Doug Morris

The electron goes through both slits as a wave. The wave determines the probabilities of the various ways the electron can be detected by the screen. When the electron is detected by the screen, it is always detected in only one place, regardless of the specific nature of the wave. The electron is detected in only one place because there is only one electron. Thus the electron being detected in only one place proves nothing about the nature of the wave, and therefore proves nothing about how the electron interacted with the barrier and the slits. If the detector is placed close to the slits, this affects what slice of the interference pattern is detected, and therefore affects the probabilities of various results. But it does not permit there to be two detection events. That K3 is not the sum of K1 and K2 proves that the electron passes through both slits. There is still an interference pattern for a single electron. We just can't see it because it only acted on one electron. If I do a dice-throwing experiment, and I only make one throw, I only get one throw-outcome, and therefore I can't see any experimental evidence of the probabilities. But the probabilities are still the same as if I made thousands of throws.

How does this apply to Trump's lies about the 2020 election?

This is at least as good a description of Trump as of the Left.

Is P1 really true? If the wave properties of the electron are important, can't it go through both slits?

Actually, this is an example where a premise is either ambiguous or false, due to switching or sloppiness in the definition of "profit".

It seems to happen a lot that a quotation is attributed to a famous person to draw attention and to lend a (fallacious) air of authority. My favorite example is a quotation I like very much. "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force, and, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearsome master." This is usually attributed to George Washington. However, the earliest actual appearance anyone can find seems to be around 1900.

A more reasonable interpretation would be that there would be no need for bombing if Keating had been able to sue to enforce the contract, as would presumably be the case if the Cortlandt building had been privately owned by a capitalist businessman. However, that would not have made as good a novel.

I think the "70% confident" means that the other figures were arrived at with the help of statistical methods that give correct results 70% of the time.

At one point Cortlandt is referred to as a Federal Housing Project, so presumably it was the federal government. Also, it was made clear that suing to enforce the contract would mean suing the government.

In the case of Cortlandt, the "owner" was the government, which already complicates the issue. Also, it was not possible to sue the government, so the normal recourse for enforcing a contract was not available to Keating and Roark. I'm not sure how this should affect the matter; that might require another discussion. But it at least complicates the moral issues involved.

After thinking about the posts in this thread, I have concluded the following. As David Odden pointed out, the crucial concept to clarify is not physical force, but rights. "Physical force" taken literally and broadly includes a lot of things that do not violate rights. I remember long ago an Objectivist of my acquaintance telling how he had talked about physical force to a non-Objectivist and that person had brought up the example of lifting a person up so they could change a light bulb. We could attempt to clarify this by talking about using physical force against someone, or about using physical force instead of persuasion, or about using physical force to harm, control, or expropriate someone. But the best approach is to clarify the concept of rights, not the concept of physical force. Apparently many Objectivists have tried to clarify this by stressing intent. But to me this seems a red herring. Certainly it is possible to infringe on someone's rights without intending to do so. The crucial question to ask is not "What was the actor's intent?" but "Have anyone's rights been violated or infringed upon?". This does not mean we need to abandon the concept of physical force. We still need that concept to make clear what it is that makes government far more powerful than any other institution, and therefore needing to be constrained in ways that do not apply to other institutions. In the case of physical force being available to the government, the situation is pretty clear-cut. The government has people acting on its behalf, who in most countries are usually armed, and who are authorized to apply physical force on behalf of the government to whatever extent is necessary, which in some cases rises to the level of lethal force. This includes police, sheriffs, marshals, bailiffs, and armed government agents. (I have not tried to make this list exhaustive, and the exact wording might depend on the country involved.) This is necessary to deal with both individual criminals and criminal gangs. In other cases, such as someone refusing to abide by a court order, some degree of force may be necessary, but not lethal force unless the perpetrator takes their resistance to unusual, extreme lengths. How does this sound? As Ayn Rand pointed out in her essay "Man's Rights", the altruist morality distorts many people's thinking on such issues. To achieve widespread understanding and acceptance of what rights are, we must first achieve widespread understanding and acceptance of what morality is.

Intent can serve to distinguish between violations of rights due to negligence and violations of rights due to malice. But how much difference does this make when determining whether, or to what extent, rights have been violated?

A general statement would be that we violate someone's rights when we deprive them of their freedom to act. Much, but not all, of this would be covered by depriving them of life, property, or the ability to use any part of their body, or by creating a danger of any of this, or by threatening to do so. This still requires clarification and line-drawing. Why, exactly, is intent important? This still requires clarification and line-drawing.

We also need to get clear what exactly distinguishes government from other institutions. (By the nature of the institution, not just its purpose.) We also need to get clear what exactly entitles government to intervene in a situation.

Might it help to use phrases like "physical coercion", "physical expropriation", and "physical damage" instead of "physical force'?