SpookyKitty

That is not necessary. A reduction of gravity to something that itself can be reduced to the perceptual level would be acceptable. In this case, no, gravity is not reducible to distinctions among forces either. Forces have a direction and a magnitude, but there is no particular combination of direction and magnitude which correspond to gravity. The force of gravity may have any direction or magnitude. So if you don't believe something, it is invalid to question it or consider its existence? But no, the two things are not the same, because gravity is not a metaphysical concept but a physical one. And my questioning is not the result of any skepticism, my skepticism is the result of the fact that the case of gravity poses a challenge to the standard Objectivist account of concept formation You have misunderstood the nature of the question. If epistemology claims that all valid concepts arise from distinctions among entities (concrete or abstract) and if you have a valid concept (in this case, gravity) which does not arise in that way, then there is a problem. Either the account is false and must be modified, or gravity is an invalid concept. (Or gravity is a valid concept consistent with the standard account of concept formation, in which case it must be proven that it is). Your claim that this is not the case is a denial of simple logic. Hierarchy inversion is when epistemology is used to prove or disprove an empirical claim or vice versa. But gravity is not an empirical claim. It is a concept that is used to explain emirical facts, and its validity is open to philosophical scrutiny. Yes, exactly. A scientific concept can fail to be valid, in which case it would not contradict the epistemological claim. If gravity is an invalid concept, then there is no problem. Well General Relativity considers them as such, so tough luck. Oh and mass-energy actually curves spacetime, so there's that. What?

Does gravity reduce to perception or doesn't it? If it does, then what does it reduce to? And if not, then why is it a valid concept? There is no "foil" or a "rejection" of anything. When something can be questioned, I question it. Your calling this geniuine epistemological problem a "heirarchy inversion" is just a cop-out to avoid having to think. No, mass does not "cause" gravitation. A cause is a relationship between events in spacetime, according to GR. Neither Stress-energy (which includes mass) nor spactime curvature are "events", so it doesn't make any sense to say that one causes the other. They are related, but the relationship is not causal. Rather, the relationship between them is that of a physical law.

Newton's theory is sufficient for our purposes here (the situation is unchanged in General Relativity in any case and it will only complicate matters without necessity). Also, by "gravity affecting every object in the same way", I mean that the law of gravity applies to every physical situation. My argument restated is as follows. Since the identification of a concept requires situations in which it does and does not obtain (even if these situations are entirely abstract), and since gravity obtains in every situation, it shouldn't be possible to have a concept of gravity that isn't just a floating abstraction. But gravity is a useful and non-vacuous concept. So either, a) gravity is, in fact, a floating concept, and Newton's theory is mistaken in some sense, or b ) gravity does have particulars, or c) we can have valid concepts which are not derived from distinctions among entities. I don't think anyone will seriously defend a), that most people are defending b ), whereas, in my opinion, c) is the best option. In defense of b ), some have argued that since gravity is a concept based on mathematics, and since mathematics is reducible to distinctions in concrete situations, gravity has particulars. But mathematical concepts merely describe real phenomena, they are not the phenomena themselves. To see the difference more clearly, most forces are the result of some object acting on another object. For example, when a person pushes on a block, that exerts a force on the block, and if the person does not push on a block, the force, likewise, disappears. Thus, mechanical forces of this type would constitute a valid concept, and the mathematical notion of force merely describes the real situation in which there is a real force. In other words, in order for the mathematical concept of force to describe a real situation it must be a force of something which is actually real. Gravity, by contrast seems to be caused by nothing at all, obtains in every situation, and is defined as nothing other than a force. Eiuol also defends b ) and argues that gravity distinguishes among types of motion. In other words, he argues that we are able to look at a type of motion and decide whether or not it is caused by gravity or something else. But this is not true. If we only ever observe the trajectory of an object, the most we can derive from that is its velocity and acceleration functions. If we also knew its mass, we would be able to calculate the net force on the object at every point along its trajectory. But we could go no further, as the net force is a sum of all forces on the object no matter what they are, and once they've been summed together, it's impossible to know what the original forces were. I have said earlier that c) is the best option. The concept of gravity is not derived from distinctions among concrete situations nor from distinctions among abstract concepts which are themselves derived from distinctions among concrete situations and so on. Instead, I think that the concept arises from a "copy and paste" of the concept of force from "normal" situations (where it is clear that the force is caused by some object acting on another and where the corresponding force disappears if the action of the object does) to every possible situation, even ones where no forces (besides gravity) apply.

Newton admits that gravity has no particulars. So?

Absolutely not. No result of a special science can invalidate a philosophical concept. If a special science employs a concept that has no referents, then the special science is in philosophical error. That a special science committs a philosophical error is not itself an empirical claim which a special science can contradict. But there are no particulars that the math relates to. When we say that 2 + 2 = 4 because a collection of 2 rocks combined with another collection of 2 rocks results in a collection of 4 rocks, then what does it mean to say that 2 nuyps plus 2 nuyps is 4 nuyps? Even if you were to reduce the concept of force to perceptual particulars, that would not help the situation, because, at the end of the day, gravity is defined as nothing more than a force, but the question remains, a force of what?

Maybe the math checks out, but unless gravity has particulars, the philosophy is garbage.

An abstraction is precisely the collection of its particulars. That is, "red" is precisely the collection of all red things. The concept is formed by looking at objects and saying "that is red" (pointing to a fire-truck), "this thing is not red" (pointing to the grass), and so on. If a concept has no referents in reality, then it is a floating abstraction. But what about gravity? The problem with gravity is that 1) Every object is affected by gravity in precisely the same way. and 2) Even objects which do not fall downwards are nonetheless said to be affected by gravity. To illustrate the problem, let's say that I say that I have discovered an entirely new thing, and I call it "nuyp". When you ask me to define "nuyp", I point to a random object in the room and say, "That is nuyp." And we go on like this for a long time until you finally give up on trying to understand what "nuyp" even is. You then tell me, "This isn't working. Just tell me, in plain English, what a 'nuyp' is." And then I respond, "A 'nuyp' is a blue sphere." You then hold up a blue ball and ask, "So this is a nuyp?", I respond, "Yes, that's a nuyp." You then hold up a coffee mug and ask, "But then, this is not a nuyp?" And finally, I say, "No, that's also a nuyp." Is gravity, like nuyps, a floating abstraction? (Heh, get it? Gravity... floating? Heh... I'll stop now...)

No joke, I was seriously considering Objectism as a name for this theory.

Well you have neither specified precisely what in that paper is a rejection of Objectivism, nor arguments as to why it is a rejection of Objectivism.

This is a very dangerous path to go down because then you are confronting Attila on his own turf, and you'd best believe that he has the homefield advantage. But what you have to understand about Attila is that he is not like a mere moocher who wants to live at the expense of others. He doesn't care about money, or happiness, or anythig you can actually give him, and least of all his own life. He has no values, only means. He cares about taking, and not what he has taken. The loot he acquires is only a means for acquiring more loot. He seeks power for the sake of power. His edicts for you are contradictory on purpose. He wants you to both obey and to disobey. Why? Because through obedience he gets mindless slaves and pawns. And through disobedience he gets mindless opponents, just like himself. The purpose of his laws is to make full compliance with them impossible so that people will inevitably resort to disobedience. And when they do, it all boils down to a brutal contest of strength which he always wins. In his mind, weakness is the greatest of all sins. The weaker you are, the less resistance you offer him, the greater his zeal to crush you. If you're one of the unlucky ones, you will survive and end up in his prison system which is designed to break down your self-worth, your identity, and above all, your mind, to turn you into a mini-Attila which he knows how to manipulate. What he fears above all is principled resistance. Men who can't lose at his game because they refuse to play it. Ever watch Game of Thrones? The character, Ramsay Snow, is the very essence of this archetype.

Eiuol, you make a lot of very good points. I think I'm going to scrap this approach. There are a lot of aspects about it that I don't like myself, in retrospect. I have a few new ideas for something even better and much more in line with 'traditional' Objectivism. Which is not to say that this was a total waste of effort. At the very least, it got my thinkin' juices flowing, and I might reuse some of the ideas here in the future.

The profit motive is certainly not good if your means of making it are force/fraud. VW comitted fraud, at the very least, by cheating the EPA tests, and yes, pollution is an initiation of force because it has serious adverse health effects. It would have been one thing if VW said, "Screw the EPA regulations, our cars will operate as designed, increased pollutant emissions and all, and our customers will decide for themselves whether or not to purchase the cars we build. If the government has a problem with that, then let them do what they will, we have done nothing wrong. It is the law itself which is unjust." If they had done that, they would have my respect. But sadly, this is not what happened. Instead they said, "Hey we can save money if we can cheat the pollution tests. What our customers don't know won't hurt them. Everything will be fine as long as we get away with our scheme, but even if we do get caught we'll just 'apologize' and pay the fines." The latter is an attempt to evade reality and to "make" a profit without being productive. I strongly object to this type of reasoning. The fact that the government is initiating force does not invalidate morality. You are not justified in arbitrarily murdering the mailman just because he works for the same animals that hold a gun to your head and demand taxes. If you believe that you are, then you are essentially saying that morality is impossible unless the government is morally perfect. In cases where someone is threatening or initiating force, you are justified only in a) complying with their demands and b ) acting for the express and sole purpose of restoring justice and maintaining justice. In the example above you are only justified in murdering the mailmain if doing so would somehow end the injustice of taxation or some other aspect of goverment injustice. Although, usually much more peaceful and effective methods are available for restoring justice than outright revolution. Thus, with regard to the case of VW, they should either adopt a principled anti-regulation stance, or they should shut up and obey the law.

I've studied, yes STUDIED, using University Physics (by Young and Freedman). I've also read Wald's General Relativity, and Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler's Gravitation textbook, as well as the first volume of Atkinson's Quantum Mechanics: A First Course. You are welcome to try this yourself. It's just a toy example.

Unless VW execs are willing to go to prison for their beliefs, they're nothing more than common criminals and moral cowards in my books. It's not like these guys cheated on those tests to stick it to the EPA. They were hoping they wouldn't get caught and didn't care about who their pollution harmed so long as they made a quick buck. As soon as they were called on their bs, they ran away with their tails between their legs. You have to remember that just because somebody runs a business doesn't make them a Randian Hero. There's nothing about VW that indicates that they have any principles at all. "Volkswagen" means "people's car" in German, and if I remember correctly they either were started by or accepted huge amounts of support by the Nazis. Unless you are willing to die for your beliefs, you have no business breaking the law.

Well if you're willing to morally compromise yourself at all, you may as well gather your warband and start raping and pillaging.

Wrt Shcroedinger's cat. Quantum superposition is not "the cat is both dead and alive", but "the quantum state of the cat is a superposition of the states 'dead' and 'alive". Quantum states are vectors. They can be added. When you add two vectors, the result is called a 'superposition' of the two vectors. The result is not both the one vector and the other, but an entirely different vector. For example, the direction 'North-East' is a superposition of 'North' and 'East'. When you travel North-East you are not traveling both North and East at the same time. You are simply traveling North-East.

You are making a fool of yourself.

The configuration shouldn't have to be incorporated directly into an o-statement. The configugration should itself be defined only in terms of o-statements. I don't know, I'll have to look into it.

I don't think London elected a Muslim mayor just because they hate America (if they do). I think that what's going on in Europe today (and also in America, to some extent) is the natural unraveling of egalitarianism due to its inherent contradictions.

I read books.

This is the first part of my attempt to apply Objectivist Metaphysics to the foundations of physics. It's a work-in-progress but I think I've put forth some interesting results. newfile1.pdf

You can't stand by a retort. Retorts aren't things in reality you can stand by. What are you, a Platonist? Yes, I know my entire position is correct. What are you arguing, then? Indeed, I don't see any point in talking to someone whose use of languge is so imprecise that they both think they can literally stand next to a retort, concede the whole argument, and then BLANK OUT and continue arguing as if they haven't. "Contradictions in your position," says the Platonist. Concepts are the things one uses to understand the world. You don't "understand" a concept. Jeez, and you presume to lecture me on the "precise" use of language? ........ Do you see why the principle of charity is important. One should be as favorable in interpreting other people's words and arguments as one would like his words to be as favorably interpreted. Deliberately misconstruing other's words to suit one's "arguments" is a childish game anyone can play. It's the pracitce of politicians and sophists, not philosophers.

Pascal's wager is not a contradiction, it is an appeal to consequences fallacy.

@human_murda I am not "pitting arguments against concepts", I am recognizing that they are different things. There is a whole world of a difference between "it is possible" as in "it could happen" and "it is possible" as in "it could be true." The first sense refers to events, while the second refers to statements. Events are not statements and statemets are not events.

There are statements which are different in kind from other statements, and these differences cannot be boiled down to mere degrees of support. The only statements which are neither true nor false, are statements which are completely meaningless or else paradoxical such as "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" (meaningless) and "This statement is false" (paradoxical). We may call these kinds of statements arbitrary. Then there are statements which are neither meaningless nor paradoxical, but which are completely implausible and totally improbable. That is, contradictions "A and not-A", 'If A, then not-A", "Neither A nor not-A", etc. Contradictions are always false, so they cannot be neither true nor false, and so they cannot be arbitrary. There are statements which are possible, probable, but implausible. For example, "There is alien life in the universe." Highly probable given what we know of chemistry and biology and the sheer scale of the universe, but completely implausible as there is no evidence which directly supports the statement. And so on.