Jonathan Weissberg

@necrovore Good point on "learning new words for concepts that you already know" as being a "fundamentally different process from the one you would use to learn entirely new concepts." Actually question to both @necrovore and @DavidOdden: aren't the concepts that we "presuppose" (the building blocks/the implied fundamentals of any thought, e.g., existence) already "known" to us. If they are implicit then do we really need to go through an inductive process/"acquisition process"? There's something fundamentally different when learning about existence, identity, free will, cause & effect (as examples) than when learning about "television" when you've never seen one. In a way you already have the concepts for philosophy, just implicitly, no? By "depth of understanding" do you mean added non-fundamental characteristics about the concept mentally retained? I'll check out ITOE soon enough, thanks for the recommendation. Reduction is not fundamental to what? What I got from the OPAR chapter on 'validation' was that the fundamental of validation was both 'reduction' and 'integration' into one's wider context of knowledge, i.e., identifying other knowledge one holds that conflicts with it. Thus at least if the context is 'validation', identifying the nature of a thought's relationship to reality, it is essential. We must check for 'internal consistency' but also check for consistency against existence itself. Thoughts?

@Eiuol: My main take-away from your post: Learning by categories or 'lists' without context is learning detached from actual language (or subject) use and that context means "it's much easier to fold those words [ideas] into memory." My problem so far is that it's not like philosophic works are littered with real-world specific examples. There may be one or two, but the remainder is just abstract explanation. And then there's the added problem of the same words being used to refer to different concepts in different contexts (even within the same field). So then the solution you're saying is engaging in vigorous discussion around the text by asking both challenging and clarifying questions to help better make distinctions between different concepts, e.g., "is this specific example considered an instance of the concept X?" I can do some of that here which is good. @DavidOdden Firstly, great stuff. I enjoyed your examples. "There are millions of words in the language, and dozens of sounds." So learn and master sounds first before proceeding because they are the fundamentals which everything presupposes, on which you build mastery of the language because of the added context (the sound, the way your tongue moves for each word, the rhythm maybe of each word you learn—as opposed to approximating the sounds but not really distinguishing properly between similar-sounding sounds which I know there's some word for but I forget now). This is what I was trying to get at when saying frequency but then later talking about how it's implicit, rather than explicit, i.e., undergirds our thinking rather than being represented by the specific words or thoughts we're having. I did not get the distinction of existential & epistemological fundamental. "Fundamental" itself is epistemological. (But that's ok, I'll look at it when I get to the book you recommended). And I didn't quite get the connection between that and the acquisition process. I understand what you're saying in the latter part and @necrovore touched on it. This is that the induction of the concept comes before the validation, i.e., that you validate by integrating with your context of knowledge & reducing to the perceptual, but you must first have the concept with some (scientifically unknown) amount and variation of examples and instances BEFORE validating it. It's the induction you're saying is the unknown acquisition process if I followed? The list was an example. It's much wider. Ok so similar to @Eiuol you're recommending trying to keep these things in context. I think we are both getting at the same thing with what you call "presuppose". I said: "The only difficulty for me here is that highly used concepts are not 'on the surface' necessarily, i.e., they are implied and supporting our speech, thoughts and actions throughout the day but not necessarily explicit." I'm describing them as "frequent" in the sense that they are frequently used as building blocks of thought but not explicit. I need somehow to work out the deepest fundamentals, which is harder than simply running word frequency calculations across texts.

I'm wondering if we can port some of the methods of one particular language learning approach into philosophic integration and keen to get other's thoughts. Part of the motivation here is that I'm finding as I learn philosophy there's still so much that's very vague even if it 'makes sense.' I know that it's not 100% integrated or understood since I can't just necessarily rattle off real-world examples for each concept and I stumble a lot trying to articulate what the concept is or I start to articulate my understanding and then realize that actually maybe I don't understand it so well. And if philosophy can not be used for work or relationships or anything else in my life, what's the point? I think if one could get to a point where each concept had very strong mental and emotional links to others so that you know how one small change would affect the whole network of concepts that would be a super power that I want. There are two approaches to language learning: (1) Start by learning words by categories, e.g., all fruit, in sequential orders and focus on writing & grammar. (2) Master the sounds first, then start learning the vocabulary through a frequency list (most frequently used words first) and speak. (2) Seems to be highly effective and used by a lot of polyglots. After beginning to read OPAR and just making my way through the part of reduction as a form of a validation, I was thinking of taking that part of beginning vocabulary study with a word frequency list and using that same approach for philosophy. That would mean I setup a big list of the most frequently used concepts and begin to reduce each one of them with specific examples from my own life and integrate them with all the other high frequency concepts. The only difficulty for me here is that highly used concepts are not 'on the surface' necessarily, i.e., they are implied and supporting our speech, thoughts and actions throughout the day but not necessarily explicit. For starters, I'm just going to take a lot of what's in OPAR and begin there: existence consciousness identity causality volition/free-will context validation proof action nature thought - idea - knowledge axiom Just to list a few. Happy to list the full thing once I make more headway.

For anyone following this and helping me grapple with some of my reading. I've just posted an outline of this entire essay here: I'm currently reading OPAR and realized that I'm better off approaching studying Rand's works while keeping more of the context in mind. This essay was just a brief outline of the ethics, so getting deep into related questions was not the most productive. Looking forward to further discussions.

An outline of the essay from 'Virtue of Selfishness.' Morality or ethics is a code of values to guide man's choices and actions (these determine the purpose and course of his life). Ethics (as a science) deals with discovering and defining this code. Prerequisite: why does man need a code of values? History of Ethics Historically moralists have regarded ethics as the province of feeling: (1) the traditional mystic, religious morality where the "will of God" is the standard of value and validation of ethics; (2) the neo-mystics who reject God and substitute it with "the good of society" Moralities have been a battle between whose whim: one's own, society's, the dictator's or God's. Defining Value That which one acts to gain or keep Presupposes answer to value to whom and for what and presupposes the fact of an alternative. The valueless indestructible robot Ultimate Value or Goal An ultimate value or goal is the one to which all lesser goals are the means and sets the standard by which they're evaluated. The fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which is the living entity's own life Good and Evil, Pleasure and Pain First awareness of "value" and "good and evil" is by means of the physical sensations of pleasure or pain The capacity to experience pleasure or pain is innate in man's body, it is part of his nature, and he has no choice about the standard that determines what will cause the physical pain or pleasure. The standard is his life. The Role Of Consciousness The physical sensations can perform the task of using fuel but cannot use it. The higher organisms having more complex needs and a wider range of actions need consciousness to obtain fuel (for survival). Description of the faculty of sensation Perception Perception is the faculty that retains sensations Animals Animals are guided by the immediately present perceptual concretes and they inherit an automatic code of values, i.e., they do not have a choice in the matter. They cannot chose not to perceive or chose to act as their own destroyer. Man The distinction between man and other animals is volitional consciousness, i.e., conceptual and non-automatic. Man inherits no automatic code of survival and guide to action so must discover the answers to those questions himself. Conceptual Consciousness The nature of concepts: the integration of sense data to percepts is automatic, but abstract and concept-formation is not. Man needs a method of using his consciousness: identifying impressions in conceptual terms, integrating events and observations into a conceptual context, grasping relationships, differences, similarities in the perceptual material and abstracting them into new concepts, drawing inferences, making deductions, reaching conclusions, i.e., a method for asking new questions, discovering new answers and expanding knowledge into an ever-growing sum. Reason Reason is man's (volitional, fallible) faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses. Psychologically to think or not is to focus or not; existentially it is to be conscious or not; metaphysically it is to live or die. Objectivist Ethics Guides man choices and actions; asks 'what are the right goals for man to pursue?' and 'what are the values his survival requires?' The standard of value for Objectivist ethics is man's life, i.e., that which is required for man's survival qua man (proper to his nature as a man). A "standard is the abstract principle that serves as a measurement to guide or gauge man's choices in the achievement of a concrete, specific purpose." Everything man needs has to be discovered by his own mind & produced by his own effort and so the two essentials proper to his survival qua man are thinking and productive work. Discussion on men who survive by "imitation and repetition." Discussion on men who survive by "brute force or fraud." Compares the animal's life of separate, repeated cycles and man's life as a continuous, integrated whole that "holds the sum of all days behind him." Animal's life consists of a series of separate cycles, repeated over & over , e.g., breeding, storing food for winter - it cannot integrate its entire lifespan; it goes just far enough to repeat the cycle all over again with no connection to the past. Man's life is a continuous whole, for good or evil, every day, year and decade of his life holds the sum of all the days behind him. Objectivist Values & Virtues Value is that which one acts to gain or keep and virtue is the act by which one gains and/or keeps it. Three cardinal values: reason, purpose, self-esteem; Three corresponding virtues: rationality, productiveness, pride. Productive work as the central purpose and central value that integrates and determines the hierarchy of all other values; reason is the source of his productive work; and pride is the result. The source of all virtues is rationality; the source of all evils is an unfocused mind. Rationality It is a commitment to: Reason as the only source of knowledge and the rejection of any form of mysticism, i.e., claim to some nonsensory, nondefinable source of knowledge. Full mental focus Never placing any value or consideration above one's perception of reality Basing, choosing and validating your convictions and values with thought Independence: accepting the responsibility of forming one's own judgments and of living by the work of one's own mind Integrity: never sacrificing one's convictions to the opinions or wishes of others Honesty: never attempting to fake reality in any manner Justice: never seeking or granting the unearned or undeserved, neither in matter nor in spirit. Never desiring effects without causes and never enacting a cause without assuming full responsibility for its effect Never acting like a zombie, i.e., without knowing one's own purposes and motives Never making any decision, forming any conviction or seeking any value out of context, i.e., apart from or against the total, integrated sum of one's knowledge Productiveness It is recognition of the fact that productive work is the way man sustain his life and frees him from adjusting himself to his background, as animals do, and gives him the power to adjust his background to himself. It is the fullest and most purposeful use of his mind in a consciously chosen pursuit. Pride It is recognition of the fact that just as man must produce the physical values needed to sustain his life, so he must produce the values of character that make it a life worth sustaining. Earning the right to hold oneself as one's highest value is achieved by: Never accepting an irrational values impossible to practice; Never failing to practice the virtues one knows to be rational; Never accepting unearned guilt and never leaving any unearned guilt uncorrected; Never resigning passively to flaws in one's character; Never placing any consideration of the moment above one's own self-esteem; A rejection of any code of values preaching sacrifice as a moral virtue; The Social Principle Ever living human being is an end in himself and not the means to the ends or the welfare of others. Man must not sacrifice himself to others nor sacrifice other to himself. Emotions In psychological terms the issue of survival is "happiness or suffering." As the pleasure-pain mechanisms of the body is an automatic indicator of the body's welfare or injury so the emotional mechanism is an estimate of that which furthers man's life and that which threatens it by means of joy and suffering. Emotions are an automatic result of man's value judgements integrated by his subconscious. Unlike the pleasure-pain mechanism, the standard of value is not automatic but the products of either thinking or evasions, i.e., by a conscious process of thought or subconscious association. Irrational values can switch man's emotional mechanism from the role of guardian to the role of destroyer. Happiness A state proceeding from the achievement of one's values. “Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy—a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction.... Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions.” (John Galt) To hold one's life as one's ultimate value and one's own happiness as one's highest purpose are two aspects of the same achievement. A happiness that can summed up in the words "this is worth living for" is an affirmation in emotional terms of the fact that life is an end in itself. Hedonist & Altruist Ethics As Sadism or Masochism To take "whatever makes one happy" as a guide to action means to be guided by emotional whims. Emotions are not tools of cognition. Happiness can be the purpose of ethics, but not the standard: ethics defines value and gives the means to the achievement of happiness so to say that you should pursue "whatever makes you happy" is to say that proper value is whatever you value. Philosophers that have attempted to devise a rational code of ethics produced only a choice of whims: "selfish" pursuit of one's own whims (Neitzsche) or "selfless" service to the whims of others (Bentham, Mill, Comte, etc.) When "desire" is an ethical primary men have to fight one another because desires and interests necessarily clash and the ethical alternative is to be an ethical sadist or masochist. Rational Selfishness Objectivist ethics upholds rational selfishness which means values required for man's survival qua man. Rational interests do not clash: there is no conflict of interest among men who do not desire the unearned, do not make or accept sacrifices and men who deal with one another by means of trading value for value. Trade The rational ethical principle guiding all human relationships is justice: Earning what you get and not giving or taking the undeserved. Not treating men as masters or slaves but independent equals. Dealing with men by means of voluntary exchange. Ascribing one's own failures to oneself and not to others and not holding oneself responsible for the failures of others. The spiritual issues of justice are the same, but the currency is different: love, friendship, respect, admiration are an emotional response of one man to the virtues of another and a form of spiritual payment for the selfish pleasure derived from the virtue's of another man's character. It is only on the basis of rational selfishness, on justice, that man can be fit to live together in a benevolent, rational society. No society can be of value to man's life if the price is the surrender of his right to life, i.e., a society where man is treated as a sacrificial animal. Political Principle No man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The right to use physical force is only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. The only moral purpose of government is the protection of man's rights, i.e., to protect man from physical violence, to protect his right to his own life, liberty, property and the pursuit of his own happiness. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Every political system is derived from a theory of ethics. Alternative Ethics: Mystic, Social, Subjective The barest essentials of the Objectivist ethics is outlined above to contrast it to three major schools of ethical theory: the mystic, the social, and the subjective. These three alternatives different only in their method of approach, no in content: in content they are variants of altruism where the variation is over the question of who is to be sacrificed to whom. The mystic theory of ethics, of which the dark and middle ages are existential monuments, sets the standard of value beyond the grave. The social theory of ethics, of which Nazy Germany and Soviet Russia are existential monuments, substitutes society for God. The subjectivist theory of ethics is the negation of ethics and sets man's whim as the moral standard.

Now that many countries are locked down there are numerous options of zoom-based meetups you can find on meetup.com Simply search for terms of interest using 'groups' and set 'within distance' to 'any.' There's some good London-based meetups and discussion often featuring guests & some study groups scattered throughout the US too.

Sounds interesting but I'm not really following what this distinction captures. Do you mean intention to be good? OK I think I'm following now, so you are talking about the intention or motivation of someone to be good. And when you say that the motivation "cannot be absolutely paramount" I think you mean if we evaluate an act from the perspective of flourishing and put aside motivation? But I don't really follow what good is thinking that way - to split the act from the motivation? Is it simply to be sure that one can act well by studying morality? I followed what you're saying about psychological flourishing being an aspect of flourishing, but I'm not so much seeing the connection you're making to self-esteem. It'd be valuable to be able to make these connections between small choices, like the ice-cream scenario you describe, and self-esteem because you'd be much more motivated to summon up will power to chose the most beneficial long-term action. I understand what you're saying about the individual response to ice-cream being objective, i.e., the pleasure of the taste, etc., being taste as experienced by an individual being with its own physical wiring. But I'm not quite following "flavor" being subjective but an objective psychological value. How would this work with color? I have just recently started reading OPAR. Would it make sense to say then that it's not "in the things" nor "in the individual consciousness" but in the "things as experienced by that individual consciousness?" , i.e., objective. And this allows for individual variation on things like taste. Have I been correctly understanding you?

This is pretty interesting. I understand what you're saying and it squares with what I'm trying to get my head around now re: free will. So the basic choice is to focus or not, but then there are countless choices one makes that are derivatives of that basic choice and this situation you're describing would be one, right? I think often one way this would be described by others (and myself previously) might be an "arbitrary choice", i.e., subjective and without basis other than random feeling. If both choices are essentially similar and one has to chose between two how would you describe this kind of choice? would you say it's then based on 'feeling' since what else would there be to consciously evaluate?

Some more nice quotes to add on the topic of habit: "“He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.” - Nietzsche "Practice makes perfect, so be careful what you practice." - William Channing

Yes, this is how I'm seeing it now.

Got it, makes sense re: the gradations. Thank you. Some actions are not as significant. Where I was confused was the point at which the moral or immoral becomes amoral and what the gradation looks like, if significance in relation to a flourishing life is the measure. Some good examples. I understand re: the complexities. In some way I'm seeking to reduce those complex causal relationships down to something I can validate and so when tempted to make decisions that may be bad, I have clear, logical, reasoning to keep me centered and acting in accordance with a goal. It's easy to rationalize things, e.g., eating bad food, or impulsively checking social media or email, etc., when I think the consequences long-range are small. The ice-cream example is pretty bare bones still. Usually there's way more richer detail when I think of a real world example that'll probably allow us to categorize it as moral or immoral in relation to a flourishing life as a standard of value. For example, was the decision to go buy ice-cream impulsive? or was the decision to simply go buy ice-cream (as a reward) with the favorite one in mind but open to other ice creams? was the decision primarily focused on this favorite ice-cream but then once at the store an impulse from cravings made the person want to just get any ice-cream and consume it right now? Thoughts? Also I'm thinking that once you get into 'habits' you get into the specialized field of psychology and so it would be up to psychology to analyze how this may or may not effect your life long-range.

Stephen was saying: i.e., one criterion of morality (apart from being chosen values) is that the chosen value in question be "required for the survival of a rational being through the whole of his lifespan," and Stephen is saying some choices are insignificant when viewed through this lens. @BoydstunI read your example of the gradation of values but it was abstract & difficult for me to get through and piece together, so I'm going to leave it for now while I work through some more basics from the essay. Thank you for your responses.

What I got from this is that one aspect of thinking about my values "in the context and terms of a lifetime" includes explicit recognition of my mortality. Interesting conversation, some of it getting at other questions I had. From what I've understood there are primarily three issues being discussed: (1) One criterion of morality (apart from being chosen values) is that the chosen value in question be "required for the survival of a rational being through the whole of his lifespan," and whether or not "lifespan" refers to a specific time-frame. (2) The source of emotions; a refinement including distinguishing emotions and feelings. (3) The morality of aesthetic judgements; (2) & (3), I'll add to in another post. Regarding (1): From what I've understood, @Boydstunis interpreting Ayn Rand's formulation of "choices and actions that determine the purpose and course of [one’s] life" as choices and actions that pertain only to the "long-term." And @2046 is interpreting the formulation of "the course of one's life" or "lifespan" as including the present and shorter-term impact of chosen values, e.g., over the next week, day hour or even only in the present moment. I got this from: So this conversation is primarily about what "the course of one's life" and "lifespan" mean: does it include those values that affect the short-term course? and what kind of impact do chosen values have on our life? @Boydstun, how are you determining and differentiating what constitutes long and short-term affect? is this a wider discussion in philosophy, i.e., determining the impact of a moral choice on a "whole" life? do you mean essential and non-essential? out of curiosity does anyone think that distinction applies to the affect of chosen values on the course of one's life? @2046, you're asking @Boydstun to prove that nothing follows from certain choices, right? But if I understood him, he's talking about the significance of certain choices? Am not really following @Boydstun and "gradation of chosen values from the moral to the nonmoral (such as hairstyle or esthetic values) would be for her only the challenge of the gradations and varieties of value in reality." Gradation to me suggests a spectrum that goes from moral to non-moral with no clear demarcation, but maybe it's more clearer to say categories of chosen values? That's what I'm getting from your quotes (that it's categories as opposed to gradations) from this post: Errors of knowledge are not defects of morals, but are they not still the result of a moral process of thought? e.g., errors as moral, evasion is immoral?

Ok, got it. Thank you for added context. Some questions (not all are exactly completely on topic, so not holding you to a reply): (1) What is it that distinguishes a "whole" life from a non-whole life? (2) In what way do moral values affect the "course of one's whole life" that is different from values affecting the course of one's life? (3) If I understand correctly, you've said that what differentiates moral values from values is the level of abstract, i.e., non-moral values are "more immediately graspable and shorter time-framed"? (4) What did you mean by "fuller form" of the moral-value distinction? As in a 'higher', more 'superior' morality in the sense of it bringing more happiness when compared to less developed codes of values? Ok, got it. What you're saying makes sense. It just occurred to me to that there's a discussion about diet that relates to this question, i.e., of biology and 'ultimate value': 'Ancestral diets, e.g., paleo, may help you reach reproductive age and successfully have offspring, but they don't necessarily mitigate age-related disease after your reproductive prime is over. It's possible we need a different eating strategy to maximize each of these periods. It may be there is a trade-off between how we live during our younger years and how rapidly we age when we are older.' ... 'If we consider these general phases of life - pre-reproductive age, reproductive prime, and post-reproductive prime - it's likely that biological priorities and needs change over time. It may be true that the types of diet and activity critically important to maximize reproduction earlier in life are different than the ones we need later in life, when reproductive prime is behind us.' (Sourced from "The Healthspan Solution" by Ray Cronise, not direct quotes) Thank you very much for the replies, Stephen.

Great, thanks. That's great for me if they want to spend an hour replying to 20 of my questions on one essay for free, but if they don't then they should know I'm willing to pay on an hourly basis to speak with them because that'd be great for me too.

Thank you for the reply, Stephen! Ok, that makes sense—code as an explicit set, e.g., a set of religious commandments, or a set of principles, and not necessarily systematically related. That's an interesting quote, so another ancient testament for moral codes. When you're citing these as possible examples of being at odds with longevity, like cigarettes or cake, do you mean in the abstract that one my run out of money and not afford food, or be unable to afford medical care? Because when I read these examples I just thought from one angle only which is that there's a less chance of succeeding and attaining those things given the time invested into them, but that the time is still not lost since a superior character is attained in the pursuit of them. But I would understand if one pursued something like free climbing (see Alex Hannold) then the choice would also be at odds with longevity. I'm not familiar enough with what preceded Greek culture and the moral codes during Greek culture. Is there some debate in philosophy about there not being objectively right and wrong moral choices before Greek culture? Ok, and so you're saying in your view that it is possible to have multiple ultimate goals? Great, I'll definitely get onto these soon.

(2) Mental Health versus Mysticism and Self-Sacrifice Demonstrates the incompatibility of mysticism and self-sacrifice with mental health.

(1) The Objectivist Ethics In barest essentials outlines the nature and validation of a rational morality, a morality of life, as against the three other major schools of ethical theories.

I'm currently working through this booklet and so here I'll share a structural outline of the book & then a brief summation of what each essay is about. Structural Outline: (1) The Objectivist Ethics (2) Mental Health versus Mysticism and Self-Sacrifice (3) The Ethics of Emergencies (4) The "Conflicts" of Men's Interests (5) Isn't Everyone Selfish? (6) The Psychology of Pleasure (7) Doesn't Life Require Compromise (8) How Does One Lead a Rational Life in an Irrational Society (9) The Cult of Moral Grayness (10) Collectivized Ethics (11) The Monument Builders (12) Man's Rights (13) Collectivized "Rights" (14) The Nature of Government (15) Government Financing in a Free Society (16) The Divine Right of Stagnation (17) Racism (18) Counterfeit Individualism (19) The Argument from Intimidation

These are questions I had after reading the essay in 'Virtue of Selfishness' entitled 'The Objectivist Ethics.' Does the word 'code' imply a systematic relationship between the values? As opposed to saying something like 'Morality or ethics determine the values that guide man's actions'? An organism's life would include things that provide it physical pleasure even if they do not necessarily enhance biological life from a lifespan perspective, right? for example, surfing, skydiving or sex. These are exercise in some form, but my point is they're not necessarily being pursued for extending biological lifespan. And how about things that provide physical pleasure but reduce it from a lifespan perspective, e.g., sweet food or cigarettes? If one is aware that consuming cigarettes is physically unhealthy but still chooses to smoke for his own pleasure, is he then immoral when using this standard of ethical evaluation? Can there not be independent 'ultimate goals'? For example, having children. In what way does having children relate to the ultimate evaluating standard of 'life'? Another thing I'm trying to get my head around here is even with an ultimate standard of 'life', if that includes everything that does not physically destroy your life, then that leaves a lot of open-ended, subjective options, right? e.g., if I think again of children, and chose to have them 'simply because I feel like it' while aware of the long-term commitment, I can if I can't make an argument as to why it would destroy my life. On the discussion of validation of value judgement: So a thing has a certain nature, and 'ought' (implying morality and choice) may or may not arise from that nature? In the discussion on reason: Here we go back to understand what is this standard of 'life,' because man doesn't "need" an airplane to live. He needs shelter, food and water, so something other than enhancing biological lifespan is being discussed. Could we more simply reformulate this principle as something like pursue what is pleasurable physically and emotionally as long as it doesn't physically harm your life? This is more a question of historical knowledge, than one specifically relating to philosophical knowledge, but hasn't man both acted as his own destroyed AND acted as a creator and innovator? I could tell someone that looking back over the last hundred years there was complete death & destruction, and wars, and massacres and genocides and man has committed terrible atrocities—all of this true; but at the same time it has also been a period of the most progress and innovation technically and enormous wealth creation. Man has the capacity for both, but I'm not sure how one evaluates which side is more dominant. If the side of destruction was more dominant, would we even still be here? Could it be said then that any habit we have that isn't that thought out or understood represents the subhuman in us, i.e., our animal nature? For example, if one randomly checks emails when bored and has found one has often tended to do so after the past year, that would represent something similar to the cycle of the animal since the action is not thought out? When it's written that "every day, year and decade of his life holds the sum of all days behind him" is that saying that because we have lived, experienced, and stored memories, we will always have that information available to us ready to turn into wisdom or to use in evaluating what we do whereas an animal may not? But then is it correct to say that this is referring simply to our capacity, since so much of what happens during the day is not necessarily integrated into some wider sum or conceptualized in any way? What is meant by the "context and terms of a lifetime?" is it literally 'until I die?' or is it thinking about the future? if I pickup some new hobby like rock climbing because I feel like it and just for fun, how does that goal fit into the 'context and terms of a lifetime?' Why is 'reason' a value if it is a faculty that "that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses"? I don't think she means it is a value simply because it is a powerful faculty? does it mean 'the use and exercise of reason' is a value? This has probably been discussed elsewhere and can see how it opens up a whole discussion of its own. But I'm not clear how my job (or the things I work on) integrates with and relates to every relationship or romance I have, let alone determines their hierarchy. And it would get even more confusing with multiple productive pursuits, e.g,. if one is pursuing artistic projects, working a full-time job, and studying philosophy. What integrates what? How would one evaluate one's relationship to the other? I'll stop here as I have many more questions and just wanting to test the waters here first.

Hey John, I'm Sydney CBD based currently.

Hi, I'm joining because I'm started to read through lots of Ayn Rand's works. My interest is primarily in the use of philosophy for self-improvement, i.e., reducing mental conflicts, reducing inefficient thinking, increasing intellect, ability to formulate plans and principles for good decision making at work, relationships and in life. I'm starting to see that if I'm competent philosophically, i.e., have abstract frames for viewing life and the things that happen to me day-to-day, I'm more in control of who I become rather than being a product of my environment. I am starting to see philosophy as a lever on myself and the world. I have many, many questions & will be posting summaries or notes from some of the works I'm reading. If there's anyone here who is deeply familiar with Rand's work and has studied it extensively, I'd be interested in finding someone I could speak to and ask my questions about what I'm reading on a paid basis- so if you know anyone just point them to my username or posts.