Doug Morris

What are your grounds for this statement?

Vaccines work, but not 100%. Thus your argument breaks down. The point is not to force a utopia on people, but to prevent them from unnecessarily endangering people, the same as with drunk drivers. Laws against drunk driving are not aimed at establishing a utopia in which nobody ever gets drunk, nor a utopia in which nobody ever abuses alcohol, nor any utopia. Serious exaggeration.

You may also wish to consider trade goods, such as whiskey.

This may be picky, but you have your decimal point in the wrong place, giving your post an unnecessary degree of pessimism.

At least some of the links aren't working.

To perceive an entity is not to perceive all of it or all of its characteristics. It is to perceive that there is something there and to perceive at least one of it characteristics. We can probably never perceive all of its characteristics, but we still perceive the entity.

If more people had gotten vaccinated early on when the existing vaccinations hadn't worn off so much, there would have been a better chance to knock down the pandemic.

Or we could argue as follows. We ask "Is R a type-I unit of itself?" By the definition of R, this reduces to the question, "Is R not a type-I unit of itself?". Thus, to determine whether R is a type-I unit of itself, we must first determine whether R is a type-I unit of itself. This circularity makes it logically impossible to answer the question, which invalidates the question.

If most eligible people had gotten vaccinated and boosted, the spread would have dramatically declined, and the nature of the pandemic would have changed.

There is direct evidence of greater transmissability.

You are not taking into account the increased transmissability of the new variants.

Yes.

At the very least, any individual set must be definable to be valid. That may not be a sufficient condition, but it is definitely necessary.

One important point to get clear is that individual natural numbers and all the other mathematical things mentioned are mental constructs. They definitely exist as mental constructs. They do not exist as physical objects. They do not exist as entities in some Platonic heaven nor as Platonic forms nor as Aristotelian essences; there are no such things. Mental constructs exist as such even if they are not valid. Examples are the concepts "extremist" and "God".

Part of a related article: A Linguist in the Wild Elizabeth Pyatt's Thoughts on Cognition, Linguistics, Learning...Whatever The Language Without Numbers By ELIZABETH J PYATT on July 23, 2008 4:54 PM | Permalink An interesting news story from the past few years is the Amazonian language Pirahã which lacks number words. That is, instead of counting quantities (1,2,3,4...), the Pirahã only estimate quantities (relatively small, relatively large). The latest study from MIT seems to confirm this. Interestingly, when objects are taken away from a pile, the estimates change so that "small" may become 5-6 instead of 1-2 as previously thought. This has perplexed linguists since almost all languages have some sort of counting (even in remote locations). The only other examples of low-tech numbers had been systems of 1,2, many. We normally think of counting as a "basic" cognitive skill, but it appears to be primarily cultural. I first about this in 2000 from a guest speaker Peter Gordon. His evidence was convincing, but there have been some points I have been pondering. Pirahã children who learn Portuguese also learn to count - it's not a difference in cognition [Peter Gordon, personal communication] Not surprisingly, male laborers in Brazil are stiffed a lot because they do not pay as much attention to "exact" quantities. However the Pirahã women are reported to gently mock their men folk for this [Gordon, p.c.] It reminds me of cultural gender stereotypes like men can't pick coordinating colors and women can't work with computers (and yes many of us buy into them whether they are 100% true). Many animals can easily distinguish quantities of 1,2,3, (or a little more) on sight, but after that they guesstimate. In this study, monkeys can recognize quanities of 1-4, but estimate after that. This predicts that a basic counting would be something like 1,2,3, many, but the Pirahã system is even more basic.

Measurement omission is usually not part of definition or differentiation. Definition codifies and clarifies differentiation. Differentiation may include complicated computations. It may also include observing differences that at first are poorly understood. Measurement omission is implicit in any subsuming of concretes with different measurements under a single concept. But it is not necessarily an explicit part or logical step of the differentiation. Again, For each concrete that is included under the concept, the measurements must exist in some combination consistent with the definition.

From the Ayn Rand Lexicon: With certain significant exceptions, every concept can be defined and communicated in terms of other concepts. The exceptions are concepts referring to sensations, and metaphysical axioms. Sensations are the primary material of consciousness and, therefore, cannot be communicated by means of the material which is derived from them. The existential causes of sensations can be described and defined in conceptual terms (e.g., the wavelengths of light and the structure of the human eye, which produce the sensations of color), but one cannot communicate what color is like, to a person who is born blind. To define the meaning of the concept “blue,” for instance, one must point to some blue objects to signify, in effect: “I mean this.” Such an identification of a concept is known as an “ostensive definition.” Regardless of who is doing the concept formation, there might be an initial stage in which the working definition is at least partly ostensive.

The child's definition would probably be at least partly perceptual and ostensive. It would not have to involve any precise ranges. The child could use perceptual, ostensive methods to get some feel for how the value of one measurement can affect the range of another. A child would not need an adult understanding of exactly how to draw the line between a table and a non-table. A child would not need to form the concept of an "almost equilateral triangle" as you have defined it. However, a child could form a similar concept using perceptual and ostensive methods, especially if it was in an environment where it was often confronted with triangles and the effects of their shapes.

the definition of table (“An item of furniture, consisting of a flat, level surface and supports, intended to support other, smaller objects”), (From the Ayn Rand lexicon). This is a good definition of "table". We can formulate it without knowing any exact ranges of measurements. The range of a measurement can be affected by the values of other measurements. For example, how thin the supports can be depends on the number of supports, the substance of which they are made, the weight of the top that provides the level surface being supported, and the weight of the other objects we expect to be able to support. All these are among the measurements we are omitting. We don't have to know anything specific about these ranges or relationships to form the concept "table".

When we form the concept "table" some of the measurements we omit are the substance(s) of which the table is made and the exact size and shape of the level surface and support(s). The substance can vary but can not be butter or anything caustic. The size and shape can vary but some sizes and shapes are unsuitable. The point about measurement omission is that the measurements can exist in any combination consistent with the definition. There does not have to be a simple description of the exact ways in which the individual measurements can vary.

This might lead us into an argument about how "measurement" should be defined.

Anyone who follows Ayn Rand slavishly or sets her up as a goddess is being a very bad Objectivist. Ayn Rand's thinking and contributions go much deeper than politics. The world is dominated by very fundamental philosophical errors that lead most people astray on multiple levels. We have to fight this. Just what does this mean? I think a system in which political power derives from elections with a broadly based electorate is less dangerous than any alternative. I think we should keep the bill of rights and add additional protection to it. I think most Objectivists would be in essential agreement with me on this.

Would you care to define these terms?

Agreed. The crucial need is for enough people to understand and accept the relevant principles, which Ayn Rand has defined. As long as this is not case, any system will give at best mixed results, and the bad will eventually overwhelm the good if it has enough time. Once enough people to understand and accept the relevant principles, democracy will give good results, although it will take time for this to be fully effective.

Your link indicates that excess deaths are somewhat lower this year than last, and they aren't sure why the difference isn't greater.