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Invictus2017

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Invictus2017 last won the day on October 21 2018

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    computers, Objectivism, and starting an Objectivism-based society
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    Invictus2017
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    Extensive, since 1983. I've read most, maybe all, of the important books and periodicals published before the mid 90's.
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  1. Rand's argument, with which I agree, concludes that man has no--and can have no--innate conceptual knowledge. (In some sense, that's a redundancy, but given that "knowledge" means many different things in different contexts, it's good to emphasize what one is talking about.) The corollary is that man can have no built-in characteristics that are dependent on conceptual knowledge. So, for example, man has no built-in knowledge of male or female, even though some parts of his brain might be wired to respond to correlates of male and female and thus allow an infant to respond differently to male and female long before he has any sort of concept of them (And such wiring could even help in the formation of those concepts.)
  2. This is incomplete. The correct definition is "survives by means of the use of the faculty of reason". A creature that possessed the faculty of reason but which didn't need it for survival would not be human. (Cf primates that can be taught rudimentary language and reasoning but which don't make use of these capacities in the wild. This is not surprising, quite the contrary. Man's capacity to reason almost certainly didn't come into existence fully functional. It presumably had evolutionary precursors that weren't good enough to be adopted as a species' fundamental mode of survival.) Note, for example, that rationality being essential to survival, not merely the *possession* of rationality, is at the root of the Objectivist ethics.
  3. Heh. I'm only skimming these days, as Real Life (TM) is taking up so much time that I don't have time to do more than that. So I wouldn't be surprised that I missed a joke.
  4. (putting on grammar nerd hat) As relevant here: "Guys", plural, is synonymous with "people" and has no gender implication, as contrasted with "guy", singular, which is synonymous with "male person". So his "Hi guys!" was no more than a friendly greeting to whoever might read his post.
  5. I suppose I should have said Representationalist (I think that's the term, it's been awhile). This differs from Idealism in that, supposedly, the objects of consciousness have some (unknowable) relationship to reality, whereas Idealism supposes that the objects of consciousness are, in essence, illusions or hallucinations, unconnected to reality. In my view, there is no real difference between "there is an unknowable connection to reality" and "there is no connection to reality", so Representationalism is a species of Idealism and I tend to use the latter to refer to both. The notion that the objects of perception are mere constructs of the brain is Representationalist, in that it does not allow one to know how these constructs derive from reality -- any such knowledge would be just one more construct. "Brain" is just a construct, and there is no reason for believing that there is "brain" or anything else. (Which illustrates that Representationalism really is Idealism.)
  6. Kant and Korzybski are Idealists; Rand is a Realist. You might want to check the meanings of those terms. Idealism is not inconsistent with Materialism; the quoted passage illustrates that Korzybski held both ideas.
  7. Korzybski is old news to people of a certain age. Basically, the guy is an Idealist, who supposed on the one hand that we can have no real knowledge of reality and that we actually have the knowledge to prove it. Not worth any further analysis, as far as I'm concerned. For fun, you might want to read some A. E. Van Vogt, who incorporated some of Korzybski's ideas into his science fiction.
  8. Assuming the facts are as recounted, I too applaud Lewinsky for her action. We all need to set boundaries and to remove from our lives anyone who does not respect them.
  9. The questions you suggest are wildly inappropriate. A better idea: Presumably, you know something of the activities she likes. Research those activities to find one that you and she can do as a couple. Suggest an outing. (My ex was way into arts and crafts. Our first "date" was at a crafts fair. She had a blast; I merely tolerated it. But it showed, in action, my interest in her as a person.) Failing that, there's the old standby: "Would you like to do lunch (or dinner)?" It's as simple as that. How she responds will tell you all that you need to know.
  10. It's immoral to pointlessly prolong your own suffering. How she feels and who she is seeing is her business, not yours. You really have just two choices here, assuming you respect yourself and you respect her: Either you talk to her and explain your prior stupidity or you absolutely abandon any possibility of a relationship beyond friendship. Anything else is a self-destructive compromise. If you can do neither, you have doomed yourself (and maybe her, depending on how screwed up you let yourself become) to wholly unnecessary misery. If you do the former, the worst that'll happen, beyond the embarrassment of admitting your own foolishness, is that she'll tell you that you had your chance and blew it. But even then, you'll at least know where you stand. If you do the latter, you can then begin self-policing the part of you that insists on the impossible and thereby hasten your psychological recovery from your mistake. I'd recommend, in this case, staying away from her until you've managed that recovery, but I wouldn't say that it is essential to do so.
  11. She expressed interest. You played hard to get and then acted disinterested. Anyone would likely have dropped you under those circumstances. She then went looking for someone who was interested and not playing games. (Yes, I know that's not how you see it. But it is likely how she saw it.) What else would you expect? If you want her, stop playing games with yourself about being "not in her league" and get your ass onto the playing field. Otherwise, get out of the situation and stop making yourself miserable. Remember: You and you alone are responsible for your choices. And if you want a consequence, you and you alone are responsible for enacting the cause of your desired consequence.
  12. 1) The index page has no links like that. 2) That person has no apparent reason to be on this site. 3) The bulk of the message is an ad for staysafe.org. 4) That person claims the link is relevant to this site, when anyone reading it would know better. 5) The two similar messages were sent almost two months apart. In short, this is pure spam. It's an old variety: "We're not really spamming, we're providing a public service, notifying of broken links!" (Or some other excuse.)
  13. You are equivocating. Rand meant by this that one should not read into things that which is not there, that one should use the actual meanings of the words, not some approximation. That's a proper use of "literal". But you're looking for the "one true meaning" of a statement, which you want to exist independently of the context of the statement. That's not "literal", that's "arbitrary". Come back when you've learned the difference. For now, you're in my ignore list.
  14. In my case, the issue is simple: Money. Or, rather, the lack of it.....
  15. The literal interpretation you're asking for does not exist. Such could only exist if each word and each syntactic structure had exactly one meaning. Language does not work that way. Understanding any statement requires interpreting it within its context, rather than as an isolated statement. The operative principle is that of benevolence. One assumes, unless it is proven otherwise, that a writer (or speaker) has something meaningful to say. This requires, not literal interpretation, but contextual interpretation. The question is not, "what meaning is assigned to this statement by the dictionary and rules of grammar?" (a question that essentially never has a determinate answer) but "what meaning, among the possible legitimate meanings, will make this statement part of a coherent whole?". As a general rule, the demand for a literal interpretation (or the insistence on a particular interpretation as "the" literal interpretation) is an attempt to inject the arbitrary into a discussion. It should be rejected with whatever degree of firmness is necessary to preserve the integrity of the discussion forum.
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