CriticalThinker2000

Like white on rice!!

I think this is correct, yes. If a man makes a choice (an action), all we can say is that he (an entity) caused it. We don't have the scientific knowledge at this point to determine what is going on in the brain. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like all I ever read about in this realm are accounts of what parts of the brain "light up" on an MRI scan when a person does certain things. Our knowledge in this area seems extremely primitive. Maybe this has a lot to do with bad philosophy and the terrible theories of psychology that have resulted. Is psychology even very important to neuroscience? All I know is that whatever observations are made in this realm, they have to be interpreted in such a way that the interpretation is non-contradictory and consistent with free will and the other axioms. I agree with William O again that you are reversing the hierarchy of knowledge. You're trying to work backwards deductively from some imagined concept. I can simply imagine a demon strolling down the street. There's even that horrible CGI movie about it, Hellboy. By what standard do you determine whether some concept you're imagining is 'outside of reality'? The only way is by reference to the observed. We've never observed a demon nor any evidence of a demon's existence and that is what makes it outside of reality. But if your standard of the truth is observation (as it should be), then your point about working backwards deductively from a concept has no meaning. In my previous post I made the point that man is born tabula rasa and that all knowledge must be rooted in sense perception as that is man's only link between consciousness and reality. The implication of this fact is that it's flat out wrong to imagine something (even if you think that you've imagined it without contradiction) and then posit its truth. Anselm (and later Descarte who I think was more systematic and explicit) did what you're doing. Anselm's proof was as follows: God is defined as the greatest possible being that can be imagined. God exists as an idea in the mind. If God only exists as an idea in the mind, we can imagine a being greater than God (A God that exists). But by definition we cannot imagine something greater than God. Therefore God exists. Again I question your standard of 'within the known universe'. Doesn't that simply mean that we have observational evidence for it? And what about Harrison's example of the American revolution? And what about the possibility of mistakes? I think this whole thing at best is epistemologically dangerous. It's also totally unnecessary given the self-defeating nature of determinism: A man who believed an idea would necessarily have to believe it. His belief would be necessitated by some outside force and he doesn't have a choice in the matter. We know that people can make mistakes, so how is the person to know whether this particular belief corresponds to reality or whether it doesn't and he is just forced to believe that it does? There is no way for him to know because he has no choice in whether he believes the idea or not. It just has to be this way and there's nothing more for him to say on the matter. Knowledge would therefore be impossible. I reiterate my initial response above: You know that it could be otherwise by reference to the identity of man and the fact that if we necessarily had to believe what we believe then there'd by no way to tell what ideas are true and what ideas we're just determined to believe. You should care if you're operating on a false premises. What is the point of having the concept 'value' if you can't choose which ones to pursue? What is the point of morality in general, if it is a code of values to guide your choices but you can't make choices? How do you know what is true and what is not true if you are determined to believe what you believe?

OPAR presents, in systematized form, a complete philosophy including a revolutionary theory of epistemology, a rock solid metaphysics (including new formulations of the law of causality etc), a new theory of ethics derived from reality, a political philosophy grounded on original insights and inductions, and a theory of art derived from the antecedent branches of philosophy. Of course it includes answers to common attacks on the philosophy but to describe it as a 19 hour bashing of non-objectivists.... I have to wonder if we're talking about the same book. Edit: Now that I think about it, I think it's probably hard to grasp the originality, significance, and implications of the book's content without having thought about the ideas for some time or at least being pretty familiar with the history of philosophy. It's impressive that you're even reading it, being only recently introduced to the philosophy. And I didn't even welcome you to the forum. How rude! Welcome.

Harrison, I'm enjoying this thread very much and I just wanted to comment on KALADIN's post; I haven't forgotten about your post. I agree with William O that this is not a correct premise. First of all, there's a conflation between sensory data and the conceptual here and you need to very clearly draw the line between sensations, perceptions, and concepts. I recommend reading Intro to Objectivist Epistemology, if you haven't already. Your example of a new color is an example of imagining new sensory data, which is not possible. The reason that's not possible is because man's only connection between his mind and reality is through his five senses. He experiences sensations which are automatically integrated by the brain into percepts. Man is therefore born tabula rasa and necessarily gains all knowledge through these 5 senses. The act of imagining is the rearrangement of man's sense data in his consciousness. Asking someone to imagine a never before experienced sensation is circular, which is why you can't do it. You are asking, in effect, "Can you take your sensations and arrange them in such a way that you get a never before experienced sensation?" Since sensations are the fundamental building blocks of perception, it's akin to asking, "can you rearrange the elements on the periodic table to come up with a new element?" However, man can project new perceptions, which are merely arrangements (integrations) of sensations. Continuing my example, this is akin to building new molecules by rearranging elements. Of course my example breaks down if you take it too far, as elements are actually made up of constituent parts- they are not the fundamental building blocks of reality like sensations are the fundamental building blocks of cognition. Anyways, I think it serves to illustrate my point. So, things can certainly be imagined (conceptually possible, as you put it) which are not metaphysically possible. 'God' comes to mind.

I hesitate to get into quantum mechanics for a couple of reasons. The first is that I'm pretty ignorant on the topic . Primarily though, developments in science like this are incredibly advanced and can only be made in accordance a philosophical system which is more fundamental in the hierarchy of knowledge. If it is true that validation of knowledge itself would be impossible without volition, no future knowledge can contradict volition. Any observations made would need to be interpreted so as to integrate the observations without contradiction with our previously validated knowledge. So for this reason I'm pretty much going to ignore this part and admit my ignorance with regard to 'metaphysically arbitrary', though I sort of see what you're saying. I think you're right here but that it isn't an important point of distinction and sort of serves to confuse the issues at stake. The problem with answering "why do balloons rise" with "because they're balloons" is merely that the question and answer are too broad. Not all balloons do rise. So reformulating correctly would be "why do helium filled balloons rise" which is answered "because they're lighter than air". Entities are the epistemological starting point for human beings because our brains automatically integrate sense perception into percepts of entities. I agree with you that the weight of a balloon is an attribute of the balloon, and that the explanation specifies which part of the balloon's identity is important. I also think it's super important that you included "while still technically referring to the entities which possess it" for the reason that all attributes of entities exist as part of the entity and are only separated by an act of abstraction performed by our minds. It's great that we're in agreement on the fundamental issue there because I think this would be a lot tougher to discuss if we disagreed on that point. The principle was that a 'why' is answered by reference to what the entity is. With all this being said, an explanation which contains an attribute is still an identification of the identity of the entity. That was my only point. Also, I just started re-reading the causality section of OPAR as I'm writing this post and I see that he uses the exact same example of a balloon with helium. I swear I didn't steal the example! Or at least not consciously. Peikoff has some good formulations of the objectivist view of causality: "Cause and effect, therefore, is a universal law of reality. Every action has a cause (the cause is the nature of the entity which acts); and the same cause leads to the same effect..." "Given the facts that action is action of entities, and that every entity has a nature- both of which facts are known simply by observation- it is self-evident that an entity must act in accordance with its nature." My favorite: "The law of causality states that entities are the cause of actions- not that every entity, of whatever sort, has a cause, but that every action does; and not that the cause of action is action, but that the cause of action is entities." Here is a quote that seems pertinent to your quantum mechanics example above: "Many commentators on Heisenberg's uncertainty principle claim that, because we cannot at the same time specify fully the position and momentum of subatomic particles, their action is not entirely predictable, and that the law of causality therefore breaks down. This is a non sequitur, a switch from epistemology to metaphysics, or from knowledge to reality. Even if it were true that owing to a lack of information we could never exactly predict a subatomic event- and this is highly debatable- it would not show that, in reality, the event was causeless. The law of causality is an abstract principle; it does not by itself enable us to predict specific occurrences; it does not provide us with a knowledge of particular causes and measurements. Our ignorance of certain measurements, however, does not affect their reality or the consequent operation of nature." Objectivity is a concept that only exists because we don't automatically know the truth. If we did automatically know the truth, the concept would be invalid because it wouldn't refer to anything in reality. There would be no reason to distinguish objective from intrinsic or subjective or anything. All thought would necessarily be right and that's that. But of course we can observe in ourselves and others that we don't automatically see the truth- we are fallible. Sure, I assume that you already agree that the law of identity is axiomatic and that the law of non-contradiction underlies all thought. As for why all knowledge presupposes volition, the answer is related to what I said above about man being fallible. If man can be wrong about his conclusions but does not have the ability to choose whether to accept or reject those conclusions there is no way to validate his knowledge. All 'knowledge' in this scenario would be necessitated and automatic and therefore there is no way to reject the false. Now I think you could argue like I said above that if man were infallible that volition is not necessary for validation, but again, man is clearly fallible.

I misinterpreted your point to mean that a debate wherein the winner was determined by which party best argued their position was right was not a competitive debate. Now I see that was kind of a dumb interpretation. Right, but when you say "these people" I can't possibly know that you were only referring to a subset of individuals later in the second video (I did not watch the whole thing). Everyone in this thread is clearly referring to the bizarre championship debate depicted in the first video and the bizarre debates in the second. It makes zero sense for you to enter the thread and expect me to know you're talking about the more rational formats that are apparently depicted in the second video (again, I didn't watch the entire thing). And as far as skills which I "might not like", that implies that there's some sort of subjectivity in my disregard for skills like fast speaking with huffs and puffs and stuttering and obscenities. The fact is that such a 'skill' serves no objective purpose and actually *hinders* communication. It does not serve to enhance clarity. It does the opposite, which is why learning that 'skill' is indicative of an irrational philosophy. Edit: For god's sake: "My apologize."

Ummmm, how does that follow? You've got to be kidding. The people are babbling obscenities: "queer", "niggers", "shit", "ass", etc. Could you expand on what skills are being honed?

I think it means that volition is a selection between two options that could have been otherwise. It does indicate Rand's view that the primary choice is to focus your mind or not. Maybe that's what you're getting at? I think that you have implicitly accepted the false view of causality (which views events as causes/effects of other events but bypasses entities entirely). Notice Rand's view of causality is a corollary of identity and just says that entities act according to their nature. Billiard balls, for example, bounce off one another in a particular fashion which is necessitated by what they are. If you replaced the billiard balls with eggs, something very different happens. In each instance, the effects are necessitated by the identities of the entities. Aristotle correctly identified that to know the 'why' is to know the 'is'. Why does helium in a balloon rise? Because of what helium is- molecules with lighter weight than the surrounding air. Volition is part of the identity of human consciousness. Volition is presupposed by the concept of proof because proof requires objectivity- the ability to choose between what is true and what is not true. With no such choice, there is no way to reject the false in favor of the true. What is regarded as true and false would be automatic and intrinsic, but it would not be objective. So the false view of causality applied to volition would result in something like the following: A person's choices are causally necessitated by a prior event. The correct view applied to volition results in the following: The fact that a person must choose is causally necessitated by the identity of consciousness. With respect to your views, I don't want to misattribute anything to you but here are some statements that I think indicate you may be operating on the false view of causality: This quote leaves out entities entirely. Whether an event had to happen or not can only be determined by reference to the entity and its nature. Does helium have to rise, is answered, yes because helium is lighter than air. One could prove that something could have happened otherwise by reference to the nature of the entity acting. If you flip a coin, the result of the flip could not have been otherwise (given the way you flipped it, the location of air molecules, etc) because coins are not volitional. We use the concept 'random' because our knowledge of the entities involved in determining the outcome is extremely limited. Had we known the causal factors like the location of the air molecules, the initial force exerted on the coin, etc, we would be able to determine the outcome with certainty. We know (<-- 'know' presupposes volition), on the other hand, that human consciousness contains the attribute of volition and therefore that any choice undertaken could have been otherwise. It's been repeated a couple of times that we need proof of volition. No such proof is possible. Think again about the law of identity. How do we know it's true? There's no way to prove it. The only way to know it is true is by showing that anyone who attempts to disprove it necessarily relies upon it. It underlies all of our concepts and the very idea of knowledge. The exact same is true of volition. Objectivity and therefore knowledge itself requires the existence of volition. Concepts aren't just approximations though. They refer to specific units in reality. The units are delineated according to an approximate range of measurement of commensurable attributes but the concepts themselves refer to specific existents. 'Man' refers to all the specific concrete human beings that have existed and will exist, for example. The concept's referents are not approximations, even if the method by which you came to include them in the concept was approximate. And to be honest, I don't know what you mean by 'metaphysically arbitrary'. What could that concept even refer to in reality?

The key is Rand's unique formulation of the Law of Causality. Some helpful quotes: "The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. All actions are caused by entities. The nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of the entities that act; a thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature" "Volition is not an exception to the Law of Causality; it is a type of causation." "Man exists and his mind exists. Both are part of nature, both possess a specific identity. The attribute of volition does not contradict the fact of identity, just as the existence of living organisms does not contradict the existence of inanimate matter. Living organisms possess the power of self-initiated motion, which inanimate matter does not possess; man’s consciousness possesses the power of self-initiated motion in the realm of cognition (thinking), which the consciousnesses of other living species do not possess. But just as animals are able to move only in accordance with the nature of their bodies, so man is able to initiate and direct his mental action only in accordance with the nature (the identity) of his consciousness. His volition is limited to his cognitive processes; he has the power to identify (and to conceive of rearranging) the elements of reality, but not the power to alter them. He has the power to use his cognitive faculty as its nature requires, but not the power to alter it nor to escape the consequences of its misuse. He has the power to suspend, evade, corrupt or subvert his perception of reality, but not the power to escape the existential and psychological disasters that follow. (The use or misuse of his cognitive faculty determines a man’s choice of values, which determine his emotions and his character. It is in this sense that man is a being of self-made soul.)" There is no proof of the law of identity nor of free will- both are requirements of and are presupposed by 'proof'. I suggest reading Dr. Peikoff's book, Objectivism the Philosophy of Ayn Rand. Some more here: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/axioms.html Well, a false understanding of the law of causality is one reason why. Intellectuals believe a lot of insane things though. I think determinism is mild compared to the crap that comes out of some of their mouths! I agree with you though, it is pretty outrageous if one stops to think about it for a few minutes.

No, you can't fix it for me. Good=Good merely means that the good is something specific with an identity. That does not turn the statement into a moral precept. Similarly, the golden rule is devoid of ethical content, as has been stated a bazillion trillion times. It merely says to apply your ethics consistently, which is a logical consideration. Why is this thread going on and on and on?

A=A is not a moral precept

Given the contradictory nature of the book I think what it exactly says is open to wide interpretation. However, the extremists are definitely adhering to certain passages more consistently. Like when it says chop of the heads of non-believers: http://quran.com/8/12

What!?? People on this board are incredibly frustrating today. I offered a different definition of a term, which I came to by trying to apply Rand's theory of definitions, during a technical philosophy discussion on the nature of definitions. Does that imply that I intend to redefine every single word in the English language? You don't like my definition, fine. Offer some other definition and a reason you think it's valid. None of the definitions you copy and pasted even use the word 'contingent' anyway.

Wow! You sure got me good.

People are concerned with prices so that's how we should define inflation... is just a terrible argument. Not to mention completely inconsistent with an objective theory of concepts. Like I stated above, and you ignored, your definition of inflation includes a hodgepodge of unrelated things. That's not what I said. Of course all investment involve estimation but a productive asset's price can be related back to the cash flows it produces. By viewing the price as a multiple of the cash flow it's possible to determine what scenario is priced into the price of the asset. Gold has no cash flows so any claim that inflation is already priced in is an unverifiable assertion based on feelings.

You said: "Actually, my answer to the grenade scenario was yes. Why? Because my death would have allowed a grenade tosser to procede to his next target, which may have been next door anyway." Then in an attempt to explain the other-centric standard behind your decision, you say: "I only know that if I do nothing I cannot prevent more grenades from being tossed, and the "other potential targets" will always include me unless I do something about it." Notwithstanding the fact that it's completely unclear how throwing the grenade next door stops the thrower from proceeding onward, you are CLEARLY stating that you would throw the grenade next door to stop the tosser from proceeding to attack you again. Which means your reason for saving yourself is to save yourself in the future. That is not reciprocal. That is circular logic. Thanks for making our points. Since you can substitute anything you want for X, the golden rule does not have ethical content. "Be consistent" is a rule of logic, not ethics.

I ain't no gold bug but that's what we call a definition by non-essentials. Your 'inflation' includes increases in demand, decreases in supply, and anything else that affects prices. This is a non-sense statement. Gold is not a productive asset and as such there is no objective way to determine what has been priced into the price. That's just your 'feelings' speaking.

By other potential targets you actually meant yourself??? That implies that the reason you save yourself is to save yourself- completely circular. It's OK to retract a statement or say you were wrong... That is not the golden rule. That is the golden rule as applied according to your ethics.

You're original answer was, No, definitions cannot be regarded as tautologies. That is wrong. They can be regarded as tautologies for the same reason that any true proposition can be regarded as a tautology. I don't think that's the definition of a tautology. Following the rule of fundamentality, it seems like a better definition of tautology would be: A propositions whose predicate is contained in the subject. That is more fundamental because the fact that a tautology is not contingent on any knowledge is a derivative characteristic of the one I used as a differentia above. But whatever, if you think I'm being too nit picky with terminology that's your judgement to make. So long as my post made people clarify 'contingent' vs 'contextual' than I've achieved my goal in bringing up the distinction.

OK awesome. Well, I think it's merely a question of what we need to differentiate the units against. A man made fact is still a fact so if gay marriage becomes legal then it becomes necessary to adjust our differentia to properly differentiate the units. It's all a question of what the context demands we do to keep the units clearly differentiated. But I wouldn't say concepts are formed for the purpose of attempting to provide the clearest contrast between existents. The purpose of forming a concept is to achieve a unit (universal) perspective on a set of existents. It's the purpose of a definition to keep the concepts clearly organized in your head- the genus tells you the wider concept to which the defined concept belongs and differentia distinguishes precisely which units of the genus the defined concept is referring to. The concept 'bachelor' isn't merely subjectively important. There are real, objective reasons for having such a concept. Bachelors tend to party it up, have awesome pads, are available for marriage, etc. It is incredibly useful to have the concept regardless of people's opinions on marriage. With respect to the fundamentality of the essential characteristic (unmarried) vs. intent, I think you have cause and effect reversed. The reason people intend to differentiate between married and unmarried men is because being unmarried is an essential characteristic- it gives rise to other characteristics and actions which make the concept useful in the first place. Here's a better explanation of what I'm trying to say, from ITOE (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/rands_razor.html): "The requirements of cognition forbid the arbitrary grouping of existents, both in regard to isolation and to integration. They forbid the random coining of special concepts to designate any and every group of existents with any possible combination of characteristics. For example, there is no concept to designate “Beautiful blondes with blue eyes, 5’5” tall and 24 years old.” Such entities or groupings are identified descriptively. If such a special concept existed, it would lead to senseless duplication of cognitive effort (and to conceptual chaos): everything of significance discovered about that group would apply to all other young women as well. There would be no cognitive justification for such a concept—unless some essential characteristic were discovered, distinguishing such blondes from all other women and requiring special study, in which case a special concept would become necessary" If we evaluate both kinds of definitions by the standard of what a definition is supposed to do they're equally bad. But point taken with respect to a definition that doesn't even have anything to do with the concept lol. In another way though, the definitions by non-essentials are even more insidious than definitions which are just plain false because definitions by non-essentials give rise to anti-concepts. Also, the person in your example who is asking "A man who is...?" is only asking that question because he/she realizes that the definition is not properly distinguishing the existents involved.

How is that even an ethical standard? That's a policy that presupposes an ethical standard. And you said above quite clearly that the reason you would throw the grenade into the other house is to protect 'other potential targets'.

Vect, I agree with a lot of what you said but I have a few issues. With respect to the idea of a contingent definition, this is a very dangerous (false) idea. Read Peikoff's Analytic Synthetic Dichotomy or do a search for 'contingent': http://www.proctors.com.au/mrhomepage.nsf/985f14ab922be306482577d5003a2040/4864f5fe3809763a4825789c000dc50a/$FILE/The%20Analytic%20Synthetic%20Dichotomy.pdf There's a lot about definitions in ITOE but the lexicon really is a great resource if you don't have a copy... http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/definitions.html The good definition states the essential characteristic. The essential characteristic is determined according to the rule of fundamentality: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/fundamentality,_rule_of.html Right, but so does a definition with a non-essential differentia. If you defined bachelor as 'a man', even though being a man is a true characteristic of a bachelor, you would still destroy the cognitive value of the concept because the concept would then include married men. The whole purpose of the concept is to refer to specific units in reality (unmarried men). By defining the concept by a nonessential characteristic you wipe out the ability to properly distinguish which units the concept refers to. I see what you're saying here but I think it's wrong to use the word 'contingent' just because of the connotations of that term with respect to the analytic synthetic dichotomy. I think the better word is 'contextual'. Definitions are contextual in that changes in knowledge can necessitate new differentia. A very young child might have the following as an implicit definition of mom: 'entity which makes noise and has long hair'. That definition would serve to differentiate the child's mom in a very limited context, but when the child encounters other women, the differentia is no longer valid.

The other potential targets are your ethical standard?

Are you just having an argument with yourself or what?

I think I was going to respond to something you wrote but changed my mind and never deleted the quote box. Sorry about that.