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The Laws of Biology

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  1. I have read lots of Western philosophy for several years now, but I feel that a real grasp of it all eludes me, as if a genuine and thorough mastery of Western philosophy is always just over the horizon or maybe at the top of the mountain that I might reach "someday." I'm now thinking that "someday" may never come.

    Studying the writings of Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff has been a genuine help, benefit, and boon in my quest for competency in the field of philosophy. I found real value in how they put things into the five traditional basic sub-subjects of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. That alone is a big help. But there are other helps in their works, too.

    But still questions persist in my mind, and I feel that there are subjects, philosophers, and systems of thought that I really need to know well but which I do not know well.

    Take Kant, for example. It is obvious that his thought had and still has a big influence in the world of Western Philosophy (and perhaps in society at large). But can I claim to have really grasped what Kant did and said? No, not really (I am not wishing to discuss that here--I raise it just as an example.)

    And what about Aristotle? So many teachers of philosophy exalt the teachings of Aristotle. But they never seem to really or adequately explain how to deal with the fact that Aristotle taught that it is a permanent natural law of ethics that most men are "natural slaves" and should be treated as such, and that it is a permanent natural law of ethics that all women must at all times be under the supervision of a man? (Again, I am not wishing to discuss those points here--I raise it just as another example.)

    I believe I have read that, in the case of Ayn Rand, she gained knowledge of Western philosophy through 3 means:

    • First, formal instruction at the Soviet university where she attended and graduated.
    • Second, independent study via books.
    • Third, consultation with a professional academic philosopher whose acquaintance she made in the United States. 

    I know that Leonard Peikoff obtained a Ph.D. in philosophy at an accredited university. 

    I have considered getting a Master degree in philosophy at an accredited program at a university.

    But, in general, the philosophy professors at universities all seem mired down in some partisan or arbitrary ideology (Conservatism, Existentialism, Kantianism, Thomism, Marxism, Phenomenology, Aristotelianism, Platonism, Libertarianism, etc.); or they are mired down in some sort of general, radical skepticism; or they are mired down in some sort of super-hyper specialization that makes their teaching and work practically worthless to anyone in the real world.

    Yes, I can do more independent study in Western philosophy.

    But how will I ever know when I know enough to draw good conclusions that are worthy of being shared with some of my fellow human beings?

    I have read so many people on the internet who are eager to teach the correct, true, and final philosophy to everyone, but to me their lack of depth and breadth of insight is very apparent. They have great enthusiasm, passion, and conviction, but they generally seem to be immune to learning, or to fairly considering, processing, or integrating, new or alternative information. So often they are just combatants in the "battle of ideas," and their highest commitment is to victory (for themselves, for their tribe, and for their favored tribal system of thought); their highest commitment is not to intellectual honesty or integrity. Or so it seems to me. (Again, I am not wishing to discuss those points here--I raise it just as another example of what I have felt, reasoned, and experienced.)

    In many fields of knowledge and practice, there is a definitive test that proves whether you have or do not have a mastery of the subject.

    Such tests exist for law school graduates, culinary school graduates, auto technicians, nursing school graduates, stock brokers, insurance agents, aircraft pilots, and so on.

    But for the subject of philosophy I see nothing similar.

    And so, the standard for what comprises a fully competent or masterful philosopher or philosophy professor seems fundamentally arbitrary.  Yes, arbitrary! That terrible, terrible word!

    So, I am soliciting thoughtful proposed solutions to this problem. Thank you.

  2. On 1/26/2022 at 8:17 AM, Doug Morris said:

    People have free will. 

    Is it impossible, or unethical, to probe or investigate into the inner dynamics of the phenomenon that ancient philosophers and theologians first called "free will"?

    If such probing or investigation is impossible or unethical, why is that so?

    At one time, the concept of biological "species" was viewed by all or most scientists, philosophers, and theologians as an irreducible, unchangeable, stable concept and entity.

    But now everyone (except for fundamentalists) knows that biological species are in constant flux, development, and evolution, with new species always coming into existence and other species becoming permanently extinct. 

    At one time it was thought that the atom was the irreducible particle. But scientists kept probing and investigating and now we know a lot about the sub-atomic particles, and scientists even developed a means to split atoms apart. 

    At one time it was thought that the elements (as found on the Periodic Table of Elements) were stable, irreducible units. But eventually it was discovered that elements actually can and do change into a completely different elements (e.g., uranium becomes lead; hydrogen becomes helium).

    At one time it was considered unethical and immoral to dissect human bodies, and laws were passed to punish doctors and scientists who wanted to learn about the human body by cutting up cadavers. The human body was considered by both philosophers and theologians to be a sacred temple of God/divinity/soul, and so it was held to be blasphemous and sacrilegious to probe into the human body in a scientific manner, as if humans were just another animal to be dissected and studied. But once this philosophical and theological taboo was rejected by governmental lawmakers, great increases in our knowledge of the functioning of the human body were achieved. Much progress in medical healing was achieved.

    If the taboo about investigating "free will" is lifted, and if scientists are allowed to investigate the phenomenon of "free will," is it not possible or likely that they will achieve great strides in understanding the inner dynamics of this phenomenon? And if the results of such scientific investigations are accepted as legitimate knowledge, is it not possible that the ancient philosophical and theological concept of "free will" will no longer be regarded (except by fundamentalists) as something irreducible and non-investigable?

  3. Part of me says that an Objectivist novel must be fully heroic in nature, and that full-on comedy and full-on heroism cannot co-exist in the moral universe.

    It seems that a story that is predominantly comic cannot be fundamentally heroic, but rather must be fundamentally anti-heroic. 

    Don Quixote is comic, not heroic. 

    It seems that the message, explicit or implicit, in all comedy, is that heroism is a joke and a fraud. 

    "Forrest Gump" has some comic moments, but it is fundamentally a story of the journey of a hero.

  4. The suffering King Lear, near the end of Shakespeare's play, asks this regarding his evil daughters Regan and Goneril:

    "Is there any cause in nature that make these hard hearts?"

    Hamlet's "To be or not to be," and other philosophical soliloquies might partly be his search for the cause of good and evil. This might account for Hamlet's delay in taking action in the play. Finally, near the of the play, Hamlet seems to give up and surrender to fatalism, as seen in this passage:

    There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is ’t to leave betimes? Let be.

     

  5. Galt's Speech contains this:

    It is not any crime you have ever committed that infects your soul with permanent guilt, it is none of your failures, errors or flaws, but the blank-out by which you attempt to evade them—it is not any sort of Original Sin or unknown prenatal deficiency, but the knowledge and fact of your basic default, of suspending your mind, of refusing to think. Fear and guilt are your chronic emotions, they are real and you do deserve them, but they don’t come from the superficial reasons you invent to disguise their cause, not from your “selfishness,” weakness or ignorance, but from a real and basic threat to your existence: fear, because you have abandoned your weapon of survival, guilt, because you know you have done it volitionally.

    But that leads me to wonder:

    Why have some people done this "basic default" and "abandoned your weapon of survival"? (quotations from the passage above)

    And why is that other people do not do this basic default and do not abandon their weapon of survival?

    It seems like in a rational universe their ought to be some rational explanation for these two phenomena. 

    It seems wrong or a failure to just say, "It's a mystery," or "It cannot be explained." Yet, those are the conclusions I am thinking I must reach and settle for. 

    In some biological thinking, everything is determined by Natural Selection acting on Random Genetic Mutations. 

    Oh, my brain or mind is getting tired.

  6. Galt's Speech contains this:

    Thinking is man’s only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think—not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment—on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict “It is.”

    But that leads me to wonder:

    Why do some people live according to this "basic vice, the source of all his evils"? (quotation from above)

    Why do other people live according to "man's only basic virtue"? (quotation from above)

    1. In the Catholic religion they have the phrase "the mystery of iniquity," which I think indicates that, to some extent, Catholic theologians think that the ultimate cause of evil conduct and motives remains a mystery to mere mortals in this world. 
    2. Speaking of the villain Iago, in the Shakespeare tragic play "Othello," one critic coined the phrase "motiveless malignity" to describe the inexplicable malice of Iago toward Othello.
    3. I believe Aristotle wrote that most or all bad conduct was a result of poor or insufficient education or formation in virtue and in philosophy. 
    4. In one of Plato's dialogues, Socrates is presented as teaching that all bad conduct is the result of ignorance. 
    5. In Scientology, they teach that all or most bad conduct is the result of "engrams" that were formed or planted into the "reactive mind" of human beings.
    6. In Marxism, all bad conduct of workers is ultimately the fault of oppression of workers by the Capitalist class. (I'm not sure how Marxism explains the bad conduct of Capitalists.)
    7. I present all those to convey the idea of what I am looking for in the philosophy of Objectivism. I am looking for a theory of the cause of bad conduct, of living by unreason instead of by reason.
    8. I know that Objectivism calls people to live according to reason, ethics, personal productivity, self-interest, objective reality, high ideals, and so on.
    9. I know that Objectivism condemns as evil the living of life as a mystic, moocher, thief, manipulator, misanthrope, cynic, pessimist, nihilist, relativist, and so on.
    10. But so far, in my very brief studies into the writings of Ayn Rand (mostly as found in wonderful book titled The Ayn Rand Lexicon), I have been unable to find a statement of the explanation for the phenomenon of people living according to unreason.  
    1. Is there some rational explanation for why some people live according to reason, and others don't? Is it because those who live according to reason (and thus live according to objective reality and self-interest) are more intelligent, or have had a better education, or had early childhood attachment with caring adults, or something like that? If not something like that, what then is the rational explanation for the fact that some people live mainly according to reason while others live mainly according to unreason (mysticism, emotionalism, rage, dependency, mooching, etc.). 
    2. Just as a matter of comparison, in some varieties of Christianity, they have a theory of why people do bad things by offering the explanation that all sin is derived from the rebellion of Satan the Devil, a fallen angel who rebelled against God's divine right to rule over everyone and everything. This theory also connects all sin to the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. That fall created "Original Sin," that leads all people to be tempted to sin (to do unjust harm to other people or to themselves). I mention this Chrisitan theory of sin only to give an idea of what I mean by an explanation for the bad behavior that human beings do. 
    3. Sigmund Freud had yet another theory as to why people do bad things to other people and to themselves. As I understand Freud, he saw human beings as being only half-civilized animals, and so humans being, when put under external or internal pressures, often resort to animal-like aggression. Again, I mention this Freudian theory of misconduct only to give an idea of what I mean by a rational explanation for the bad behavior that human beings do. 
    4. So, what is the rational explanation given by Objectivism for why some people live largely according to reason (and according to objective reality and self-interest) while other people mainly live according to unreason. 
  7. Thanks. Within that earlier thread I found this very helpful summary:

    JUNE 17, 1962—At a sales conference at Random House, preceding the publication of Atlas Shrugged, one of the book salesmen asked me whether I could present the essence of my philosophy while standing on one foot. I did, as follows:

    1. Metaphysics: Objective Reality

    2. Epistemology: Reason

    3. Ethics: Self-interest

    4. Politics: Capitalism

    Source: The Ayn Rand Column, Introducing Objectivism.

  8. I just saw a news report about how certain historians now believe that a man in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands gave the Nazi occupiers a list of persons living in hiding, and he did so as part of a bargain with the Nazis that would prevent him and his family from being deported to a Nazi concentration camp in Poland.

    But a consequence of this man giving the Nazis this list of persons in the Netherlands living in hiding is that some of the people on the list were arrested by the Nazis, sent to concentration camps, and did die there.

    So, what is the ethical view of the action of that man who sacrificed the lives of strangers in order to save his own life and the lives of his family members?

    Was his action a justifiable way to deal with an unjust aggressor?

    Could the deaths in the concentration camp be viewed as being 100% the fault of the Nazis, with the man who turned over the list being morally innocent in this matter?

    Or, does that man who turned over the list bear some ethical responsibility for taking a unilateral action to swap his dark fate with other people?

  9. From my youth, I have memorized the Apostle's Creed, which is a short, memorizable statement of some of the essential doctrines of Christianity as believed in the region of Gaul in the 5th century A.D.

    The Apostle's Creed begins with the line "I believe in God."

    I thought that an Objectivist's Creed could begin with summary statements of the fundamental metaphysical axioms of Objectivism, and proceed to briefly state Objectivist principles of epistemology, ethics, politics, and esthetics. 

    I thought such a short creedal statement could be memorized and thus referred back to when events, people, thoughts, and problems are encountered throughout the day.

    The Apostle's Creed consists of 93 words and 619 characters. 

    Has anyone ever seen such an Objectivist's Creed? 

    Someone told me that John Galt's speech is a credal statement of Objectivism. But I don't think I can memorize that long speech!

  10. 2 minutes ago, Doug Morris said:

    Anyone can and should be 100% ethical all the time, even if few are.

    It is vitally necessary to have an ideal for inspiration and guidance.

    Consider the case of those who uphold Altruism as a philosophy and way of life. This is their idealistic conception. We can observe this among both Socialists and Religionists. And I think we can observe that some of them delude themselves into thinking that their actions, which are motivated by selfish desires, are motivated by altruistic desires. They delude themselves into thinking that just because they are committed to the ideal of Altruism in their minds and in their words, all their actions are altruistic in nature. They imagine themselves to be heroes and saints of Socialism or of their chosen religion. So, they fool themselves and they fool others. But this accomplishes nothing good. 

  11. Yes, on the one hand, I see the advantages and benefits of art that inspires people to be better and do better. 

    But, on the other hand, I worry about art that makes people think they can be better than they actually are capable of being.

    "Delusion" is the term that is applied sometimes to a belief that is believed and beloved but is unrealistic and impossible to actualize. 

    I enjoy reading and watching fiction with strong heroes and heroines who are 100% ethical all the time.

    Yet, I also enjoy reading well-researched, well-documented biographies of real people.

    Reading such biographies has led me to think that no one in real life is 100% ethical all the time like the strong heroes and heroines in movies and novels.

    So, though we enjoy fiction of heroes and heroines, aren't we being misled and fooled by it?

    If I am going to be a farmer, don't I need to have accurate and realistic information about what the soil can produce, not idealistic conceptions? Wouldn't the same apply in the field of human living? Don't we need accurate and realistic information about ourselves and other human beings, not idealistic conceptions?

    Am I missing something in my analysis of this matter? Is there something to be gained by maintaining idealistic conceptions, even if few or none ever actualize them in reality?

  12. I would say that what a "fact" is depends on what use the "fact" will be put to.

    For example, when there is a criminal trial, if the defendant is found guilty by the jury, the whole world treats it as a fact that the defendant is guilty of the crime, and on that basis he/she is sent to prison, and after he/she gets out of prison, we all treat him/her as a felon and ex-convict. But, in reality, we all know that some people found guilty in trials are actually 100% innocent. But we can't worry about that, as a practical matter. So, we all act as if the legal system determines "facts." 

    When Einstein first announced his formula E=MC2, some other scientists were doubtful of it. But eventually scientific experiments were conducted that validated it. However, future scientists and future experiments could modify Einstein's formula, or even demonstrate that it contains serious errors or limitations. 

    Aristotle used his philosophical method of logic and observation to arrive at the "fact" that the human fetus went through an early stage of being a vegetable, like a radish. Aristotle used his philosophical method of logic and observation to arrive at the "fact" that the sun and the stars orbit the earth, and that the earth is the center of the universe, and that the universe is eternal and could never be created or destroyed. Aristotle used his philosophical method of logic and observation to arrive at the "facts" of his system of virtue ethics. Within the internal logic of Aristotle's philosophical system, there were all established "facts" and were accepted and taught as such for many centuries.  Galileo was nearly murdered by the State for disagreeing with some of Aristotle's facts. And within the logic of Aristotle's philosophical system, I would say that these facts were "facts." They were philosophical facts. 

    In the Soviet Union, the various aspects of the philosophy of Dialectical Materialism were taught in the universities as "facts." And within the logic of that political system, I would say that they were "facts." They were political facts. 

  13. I would say that scientists (e.g, physicists, biologists, chemists) have one definition of fact, being whatever can be established within a certain degree of certainty by application of the scientific method (which involves statistical analysis and other mathematical analysis). 

    The U.S. legal system has a different definition of fact that can be looked up in legal dictionaries.

    The various systems of philosophy have their own definitions of fact. For example, I imagine that experts in Aristotelian philosophy can describe how Aristotle defined facts and how he arrived at facts. 

     

  14. In the minds of many people, is there an irrational belief that the leading, successful, entrepreneurial businessman (and most are men) can do no wrong and can speak no lie, just because he's rich and he's created all that wealth with his own mind and work, and because he's created jobs for other people, and because he's created valuable and interesting services and products for many consumers, and so on?

    Does this lead to the Capitalist taking on the aura of virtual divinity in the minds of many non-rich people, leading to those non-rich people deferring to the leadership of Capitalists in all circumstance, and leading those non-rich people to apply a much-reduced ethical standard (a so-called "double standard") to Capitalists, thereby allowing Capitalists to "get away with murder" (at least metaphorically speaking) just because they are rich, powerful, and productive?

  15. I recently watched the comedy-drama movie "Don't Look Up" on Netflix, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo Di Caprio.

    The writer and director of the film, Adam McKay, has said that it is meant to be convert more people to call for action to slow, stop, and reverse anthropogenic climate change. 

  16. Must one withhold self-esteem from oneself until such time as one has achieved success?

    I think I saw a noteworthy Objectivist who gave a talk titled "Self Esteem Must Be Earned." 

    Or, can a person grant self-esteem to himself just because he is living, acting, and thinking right now with integrity and ethics, regardless of whether or not he has yet achieved success in his work?

    But what if a long period of time goes by and he still hasn't achieved success in his work? What then?

  17. In part, I am thinking of the case of Socrates.

    If, at this trial, Socrates had admitted that he was introducing new, foreign gods, and if he'd admitted that he was corrupting young men by teaching them to use critical, rational thinking to investigate received wisdom, Socrates would almost certainly have never been sentenced to death. Yet, Socrates refused to admit any wrongdoing, or even to recognize that his accusers might have some legitimate concerns with his teaching. Was that ethical on the part of Socrates? 

    And, more generally, is it worth dying in order to make a public stand for principles of metaphysical and ethical truth?  Or is a more pragmatic approach of compromise more ethical when your life, or the lives of others, is at stake?

  18. I am not an expert on Aristotelian philosophy.

    Yet, I will dare to guess that Aristotle did not and could not conceive of human extinction, any more than he could conceive of the extinction or death of God (what Aristotle called the "prime mover"). 

    I think Aristotle thought of the universe with the earth at its center, and with the Prime Mover (God) as its ultimate cause of all things, and he thought of the universe as eternal and in a basically steady state.

    Aristotle knew from historical writings that city-states could rise and fall and go out of existence. But I think Aristotle could not imagine that the earth or the sun or human beings or the Prime Mover (God) would or could ever go out of existence. 

    Therefore, I make the conjecture that philosophical systems that are based on Aristotelian philosophy may possibly lack an ethical system that is designed to deal with existential threats to human existence. 

    This is just the conjecture and intellectual exploration of an amateur philosopher, remember, and not anything like a declaration of fact or truth. 

     

  19. 3 minutes ago, StrictlyLogical said:

    No one is saying existential threats are impossible.  What is refuted is your bald assertion there is ONLY one possible way to overcome it.

    I was not intending to assert that, with regard to any existential threat, there would always be only one possible way to overcome it.

    I was only imagining that in the case of some particular existential threat, it is conceivable that the only way to overcome it might be something as awful as Socialism, at least for some period of time (thinking of the awfulness of chemotherapy as a metaphorical example). Thus, the slogan promoted by Bertrand Russell in the 1950s, "Better Red than dead." 

    I think it is readily observable that there are some outspoken political activists who readily say that they would rather be dead than live under Socialism. Thus, the saying from the 1950s, "Better dead than Red." "Live free or die" and "Give me liberty or give me death" are sometimes used to express the same idea. 

    To me, these slogans are worthy of philosophical scrutiny. I agree with those who assert that special ethical principles come into play when facing existential threats. Thus, the U.S. Supreme Court's principle that "The Constitution is not a suicide pact."

  20. 4 minutes ago, Doug Morris said:

    This does not make it right.

    During World War II, the U.S. Gov't did put terrible restrictions on the liberty of people of Japanese origin or ancestry.  Are you going to defend that too?

    If I were to be convinced, by facts and logical arguments, that the terrible restrictions put by the U.S. Gov't on the liberty of Capitalists during WW2 were necessary to prevent the extinction of the operation of the U.S. Constitution, then I would defend and support those restrictions.

    If I were to be convinced, by facts and logical arguments, that the terrible restrictions put by the U.S. Gov't on the liberty of Japanese-Americans during WW2 were necessary to prevent the extinction of the operation of the U.S. Constitution, then I would defend and support those restrictions.

    When the internment of Japanese-Americans was ordered by the U.S. gov't, I believe the main concern was that without such interment, spies and saboteurs from Imperial Japan would be able to come to the U.S. via submarines and freely operate on US soil. I believe this was a rational concern. This is not racism, but national defense. Some Americans at the time surely did have racial animus against Japanese-Americans, but I see that as a separate and lamentable matter. 

    Though it was hard to imagine now, after Imperial Japan destroyed the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor and successfully conquered the U.S. territory of the Philippines (defeating the U.S. Army there led by General McArthur), there was real concern that the U.S. might lose the war to the combined Axis Forces of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

    In ordinary times, race-based laws are unethical.

    But I believe there is widespread acknowledgement that, when facing an existential threat, special ethical principles come into play. The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized this with the phrase, "The Constitution is not a suicide pact."

    In the case of the internment of the Japanese-Americans, I believe the rationale was based on rational national defense issues, not racism. By contrast, the concentration camps operated by Nazi Germany were motivated by vile, indefensible racism. 

    It was appropriate to compensate the interned Japanese-Americans after the war, as the federal gov't did, for the hardships they suffered. 

  21. I've heard some historians say that, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, some Capitalists accepted or even endorsed FDR's New Deal restrictions on the liberty of Capitalists, not because they viewed FDR's New Deal policies as beneficial or ethical, but due to a political calculation that, without FDR's New Deal legislature, too many American workers would turn to the Communist Party and its promises and supposed solutions.

    In the 1930s, the Communist Party USA was an existential threat to Capitalism in the USA, due to the example of successful domination of the Communist Party in Russia and its satellite republics, and due to strong Communist Party activism insurgencies in other places, such as Spain.

    Is it not the case that special ethic principles are applicable in cases of existential threats

    "The Constitution is not a suicide pact" is a phrase in American political and legal discourse.

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