GWDS

Upon reading Chapter one of VOS all statements previously made by myself are retracted on the grounds that I did not understand Objectivism.

Inspector, my post did not have to do with truth, but certainty. There is a difference. Anyway, I'll take your advice at this juncture and cease to post as I am currently halfway through TVOS and am puzzled by what I am finding.

The insistence to not make fun of one's beleifs is a bad sign - 1. Unlike what many have said on this forum, it is possible to deride one's beleifs without doing the same to oneself. A person's beleif and a person's sense of worth and personality are two distinct things. They may be related in certain people in certain ways, it is not the rule for them to be connected. A What beleifs someone hold conciously are often contradicted by there action - Catholic priests for example. While this definatly has to do with a value judgement against their beleifsa about the universe, it has nothing to do with their beleifs about heaven and hell etc. B Many people will change there metaphysics, politics, and aesthetics over their lifespan while keeping their essential 'character'. Consider Orwell, he went through several intense beleifs over his life, but his basic questioning independant nature continued - even while he was a socialist Trotskyite. 2. There is a huge differance between what you hold to be true and how you hold it. No matter what one's beleif, it can be held as the center of their personality, as something to act simply as a guide, to be questioned or not to be questioned. A Beleif in a deity can be backed up rationally without leaping to 'faith'. Aristotle did it, Descartes did it, Newton, who wrote more on the 'end times' then nature did it. B Some scientists can assert veiws with extreme arrogance (I have solved the mysteries of the universe!!) others can be more conservative about the exact same veiws (it explains everything so far, but in time we will no doubt find new evidence). 3. The beleif that we have found, once and for all the answers to all of reality's great questions is infantile. Consider Ptomley, Descartes, Kant - all giants once infallible dethroned. A Many of these beleifs are based on the 'Great Thinker' who was, ultimatly, a mere mortal. When we base all our thinking on one man, we inevetably also follow the same errors and have the same missing knowledge as these thinkers. No one today would follow Augustine for example - time has shown his releigion and history to be largely mistaken, but in his time he was a god. B We have a tendency to ignore or misinterpret other opposing veiws. have you ever talked to a Christian? We begin to think that there is nothing that can disprove or contradict our ideas and cut ourselves off ultimatly from the stream of knowledge. C We will, when totally basing our lives on an idea, interpret an opposing view as personal attack because of the amount of emotional material now staked on said beleif. 4. The best way to prevent this is to be humourous about one's ideas. A It prevents us from taking on an antagonistic attitude to other beleifs. When one is directly challenged they are more likely to simply go into a 'fight or flight' mode and react as if under personal attack. Using humour done well, the first instinct will be to accept a veiw as something light and easier to think about. Well, that should liven this thread up a little. -Edited for getting emoticons in strange places

Is a scientist dogmatic when he says light will always have one speed in a vacuuum? Is a mathematician dogmatic when he says 2+2=4? Like those who follow any of the great thinkers, these people have a pretty intricate and wide ranging system. Like any who follow a great thinker they derive most of their ideas from that thinkers great works. None of that makes these people dogmatic. I've been asked on creationist forums (back when I used to bother) to argue the validity of Hawking's ideas of the big bang versus someone at answersingenises.org. I didn't, I just laid out Hawking's credentials versus that of the creationist. Did that make me truly dogmatic? You always have to see the differences between the beleifs held and the manner in which they are held. Some on this forum do have dogmatic tendencies, others do not. Nothing in Objectivist philosophy is going to make someone dogmatic, its the person who is. Edit for misspelling (or mispelling or mis-spelling, however you spell it!)

Inspector - NO mistakes? NO ironies? I'll beleive it whenI see it. Then I'll put on my infared glasses and take another look. Anyway, 'mock' is not really what I meant. Mocking implies malice, I mean simply to be open to new ideas be using humour to phrase them in your mind. For example, if someone firmly beleives Iraq was about freedom and nothing else (you know, the boy scout type), you could say something like this - "So would we give them the oil aswell as freedom, or take the oil as their gift for liberation?" I wouldn't call that mocking, just an attempt at eye opening. Poeple will usually be more receptive to humour than anything else, so it can have a positive use in that way.

I beleive I was the one who brought up humour. I always thought humour had a different benifit aswell, it prevents us from being stuck to any particular idea by exposing ironies, contradictions, etc. By lightening the burden of any particular beleif by showing some opposing beleif we free ourselvesintellectually. A lack of humour about one's beleifs and outright dogmatism are not always very far apart.

I was making a point on those who jump to conclusions about differing veiws. Again I state the absolute absurdity of saying 'existence does not exist'. The question for me is this - does morality exist outside of human intellectual whims, is it as existentially 'solid' as planes, trains, and automobiles* *Its been a while since I though about this, I've lost much of the vocabulary as a result. Edited for putting an 'or' in a sentence killing its meaning. And then again for misspelling 'sentence'

So my library only has 'The Ayn Rand Cult' However, I am in the process of pirating 'Virtue of Selfishness', ironic isn't it? Okay, I'm not going to reply to the altruism issue. The reason being twofold, it has been shown to be an ethic that can not be used at all times, secondly I thought we were on the metaphysics track now. Styles2112 wrote - Again, unjustified assumptions are being made, that being people who are moral relativists are simply cowards who don't make decisions. I'm going to answer that with an example, picture this conversation between a christian and an athiest - Atheist - There is no God Theist - Oh, so you're just to scared to follow God A - No, I'm saying all that stuff you talk about isn't true T - Oh, so you have faith in your beleif, like I do, so I guess you can't criticize A - What? No, that's not what I'm saying T - Yes it is, you may not know what you beleive, but I do. See the Thiest? That's you. In my opinion most moral and metaphyscial systems say things we can not know, which is why I oppose them. Now from what I understand at this point Ayn Rand uses a kind of arguement which does not leap into the unknowable. I look forward to understanding this arguement and hope it will pass the test of my skeptical brain. Most unfortunatly the ARI intro to Rand's beleifs did not go into her metaphysics in a way that really seperates it fundementally from other systems, but I'm going to slam through as much as TVOS as I can tonight.

Felipe you first asked me to answer only the question on biological life, then you asked me to state my veiw of reality. I'm going with the latter, doing so will frame the conversation better, would you not agree? You guys have asked alot of questions, so I think some autobiograghy is in order, and I'll try to keep the 'weird stuff' out of it, but if you ask for my beleifs, you're going to get my beleifs. 1. Over the past several years I've seen metaphysicians argue that the world is some kind of shadow of the 'Forms', that an evil demon is controlling all we percieve, that a set of rules guide History the class revolution, that all we are is material, etc. I tried to argue these system's validity in my mind, to no avail. The systems all seemed based on untouchable absurdities - that only thought eists and the like. Then I read Heidegger who simply said "The great scandal of philosophy is not that we have countered solipsism, but that the question has even been raised at all." I thought that was so true, how do you argue these sorts of things? Why even bother? I stopped trying to think of whether or not Plato or others had it right and began to ask what sort of arguements were valid to me if metaphysical ones were not. I kind of defaulted into the position of men like AJ Ayer in stressing sensory evidence for the world around me as the only reliable guide. I had seen what happens when people try to go 'beyond' the senses, not liking it I began to think simply - rocks fall, water boils at a certain temperature, and 2+2=4. Nothing from the mind is ever going to change these facts. I back this beleif up by arguing that while metaphysics can only fall back on 'reason' (as they defined it, I'm not saying Rand fell into this aswell, yet). Science, however, can back itself up because it has a definate power to change the world. The Lunar Landing proves the valisity of its laws so to speak. To summarise in case I went 'Out There' again. Relaising that when philosophers go beyond the senses they always say stupid things, I put my faith in science as it has the best track record for finding the truth. 2. Again, Heidegger made the point that we exist in the world, we ask things, pick up things etc. This was a dose of common sense I needed at the time. It reinforced my beleif that metaphysics is not worth studying and that we should focus on the life we live instead. Who cares whether the mind has 9 categories or 12, that is a dubious question for philosophers and has no real bearing on our lives at all. 3. What I found refreshing about Objectivism, from the ARI Intro, was its basic common sense thinking. "Existence Exists", the mere fact that such a thing needs to be addressed at all is a sad statement, but I like where she's going. It's just absurd that the opposite can be true. The fact that we are having this conversation proves it.Now, most philosophies would bring up the 'Substance' issue which was why I through metaphysics out the window to begin with, but, apparently it won't be that bad. I guess that's a good answer to your question on my views? Okay, onto Inspector - I picked up Atlas Shrugged becuase it was #2 on the ARI reading list, so I'll go back to the library and get a straight Objectivist book I don't quite see what chemicals have to do with anything, but I look forward to reading Rand's arguement. And I'm off to the library to see what I can dig up, thanks for posting everyone.

1. We have now certainly reached the point in the arguement where our terms ought to be understood by all involved. Unfortunatly philosophy has several different meanings for its basic terms due to the number of chools which presently exist. For example, RC raised the question that something can nnot be subjective and needed at the same time. Under the difinition of 'subject' and 'subjective' in my mind however, there is no contradicition. We need some set of definitions for subject, object, mind, etc. before we move on, am I right? 2. If Objectivism did not interest me I would not be here, would I?

Reality Check - I don't think I really evaded so much as laid out my diefinition of morality. If I was to answer every comment made I'd be here all night. Aswell, I'm quite confident in the skills of the forum members to successfully argue Objectivism. Currently I don't think metaphysics has any validity, its just a delusion of the mind, but that's a whole other topic. edit for the metaphysics question.

RO - tell me which part went over your head and I'll explain it to you.

RO, with all due respect, the instinct issue will make this thread unmanageable with all that Filipe brought up, maybe start a new thread and we'll debate it, or just let it go for now I guess. Edited for typo

Felipe, nice to say you join in, I notice there a six people browsing this topic, but will be responding to your post here. Aswell, its getting really late guys, I'll be in REM soon so I apologise for the spelling errors. Well, I knew this would happen. Sorry about killing your thread RO. I use words like 'beleive', 'general rule' etc because I don't see how morality has an objective meaning. Saying 'X is wrong' is not the same as 'car is red'; the first statment means notta, the second one does. Very basically, I beleive this because moral language always has to fall back on non moral language. This is a cut and paste from my post on another thread - It seemed to me that because they have different contexts the moral words "right and wrong" must be basically meaningless on their own. For example (and I apologize as I really haven't thought about this in quite some time), I can think of mathematic, sensory, emotional objects on their own, without having to really base them on some other form of thought. You can not do that with morality however, its terms must always be 'based' on power, 'nature', etc, hence they are meaningless words, in an 'objective' sense. No absoltist will ever simply reply 'because it is wrong' to any action, they will (in my experiance) always instinctively back up this claim be talking about the extra-moral base of the beleif. To me absolutists may as well have thrown out moral language and simply be pragmatic in the use of such terms. 'Do this to avoid Hell/serve the Volk/help the workers' etc. Now I suppose one could argue this is true with music, it can be broken down into frequencies, vibrations, etc. But we can successfully define these pitches and frequencies as music without adding any new kinds of premises. That's deductive logic right? Morality however is different. If you break it down to its parts, killing is wrong because it results in death, you have to conjure up a new type of premise to get back to morality. "the death happens so (then a miracle occurs) it is intrinsically wrong" its circular. So any intrinsic morality I don't think is valid. I've been thinking of meta-ethics these days. What is it, why do we all have it and need it? I think it is almost hard wired into our brains like syntax or hunger is. Evolutionary psychologists theorise that it was what allowed us to livein groups, aswell thre is the fact that no group has gone withought some type of morality. To me it is a technology, the most important that we have. The great statues of the Rennaiscnce and the ideology they convey, the reich chancellery, the statues of Calvin in Europe - these are all parts of this social technology spreading the ideal and the morality it carries. The problem, as I see it, is finding out how we want this technology to work. So I think we're in values territory, which I take to mean anything we decide to esteem, its a matter of will. Do we want to esteem altruism and shape our technology around that? How about violence, aesthetic beauty, greed, etc? As far as Objectivism goes, I've seen the phrase 'relativist pragmatism' used, this combined with the 'why do we need morals' arguement leads me to beleive we are basically in agreement here, correct? The uestion on my mind is - does Objectivism constitute the desireable technology, Rand's 'Rational Man' a desireable ideal? Edited for Typo

We're using different definitions here, perhaps I will clarify. 1. The situation with our old lady and the victims of the Tsunami are basically the same. In both situations we are asked to save someone who does not help us with minimal cost. 2. As far as helping any old ladies, as I said, there is no 'must' or obligation for those who have not helped us. Once again, I am just using the common sense ideas to back that up. If you asked me to prove where duty ends or begins I'd say its all arbitrary, merely that the rationale I described is the generally used one. Or, if you want to challenge the use of 'gernaerally' the I would say, 'The one I find fairest'. 3. I am not implicity saying 'heartlesness' is a moral word. According to dictionary.com it is the following - " Devoid of compassion or feeling; pitiless." I mean most of us have basic instincts of empathy which are good because I feel they increase such things as loyalty, oath keeping, etc. If you are heartless you do not have a basic human trait. I am not using moral language here, if you think I am, I'd encourage you to remove your blinders and read my words on the amoral terms I've stated.

I do notice, simply by the size of the Tsunami thread, there are many who agree that not giving is more a sign of heartlesness then immorality. I don't see how we have any duty to help someone who has not helped us, if they were a group that had given some essential service than yes, we are obliged to help them. But to just say you are indifferent, or that it is immoral to help the Tsunami victims, then no. I can not accept that, simply because of the heartlesness involved.

I have acknowledged in both this thread by implication and in another directly that I have no foundation for moral statements. I beleive all moral language is meaningless in any 'objective' sense. So, how can I say anything is moral at all? I can't. What I beleive I can say however is simply that it is a sign of heartlessess. The kind of logic that says if you see an old lady boiling alive in a pot of acid you don't have to do anything. The extreme nature of the metaphor changes nothing, the principal is the same. This is an arguement from feeling, I know that. I have a theory of morality, but I don't think its relevant here as it is just a theory. Edited - Wait, I'm going to go into more detail in an incoming post.

Upon learning further baord rules I would like to issue an apology to the board members. The post following RO's was originally pertaining to the morality of making an altruistic choice freely versus one which is forced. This post was edited, as I gave partial reference to in Post #31.

Well, you are all quite forunate in this respect. I was raised in a very religous pentacostal family. My father would read me apologetics - Francis Schaeffer, CS Lewis, Mortimer Adler from a very young age (I think it started when I was like 8 or so). Due to the high end nature of it it wasn't untill I was 16 I started having intense doubts, why with science and all. Down side - I was a very religous person myself and was psychologically crushed. I remember it vividly, I was in the hallway going to drama class and my brain just kept repeating "If space has no edge because that would mean more space was outside it, then time needs no edges, there need be no beginning." Over and over and over till some configuration of braincells just snapped and I lost any sense of purpose. I have since been an agnostic, I guess mainly to sheid myself from some of the impact.

Yah, okay RO, whatever. JMegan wrote - I don't know anything about Rand's aesthetics, my opinion comes from what I've read on the forum, ARI, and Wiki. Now, there will prabably be some confusion about my syllogism (that's the right word right? its been a while since I thought about this), so I'll be a little more specific. Unfortunatly, Rand uses the term 'Man qua Man' for her Ideal. So we have the homonym from hell here don't we? So in more detail, I meant the following - Ayn Rand's 'man' is always rational All men who exist are not always rational Therefore, Rand's 'Man' is an Ideal An Ideal can be reached, there have no doubt been John Galts, Ciceros, Roarks, etc (and I said NOTHING to contradict this in my posts). But Rand is basically talking about what we ought to do to reach this ideal. That seems to me to be the case anyway, but keep in mind this is all very new to me. Edited for mistyping the last post. Oy.

NC - Keep the dream of writing, write everyday if possible. I myself am in year 1 of a History BA

Okay, time to question some allegations. Rational One wrote - This is a series of unfounded assumptions, which I consider personal attack. RO, please suppply me with any text from any of my posts where I say that I have a moral philosophy. When you see there is nothing, take your comment back. Aswell, find any posts where I try to discredit Objectivism irrationally, aswell as the posts where I do not raise questions in an honest fashion. When you find nothing, take that comment back aswell. Wait, now I see you're accusing me of editing my posts. It takes a long time to reply, and having 5 people browsing the topic when you type makes things rather difficult, wouldn't you say? Yes, I did drop a question, mainly to deal with your allegations, but then you posted again, which is totally out of my control. And how exactly do my posts show I'm an altruist? JMegan wrote what follows - I'm going to do some digging into this tonight. It seems to me that everytime philosophy tries to play the definition game it gets into Platonic messes. That is why I trust science's definitions, they can be verified, tested, etc. I imagine a scientific definition would be more empiracle - biology, neurology, that sort of thing. To me this is the problem, this is what I think you just said - All men are rational Some men are not rational Therefore, some men are not men But as I said, I'll do some digging. I may not have been clear, I did not say idelism is impractical - I said, I was making the point that there is more than one source of value, you can argue which is best, but not that reason is the only one. As for the charge on humanity being sad, I meant that not all men are perfectly rational.

Undergoing revision due to numerous new posts.

RationalOne wrote - RationalOne - 1. I have no philosophy, so don't assume things. 2. I'm trying to discredit and not question? Prove it or take it back. More generally, is the point on Rand's Idealism conceded or is no one going to bother addressing it because it's percieved to be irrational? -Edited for spacing issues.

Hi, I don't know if its just because this was playing while reading Atlas shrugged, but 'The Unforgiven' by Metallica seems like an Objectivist song to me here's a few snippets - New blood joins this earth And quikly he's subdued Through constant pained disgrace The young boy learns their rules With time the child draws in This whipping boy done wrong Deprived of all his thoughts The young man struggles on and on he's known A vow unto his own That never from this day His will they'll take away They dedicate their lives To running all of his He tries to please them all This bitter man he is Throughout his life the same He's battled constantly This fight he cannot win A tired man they see no longer cares