas? Is it irrational? When reading The Fountainhead, I got the feeling that there were some clues about this, with Dominique and Wynand both desiring places where Roark or Wynand's house could be untouched by the world, etc.
  9. "A fire broke out in a sweatshop employing thirty young girls. Two of them perished in the disaster. Mary Watson, one of the survivors, gave the Banner an exclusive story about the exploitation they had suffered. It led to a crusade against sweatshops, headed by the best women of the city. The origin of the fire was never discovered. It was whispered that Mary Watson had once been Evelyn Drake who wrote for the Banner. It could not be proven." This is after many such instances of things that "could never be proven" are listed. Page 425.
  10. Maybe Roark didn't know since he wasn't so interested in what was going on in the world, except for architecture, etc, but still, Rand should have addressed this, don't you think? Wouldn't a person like Dominique ever mention it?
  11. Wouldn't Roark inquire Wynand about the murders before he became his friend? Early in the section about Gail Wynand and his career, it said, when all the shady bribery and crimes of Wynand's early career was listed: (paraphrasing) "Noone could prove that the Wynand Papers were behind the fire that burned down the clothing store and killed 3 young women."
  12. What exactly happened to Toohey at the end of The Fountainhead? He's in an interview for a position in a new newspaper, and tries to find out about the owner's weakness, and the paragraph ends with "In the radio room across the hall somebody was twisting a dial. 'Time,' blared a solemn voice, 'marches on!' " I don't understand the significance of that last part. Is it simply saying that Toohey will just go on as he always does?
  13. Ayn Rand had an interesting hypothesis as to why people cry of joy. She said that it's actually a sadness over the fact that such beautiful moments are such a rare exception in life. In other words, it comes from philosophy and experience, and it's not the joy per se that makes you cry, but the grief that it's rare. It has the ring of truth to it, after all, you don't see children cry of joy that often. But what do we make of this video, of a mother singing to her baby, which is crying silently? Are we simply "projecting" and assuming that it's crying "of joy" like an adult person, when in reality, it might cry because of something else?
  14. I might be wrong on this, but I think the NAP comes from libertarians, and not from Rand. If she coined it, it's certainly meant as a guideline, something to draw wisdom from in 99,9% of situations. If you predate on others, they will do the same to you. But it's not unethical to break into someone's house in a snowstorm. Regardless, if innocents are killed in a war, the war was still initiated by their host country, not the defenders. So it doesn't violate the NAP, as far as I understand the principle, but obviously, some libertarians disagree. It's irrational to hold NAP as the fundamental, unbreachable premise instead of egoism.
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