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CriticalThinker2000

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Everything posted by CriticalThinker2000

  1. My experience with MJ in small amounts is that it sort of dulls the conscious mind and allows things to flow very freely from the subconscious. If I know/understand a topic well and have it integrated within my subconscious, I can write very easily and freely on the topic. In Rand's The Art of Fiction (or is it Non-fiction I'm thinking of?), she gets into the conscious/subconscious a bit. She describes the phenomenon that occurs when she's really writing well. I would describe it as being 'in the zone'. For example, if she has integrated the characters into her subconscious and is writing dialog between characters, she does not have to explicitly think about what each character would say in such a situation. It simply flows out without thinking about it. That's not to say she doesn't have to go back and meticulously edit the dialog, but the point is that when you're 'in the zone', the dialog simply flows from the subconscious. For people that have experience with computer programming, you have probably been in a similar state where you do not have to think about exactly what code to write, so long as the problem being solved is not too complex. It sort of just flows out. Small amounts of MJ seem to actually do a good job of facilitating this state. Large amounts at a given time is a completely different story. I find that my conscious and subconscious go to crap. I will write weird and nonsensical things, and worse, it's difficult to even tell that if it's nonsense or not when fully focusing on the content in question. Also, I have found that if MJ is used regularly, the positive effects lessen over time. It's very easy to take a tolerance break and get those effects back though. If you keep smoking all week next week too, I think you'll find that it becomes a lot more difficult to be productive. You wake up groggy, and if you go to bed after smoking, the sleep is never good. As far as retaining new information while high, I found it to be extremely difficult.
  2. I don't think that it's comparable to proving a negative. It's impossible to prove that something is infinite because an infinite object has no bounds which means it has no identity. Proof itself is premised on the law of identity and so 'proving the existence of infinity' means using the law of identity to show that the law of identity does not exist. With respect to proving a negative, one is never required to disprove a claim to knowledge when there is no evidence for the claim because a lack of evidence means that the 'knowledge' has no known basis in reality. The two things are both wrong to do but it doesn't seem like the reasons why are the same.
  3. Isn't this the analytic-synthetic dichotomy at work? A stake is being driven between concepts and their referents.
  4. By Saudi I meant the Saudi government and by Islamic totalitarianism I meant the ideology that justifies the imposition of a global caliphate. It was a sincere question that I believe is intelligible to the average person on this forum.
  5. Aren't the Saudis providing financial support for the spread of the Islamic totalitarian ideology?
  6. I got it, I just haven't responded because I've been thinking about it. I think it's the most important and original contribution to this thread.
  7. Those "rights" are obviously in contradiction. The right to life is a freedom of action and the right to education is not- it's a right to be given a product of someone else's effort. A right to be given education means that the right to life is violated. How do you square this?
  8. To your first question, no. You can probably tell that Eiuol and I disagree on this subject To answer yes to the above question is to imply determinism- or that your situation determines your choice. If the answer is yes, then in a given situation you must, by your metaphysical nature, act in one way. Just as a rock must fall to the ground when dropped. I think it's important to first really understand what the law of identity is and where it comes from before you can understand what it implies. Identity exists because to be is to be something. To exist is to have a specific nature. The law of identity does not proscribe what that nature is. "A thing is—what it is; its characteristics constitute its identity. An existent apart from its characteristics, would be an existent apart from its identity, which means: a nothing, a non-existent." -Ayn Rand "The concept “identity” does not indicate the particular natures of the existents it subsumes; it merely underscores the primary fact that they are what they are." -Ayn Rand I think those quotes above do a thorough enough job of explaining it. With that understanding of the law, there is nothing to prohibit man from having the characteristic of free will- being able to choose amongst two different options (thinking or not thinking). In the end, his choice is part of his nature. That he must choose is necessitated by his identity, but how he chooses is not. With an ability to choose, man can choose to think independently and creatively.
  9. One other thing that I've been thinking about which relates to the spirit of the original question is the fact that a government represents its citizens in its dealings with other governments. If a government bombs another nation, it does so in the name of its citizens, whether individual citizens agree with the action or not. In this sense, a citizen of a country should expect to bear the responsibility of his government's actions, even if the citizen disagrees with them. He may not bear individual moral responsibility for the actions of his government but he must bear the practical results of responsibility as it is impossible to distinguish moral responsibility amongst every individual in a country. In this situation, the terrible situation the innocent citizen finds himself in (bearing responsibility for something he was not responsible for) lies at the feet of those who initiated/supported the initiation of force.
  10. Do you mean that in a superficial sense, as in they both believe it is a practical means of winning a war? Clearly the fundamental justifications differ.
  11. I think you've just got to decide how much of the value of posting comes from clarifying your thinking and how much comes from spreading the right ideas to people. If you get a lot of value from the latter, as I do, then you have to decide if the person to whom you're responding is being honest or not. That, to me, is the more difficult question to answer. I think a lot of what I would have previously chalked up to dishonesty is really just a result of rationalism.
  12. Huh? I was talking about Objectivism Online. It's privately owned but open to anyone who signs up.You used this minor point to ignore what I was saying. While I do often post for only my own benefit (to clarify my thinking usually), it's way more enjoyable to engage with someone who is being honest. I fail to see how you can not understand the distinction between free speech and speech on private property that SNerd, DW, and I pointed out. In another thread you also refused to acknowledge the fundamental distinction between rights protection (force) and education (the mind). For someone with your experience, this smacks of either an honest bent towards a faulty method of thinking (rationalism) or dishonesty. Either way, I'm out.
  13. This is a private forum open to the public. Also, just because a method is good and powerful at communicating a message does not mean that the message is acceptable in every context. A dirty Ayn Rand cartoon like the religious one posted earlier will convey its message clearly but such a message has no place on this private forum.
  14. "There can be no compromise between a property owner and a burglar; offering the burglar a single teaspoon of one’s silverware would not be a compromise, but a total surrender—the recognition of his right to one’s property." -Ayn Rand What would she say about compromise on the issue of speech? If Charlie Hedbo decides not to print something because they are threatened, who has won? The notion that the world is too complex for the simplistic principles illustrated in Ayn Rand's fiction is a thinly veiled excuse to compromise on basic moral principles.
  15. We've already got an objective standard of knowledge: reality. Replacing reality with a gun creates a subjective standard of knowledge.
  16. Isn't this method of thought an example of rationalism? The reasoning is as follows: the government's job is to extract force from society, properly educated people are less likely to initiate force, therefore it's the government's job to educate citizens. You can see the logic of the argument, except all sorts of relevant context is missing, like what a government has to do to the private citizens in order to provide free education and what make a government different from other institutions in society.
  17. Exactly. How about this quote: "[Jim] You're lucky- you've never had any feelings. You've never felt anything at all. [Dagny] No Jim, she said quietly, 'I guess I've never felt anything at all." Now obviously we're not to conclude that Dagny has never had feelings. SNerd hit the nail on the head. As SNerd also said earlier in this thread, it seems like a lot of this confusion is arising from the idea that survival is the standard of moral evaluation instead of 'life'. If survival is the standard, then Eddie's actions are unintelligible. If Life is the standard, they make a lot of sense.
  18. So the government needs to initiate force (the only way to hold a monopoly on knowledge) against innocent citizens in order to secure a system whereby the initation of force is extracted from society. This is silly on its face, if one bothers to think about it for a couple of minutes. An Objectivism sympathizer arguing for government control in the realm of ideas... I've seen it all. This 'argument' isn't worth pursuing any longer.
  19. Just to be clear, you're saying that we need to government to "regulate knowledge" because otherwise we will be unable to settle disputes regarding what is true? If so, that is a really evil idea.
  20. I've tried my best but I can't understand that sentence at all. What do you mean objective control is of the mind? I'm saying that physical force, because of its nature and relation to man, needs to be placed under objective control. The same is not true of education because education does not deal in force. It's true that there are private security forces, but if a private security force uses force it has to justify it to the government.
  21. What do you dispute? I agree with you that education is, in a sense, prior to the use of force. People's ideas shape how they believe force ought to be used. However, that doesn't erase the distinction between what is force and what is not force. A preacher of mystical non-sense ought not be prosecuted as a murderer (nor coerced into shutting up) even though his ideas would ultimately lead to death and destruction. Education is a product of and for the mind. It's in an entirely different realm than physical force. Going back to your first statement of your question on page one: "Public Security" (which I guess means a police force) isn't argued for on the basis that it's really really valuable but that it's not like other "services". Force needs to be placed under objective control, not competed for.
  22. A government exists to protect the rights of individual citizens, it's not a numbers game.
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