KorbenDallas

I used Rand's definition of thought, as conveyed by Barbara Branden when Barbara was with Rand. There aren't any parts that are off, they only seem off to you for the reasons I've stated already.

Oh, I certainly missed your empathy through your polemical approach, then. (Your committing yet again another straw man fallacy in the above.) It's clear you don't understand some of the Objectivist principles I have been speaking of. Thinking was not loosely defined, it was defined precisely and being used on principle. The problem here is you do not understand the hierarchy between the subconscious, thinking, and emotions, which I have touched on, using Objectivist principles, and from readily available texts, but you have rejected those--rejected them then acknowledged the context of conscious mental activity, thinking, and emotions. Existence exists, man is man, and man has a subconscious, he thinks, and has emotions. It's up to you if you want to understand relationship of all of that--or not--it's your choice. But arguing about it here by dropping that context does not drop it out of reality. They exist, and it's up to you if you want to learn them. That is all.

Huh? You said, "I just can't tell if you're making a normative claim that emotion -ought- to only be caused by prior thoughts, or if it's a descriptive claim." I think you need to read VOS again to answer your own question. You said, "I don't think it's possible to say where emotions should come from." VOS can help you here, too. The Romantic Manifesto. The Psychology of Self-Esteem. etc. (.. your statement is false, it _is_ possible to say where emotions should come from: Reason. In fact, that is one of the main integrations of Objectivism.)

I already said that emotions themselves are not where the whole cognitive process gets its start by saying they are effects from antecedental causes--causes that are based from a person's values and premises. And to address the last statement, thought is the process of identifying that which exists. Other than that, I'm not saying that in all cases it takes active conceptualization to have an emotion, which was something I described earlier when I wrote about integrating values and premises and the subconscious. Edit: Also, saying "..it just means not all thoughts are conceptual" would be better stated as, "not all mental activity is conceptual."

Thanks, I see the error. I approached it from performing the action, yet the potentiality is still there as an attribute. Check out the paragraph before the sentence "The principle of thought precedes emotion holds for conscious thought as well, as a standard of Objectivism," which was: "..emotions are a result of prior thought. Values and premises are incepted by thought, and these can cause emotions as an effect. Integrating values and premises into one's thinking integrates them into the subconscious, to which emotions can then happen without conscious thought, but are result of prior thinking." So the principle of thought precedes emotion still holds. I do want to clarify that there are a great many ways to incorrectly experience emotion, first that comes to mind is social metaphysics, but that would be off-principle and not what I'm speaking of here.

When I used the phrase "integrating emotions", it was based off of the original post and not my own. I don't use the phrase "integrating emotions" as I consider it to be an arbitrary. Emotions are effects--psychosomatic effects that are experienced in the body, fundamentally as pleasure/pain. There isn't any way to integrate something that comes into existence then goes out of existence. The causes of emotions are integrated, but not the emotions themselves. Emotions can be conceptualized (love, hate, anxiety, fear, etc.) and then thought of as effects to causes--and this is a distinction of emotions-as-experience and emotions-as-concepts. I'm not sure what the original poster was saying, it seems to be ambiguous in terms, or maybe equivocating. As Reasoner has said, it would be nice to have more context to this.

Yup, written before the break and published after. Neither dogs nor babies have the faculty of reason, which is understood when speaking about the philosophy of Objectivism (the nature of man). My response is in context to the original post, "integrating some positive psychological ideals, emotions, into Objectivist actions, theory, and thought." The phrase I used, thought precedes emotion, is in context to my previous sentence: "... but this is not Objectivism, and leads to a very unhealthy mind." Then, "Thought precedes emotion <is Objectivism>,.." has an elliptical, but the intent is implied. Still holding the context about integrating emotions "into Objectivist actions, theory, and thought", emotions are a result of prior thought. Values and premises are incepted by thought, and these can cause emotions as an effect. Integrating values and premises into one's thinking integrates them into the subconscious, to which emotions can then happen without conscious thought, but are result of prior thinking. The principle of thought precedes emotion holds for conscious thought as well, as a standard of Objectivism.

The Objectivist view on the statement is that is is bromidic, and should be thrown out without any consideration, whatever. Unfortunately, on the contrary, the moral state of the USA today seems to typify the statement. You've done a pretty good job in identifying why in your previous post. But because that can seem to be the way things are, doesn't mean it is. Objectivism doesn't hold the malevolent universe premise, but the benevolent universe premise--just because it seems to be the way things are doesn't mean that it's the way it ought to be or can be. The projection of values and the achievement of happiness is possible, not only in theory but practically, and many people are living right now in a state of happiness--without sacrificing themselves to others or others to them. I see you said that The Fountainhead is fiction, and it is classified as that today, but it could help if you considered it to be a philosophic dialogue like of the ancients (Plato, Xenophon, etc.), as in effect, that's what it is (and Atlas).

Yes, it does matter, in all cases. These killers know they are operating in a certain environment, with certain conditions, so there is a complexity to their actions and behaviors to not get caught. If, as a fundamental, their actions and behaviors are ideological we _do_ have to know this information as a predictive function to thwart future attempts at mortal violence--otherwise, how are we to know their movements before events happen? What that person close to you was doing was failing to think in essentials, human behavior here is the essential, and if that happens to be extremism then it is extremism. After all, there are many more people who own guns and don't use them to commit acts of violence than do, and that is a cause of human behavior. Of course your friend might follow up with "but it only takes one bullet to kill someone", which is true, but most murders are committed with illegally obtained weapons, so the would-be murderers would obtain their weapons regardless, which again points back to human behavior, regardless if its extremism or not. (And on the gun control issue, the essential there is to prevent the guns from falling into the _wrong_ hands, not the right ones.)

Though Objectivism stresses the importance of Individualism, it doesn't imply isolation or seclusion. With that said, if there aren't any people to value around you right now, then there just aren't any people to value--but you can find them. There are morally white people and morally black people, those are people are more easily spotted, but it's the morally gray you have to look out for. I'd suggest you read Nathaniel Branden's Psychology of Self-Esteem, which was a book written (and partially edited) by Ayn Rand before the break. This is Objectivist psychology, and there are only slight and few differences to Objectivism as we know it by Peikoff today. Getting a part time job in customer service where some people about your age work can help.

To the OP, you can value a virtue, this is from Peikoff, so no, they are not a subcategory. Virtues are a means of achieving values, as action. It's important to note that thought is action as well. The chart is wrong, all other virtues are derived from Rationality, they can be thought of as rationality from different aspects. It's definitely good to chart things, though. Helps with conceptualization. I can see your approach in increasing individual values by acting on them, but this isn't exactly how it works. Values are achieved by means of virtue(s), and once a person thinks he has achieved that value, a judgment is made (an evaluation), and if that evaluation is positive (in accordance with values)--you are contributing to your Self-Esteem, which _can_ be built up psychologically (more specifically, psycho-epistemologically). And the more self-esteem you have, the more efficacious your mind is--and actually is--rationally, objectively, in reality. An integration ≠ integrated concept. An integration = An integration. A is A. An integration of concepts (note the usage of integration as a noun, it has a verb form as well) is a connection made between concepts, hierarchically. This is often done by means of a principle, but that's not necessitated. Yes, but not for the reasons you've stated in the previous post. An integrated concept is rational because to be an integrated concept it is one that underwent the process of redownment, which is another process of integration by going back down through the hierarchy of its necessitated concepts, back down to reality--thus concretizing it. Only then does it become rational to the individual. If a concept can't be, or wasn't, traced back to reality, it is a floating abstraction, and irrational. Why would you want to count them anyway? It is quantitative, but the capacity of the mind if limitless so there is no need to hold this idea of counting them.

To the OP, this would be a composition fallacy for the "useless moochers", and also drops context that Objectivists think in a certain way about all things (Individualism). Part of the context that's being dropped is the Objectivist virtue of Justice, as justice is a means of rationally judging other men, on their individual merits, an within their context. Peikoff speaks of this, that in Objectivism Ayn glorifies the potential of man and it is a common question to ask, what about those who aren't the CEOs, industrialists, philosophers? He answers this that just as not every man is born with the same physical capacities they do not have the same mental capacities--but that doesn't mean a man can't adopt and live by an objective moral code, within his context. And if he makes mistakes, the judgment--as in the case of all men--has to include the aspect of ignorance (just simply not having acquired that knowledge), a lapse in knowledge (or integration), xor fallacious reasoning--man _is_ fallible after all. Put simply, Objectivists should judge other men by their morality, by an objective standard, and by not dropping context that all knowledge is contextual.

Nathaniel Branden said a lot of things after the break, and yes a person with incorrect thinking could use emotions as a starting point to thinking and integrate them heavily, but this is not Objectivism, and leads to a very unhealthy mind. Thought precedes emotion, and before the break, Nathaniel Branden in The Psychology of Self-Esteem, his Basic Principles of Objectivism lecture series, and Barbara Branden's Princples of Efficient Thinking elucidate this principle.