frank harley

Kant's view is that we obtain a better decision if we somwhat detach ourselves from our emotions. Rules and principles do just that. So it is for lawyers when they need legal advice, or doctors when they're ill--by not administering to themselves. From that point onwards, Kant created the categorical as the best, most comprehensive principle. In passing, it's a straw dog to suggest that anyone is purely altruistic, caring nothing for their own personal well-being...

Well, yes, of course...IFF you accept Austrain School then the Austrian theory would hold in all cases...because that's how it's written per intent. But beyond my disagreement with the theory as such, you still have an issue of locality. in other words, although the truth of Austrian theory may hold in all cases, local conditions may add factors (coefficients) that would alter the outcome. For example, take gravity. dropping quarters are single-factor events (systems) fastballs are double factors involving underspin that causes a rise to the plate, while blowing leaves have three: gravity, drag coefficient (parachute) and wind. In sum, Austrian school assumes to speak of the comprehensive: that no local conditions would basically alter the outcome from, say, NYC to Detroit. So in this case, yes, all events are equally concrete as they can represent truth anywhere. My only response is that the truth- potential of this statement is itself testable, much as one 'tests' gravity out on falling leaves. Can it alone predict where the leaf will land? It has nothing to do with Rand's posted comment that some people refuse to connect the dots...as true as that observation might be

'Duty is to apply one's question,. "How must I act?" to a standard that's detached from sentiments of self-interest. According to Kant, thinking first in terms of direct self-interest will, more often than not, offer you an un-realistic appraisal of the best course of action. In other words, real self-interest necessitates a method for detaching subjective desires from decision-making. For example, in killing innocent civialians in time of war (applicable, as well, in Kant's age), one's first instinct would be to rid oneself of a potential problem. Then, detach the categorical in your mind--"Act only upon that principle which might be willed universal law." (Note how the statement combines both the golden rule and reciprocity!) Indirect self-interest, as it were--But kant was interested in the method whereby we think things correctly thru to the end.

The gobbly in the gook is the attempt to gussy up the word 'generalization' with the more profoundly-sounding 'concept'. What I'm talking about is that doing philosophy is not the ability to employ scholastic terms to everyday modern English. Emitted wavelenghts are measurable (Well, actually, colors are caused as much by absorbtion as emission). This measurement- difference corresponds nicely to what we humans see as 'colors', at least within a tiny part of the electromagnetic band. Now the Physicist can call these difference 'fundamental' only in so far as the predicate is added..."[fundamental] to the pertception of different colors by the human eye". In many other ways, it's not. For example, individual colors are not 'fundamental' if the standard of judgment is the electromagnetic spectrum in its entirety. Agruably, then, you're correct in so far as you emphasize context. So in what sense would you say that a 1% DNA variation causes a 'fundamental' distinction between a chimp and a human? Well, if the standard were procreation, the answer would easily be speciation. As for competitive adaptation, the answer is also easy in so far as humans have thrived at the expense of all great apes. In all cases, we discover what we've always come to expect in terms of a general ontology of science: quantitative differences eventually become qualitative. But first, you must observe and measure, Until that;'s done we really don't know where the tipping point resides. Finding tipping points is what science does. In this sense, empiricism justifies its own epistemology by its method. What's therefore fundamental for the scientist is accounting for cause. What, in that 1% DNA difference accounts for speciation? OTH, labeling certain of these distinctions as 'fundamental' is what normative epistemology does because, after all, 'fundamentals' are the differences themselves that science discovers. But in back of this normativity, or 'ought', is the subjectivity of the epistemo-philosopher who determines fundamentality itself. "Things are as fundametal as i say they are at the time that i say it". But this is as profound as putting lipstick on a pig. By many other criteria, chimps and humans are fundamentally the same.

Mikee, of course you answered most of your own questions in a subsequent post ( I LIKE). Permit me, then, to deal with the issue of the Rand lexicon vs that of science-- in this case, Biology. In the sense of Quine, Rand uses a normative epistemology that's redolent with 'oughts'. She likewise employs 'first-principle argument. Both of these strategies are consistent with most of philosophy. Science, OTH is 'second principle' whose strategies deal in quantitative distnctions via measurement. To this end, all first principle and/of normative statements are 'zero-sum' hypotheses in equal measure.

In this particular case, there's a mis-calculation. Killing innocent civilians more often than not reinforces the will to resist. Which leads me to the same broader point that Kant discussed in Crit#2 (Practical Reason). Ethics can never be fully self-interested because we don't know what our inerests truly are until we work relationships out with other people. This, in the very least, gives us an opportunity to assess cause and effect. Second, if we follow a path that's duty-bound, we might better understand how our real interests follow a directed course of action. Otherwise, the notion of selfishness collapses into a hopeless tautology in which all ethical actions--charitable, sacrificial, et al-- are 'self-interested'.

'Concreteness' is a somewhat useless metaphor. For example, if you were to say, "leaves floating to the ground, dropping a quarter and airplanes landing are 'concrete' examples of gravity", you'd need to disambiguate. All three event-systems would have different coefficients added to the one for gravity to give a trajectory.

We know nothing as to how other animals might 'conceptualize' because the meaning of 'concept' refers to how we humans understand how humans think. In other words, 'concept' is really just a philosophically-sounding synonym for 'generalization'. Sometimes, we say, 'abstraction, too. In the Scholastic period, 'concept' referred to 'meaning', as to create a third category of metaphysics next to 'word' and 'object', in hopes of resolving the Great Nominalist debate. Hence the modern confusion. For example, Deleuze uses concept in the older, traditional way: "Philosophy is the study of concepts"... In this sense, it's impossible to understand what things mean to another species. For more, please see Nagel, "What's it like to be a bat". He, btw, was the advisor to Binswanger. Beyond saying that concepts are 'fundamental' to human distinction, we would have to ask what is meant by 'fundamental in another, more provable sense. After all, the etimology means 'base', from the Middle French 'fond', from the Latin. For example, can you say that our neuronal cells are different, or even the networking? Well, no, only that we have more mass, a far higher % of 'mirror cells' and the same rain-forest structureless networking with far more junctions than strands. Re DNA ,can you say that there's a 'fundamentally' different variance in the % of shared versus different genes? No, again, as the distinction between homo and chimp is normally givenn at 1%. Ontogeny seems to recreate phylogeny on a relatively smooth curve of variability. So other than an excuse for hand waving with still more adjectives such as 'essentially', i'm at a loss as to what 'fundamental might mean....

I really don't think we're 'fundamentally' different than other animals, taken as a discreet class. Are not humans and great apes 'more alike' than,say, fish? In any case, Kingdom charts (animal, plant, spore) down to species are rather precise as to what the differences are. To be 'fundamental' , then, is to beg the biological question with a first-principle, normatively philosophical response. In this sense, i would say that the mental burden of the biblical Genesis remains an issue...and perhaps affected Rand, as well.

Perhaps it's best to begin with Socrates: "No one intentionally missed the mark (adika)". No one, therefore, blames the victim, as this statement is merely a rhetorical gesture, a poisioning of the well, as it were. Rather, there are various degrees and ways of understanding victimhood. To this end, I would agree with Ludi's story that sexual language, by its nature, is ambiguous. This is because in many real circumstances the sentiment itself of desiring sex is... ambiguous. Messages, then, are apt to be misunderstood. To this end, many college campuses have adopted a "If not definately yes, then no" policy in which the burden of proof (illegally?) falls upon the male. For example, if he admits that he was taking advantage of her 'maybe-language' , then it's rape. The definition of rape is therefore stretched beyond 'involuntary' to desigate 'not explicitally permissive'; it's moreover done under the proviso that colleges act 'in loco parentis'. Now speaking as someone with two college-grad daughters who now both teach and give female counseling on campuses, that's fine with me. In passing, none of this has anything to do with the sexist subtext that says, "She was really asking for it" This is nothing but the toxic rhetorical obverse to "victim blaming'. I contend that taken together, these statements form a polemical cloud that obscures the possibility of seeing reality. That's why, lastly, the issue frequently comes doown to forensics: is there evidence of trauma? This is ostensibly why college clinics run late hours. In counseling the incoming freshmen with their 'standard' boy/girl speech. , my two offer printed directions as to where this is located...

No, a first-principle, normatively-bound mentality would apply a general rule to all particular cases and say. "i've described reality without investigating the particulars --ie Detroit vs NYC. IMHO, the meaning of 'concrete' (and, again, we're only dealing with metaphors!) would mean, "Let's look into the particulars of, say , Detroit vs NYC and determine to what extent first-principle, normative statements apply". In a patrallel sense, you might take gravity and say that it's a universal co-efficient that figures into the equations that describe blowing leaves, airplanes, baseballs, tumbling boulders, and planetary orbits. OTH, you would say that, concretely, the equations are different with respect to other coefficients in all particular cases. Concretely, leaves behave differently than baseballs. Cooncretely, housing conditions in large cities appear to vary greatly. On a philosophical plane, my position resembles that of Cartwright, "How the laws of physics lie".. Maddy "I'm a second-principle sort of gurl" and, of course, Quine: "All philosophy is that of science".

If you define 'conceptualization' as the type of brain activity particular to humans then your statement is a tautology. Rather, IMHO, the issue is to abandon first-principle. normative posuring for the sake of understanding how other animals and plants adapt. In other words, to paraphrase Nagel, what's it lkie to be an iguana? My bet is that, in the very least, an empirical iguana-ology would perforce demonstrate how iguanas adapt to an altered environment. For example, as humans encroach, do they change their diet to mice and kittens? My experience in India,, btw, revealed that villages adopt and raise pet cobras (invaribly named 'Krishna!) to deal with rhodents. And, of course we have wolves, which are nothing but undomesticated doggies. Re your thought experiment and homo sapiens: 'Ecology' as a science questions precisely what you assert. Without trees, our populations have always dropped. This is also basic Archaeology 101.

you wrote:" if you have two perfectly reasonable people, and one of them has negative traits that the other does not, the one with fewer negative traits is more likely to survive. This is how evolution works, simplistically." Uhhh, not really. 'Traits' that assure a greater possiblity of survival are not negative or positive in any objective sense. Rather, they are adaptive to alterations in the environment. The classic example given by Darwin is that, with respect to bird predators, white moths survive at a greater frequency when they adhere to clean white walls, while mutated black moths have better chances when soot and grime from factories turn walls black.. Humans adapt with respect to color, too. Given less access to hospitals and post-natal care by virtue of racial prejudice, African American babies die with a greater frequency than whites. Of course, the same can be said of prison. Because of the huge disparity by % of young black males who are incarcerated--thereby denied the opportuunity to procreate-- the application of justice and socioeconomic environment favor certain groups over others. Of course, the key issue here is to consider human-created institutions as 'environmental'. At the very least...grudgingly so, as epigenetics has really taken off....

No, i'm disagreeing with your point. You're substituting a normative statement for empirical reality. In other words, you're using a first-principle argument that-- in the perfectly non-real world of a hyper-formalized model of classical economics-- a lessening of profit by rent control will automatically cause a housing shortage. This, however, only a hypothese that might be tested, again, ceteris paribus. Regrettably, 'testing' would involve number-crunching, a procedure that first-principle, Austrian-based 'economics' is opposed to.

If you state the golden Rule in the obverse, saying, 'Don't do anything to others that you wouldn't have them do to you", what you uncover is the concept of 'reciprocity'. In other words, the reason why acting selfishly should be done with extreme caution is because it encourages others to do the same. Then everyone acts in the manner of obtaining a narrow self interest. For example, if there's a written charter that protects civilians in the time of war, violation puts your own non-combatants at risk. To this end, consider the American attitude that they could bomb Iraq, et al, with impunity because no Islamic nation had the means to recriprocate. Hello, 9/11! So now, in order to launch drones, America has turned itself into a torture/security state to protect its own citizens. This is the price of 'acting in one's own selfish interests'.

In science, the operative term for applying 'concreteness' is called 'ceteris paribus'. * Rent control does not necessarily drive rents beneth production costs. * That being said, you're assuming that the builder would not settle for a lower rate of profit. * You're assuming knowledge of extrinsic factors that would apply even if builders would accept said lower rate of profit. * you're assuming that city officials that imposed rent control were not aware of the owners' high rate of profit, and would failry demand less. * you're assuming that city officials did not have an ace up their sleeve in the form of federal funds which might replace private investment money, after all. So all you're left with is a small set of normative statements--not an empirical observation of the real world of economic behavior--which defeats the purpose of concreteness as such. It's as if you said that. 'concretely',that airplanes drop like rocks because, after all, they're objects under the influence of gravity.

Rand is wrong. All animals alter their environment.The best example, of course are beavers.

You seem to be using the metaphor 'concreteness' to stand for the ability to apply an eaxmple to a larger framework. That's fine. The issue comes with the question of relevancy. In other words, how might a specific context alter the applicication of a given, concrete entity? For example, if price controls on rent led to a housing shortage in NYC, how would that necessarily apply inm, say, Chicago?

In terms of QM, a relational state is frequently all that's known. For example, although 'electrons' are said to exist as matter of convenience, all we empirically know are spectral lines of absorbtion, phase states, etc. In other words, we assume a materiality based upon-- and causal of-- observed effects.

All concepts in math are justified by 'formal proofs' wich do not involve arithmetic (numbers). Kindly, moreover, clarify your 'primitive society comment for Europe's 'dark Ages'...

I qualified my definition of 'existant' in a previous post: what we would find on earth in a state conducive to earth-ly existence. Arguably, an 'existant' can also mean any thought-object, whether verifiable in terms of reality or not. As previously stated, i found this definition to be totally, worthlessly redundant for the unambiguous expression , 'thought object'. Otherwise, of course, plasma is the fourth state of matter in a strict sense defined within a Physics text. Yet you wrote: :Calling plasma a state of matter in physics is not strictly correct". Even Wiki will say you're wrong. any physics text, as well. Have i therefore missed your own reasoning as to why said references are wrong?

'Empiricism' means sensory data. A good example is that we see the spectral lines change and measure accordingly; we do not see electrons. Therefore, QM has always been clear that its work is highly instrumental in the manner somewhat defined by Mach. Concrete, I suppose, is a metaphor that, in this case, assumes that electrons really exist. 'Boundaries' define the limit of the particular observation. This stipulation is somewhat necessary in so far as many cartesian functions will eventually cross either/or the x and y axes, therefore giving a singularity, or nonsense. Perhaps the best examples are both Relativities: infinite mass at infinite speed when time stops,, zero gravity, infinite gravity (black holes)....

Ordered geometry means 'unmeasured'--or using algebra--, of which 'affine' (parallels) are a part.Can Rand's concepts be reduced to math?

That's because 'instinct' is such a bad word that you'll just waste time arguing over its meaning. What it seems to indicate is behavior not associated with cognition. Kahneman and Tversky demonstrated that lots of what we normally call 'thought' really isn't...hence, 'heuristic'. So in terms of Ockham's principle, perhaps it's easiest to define behavoir as either thought-motivated or not, ostensibly making 'heuristic' and instinst equivalent.

'instinct' is a usable format means what an animal is pre-wired to do without the use of either thought or emotion. 'Emotion' ,OTH,, indicates behavior that stems from a stimulation of said 'emotive region' of the brain. In all animals, this structure (Thalmic system) is connected to the cerebral cortex via a mediated unit normally called the 'hypocampus'. What's true is that all animals are wired differently, and have various differences in cerebral matter, homo sapiens the most. Re Homo sapiens, Kahneman and Tversky have theorized two modes two modes of thought, slow and heuristic. The later refers to instant, rule of the thumb '"instinct" that is, indeed an evolutionary adaptation that has less use now than during the paleolithic, or in certain inner cities in the USA.