Liriodendron Tulipifera

That phrase should be used cautiously in evolutionary biology Nice link. Wallace was right on Darwin's heels with his own theory of evolution.

Wow, great question. I in fact just came back from Barnes & Noble, where I bought 3 copies of Atlas Shrugged for Christmas presents! I also am interested to hear what the other more experienced students of Objectivism will have to say. My personal opinion is that the Ayn Rand's art of fiction is the best way to introduce someone to Objectivism. It really depends on the person. I would not recommend VOS immediately for a person who is a hard-core socialist. Better to start with Atlas Shrugged, although it is much longer. The case for l-f capitalism and a defense of individual rights are gradually made. In the shorter non-fiction, she addresses these points succinctly and expertly, but immediate concrete statements are not made, and this is presumably why she used fiction to persuade folks. The case is gradually built for capitalism and individual rights, a case no rational person can deny. Just my two cents.

Hm! Can you tell us more?

I agree. As for structural differences in the brain, such differences need not necessarily be heritable even though there is a genetic basis for them. Just because something has a genetic basis does not mean it is fully heritable. This is why you can get really smart kids being born from really stupid parents. And vice versa. E.g. there's a genetic basis for the presence of muscle, and in a limited sense, muscle bulk is heritable. But I am sure I could become a bodybuilder IF I wanted to, regardless of my "genetics". But it all depends on whether I want to or not. The capacity for reason is present, to some extent, in all individuals, unless they are missing a cerebrum.

Exactly. We no more need Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to understand free will than we need to be titanium metallurgists or wood products engineers to understand baseball. I think what the "determinism" people on the forum are trying to get at is that there is a physical basis to life, and since matter is predictable, so is human behavior because, ultimately, we can all be reduced to matter. Am I right in this assessment that this is the crux of the argument?

The former is a reference, I presume, to partaking in communion (wine and bread), which most Christians believe turn into the body and blood of Jesus, not a virtual blood feast (although they might think it virtual). Anyway.... It is impossible to make any sense of the Bible or of the Catholic "book of tradition." Both are full of contradictions. I tried making sense of this rubbish all through high school and then for about five more years. CS Lewis was not a theologian, he was an apologeticist (sp?). I spent four years in a Christian college reading stuff by CS Lewis and other (IMO better) apologeticists and theologians, but none of it makes any sense, ultimately. All apologetic arguments for Christianity essentially boil down to this: "I believe in God because I want to. It makes me feel better and satisfies me emotionally and I do not question my emotions."

Yes, there are quite a few documented cases of this phenomenon, which I remember learning about in Brain and Behavior class. It's caused by damage to the hippocampus, which is responsible for short term memory. This type of injury is not common because the hippocampus is at the center of the brain, from what I understand. Tragic and mind-boggling.

Aquila, Congratulations being introspective enough to identify the problems in the first place, and now having the will to solve them. Even though you know what needs to be done, it's going to take a lot of effort and self-discipline because you have mental and physical habits that will need to be changed. Your next reading could be "Philosophy: Who Needs It" by Ayn Rand. It sounds as if you already have a very basic knowledge of Objectivism, but as you have correctly identified, you need to take these ideas and put them into practice in your own life, not just have them swimming in your head. I agree with Saraswathi in that there's nothing wrong with going to a psychotherapist or counselor. For a woman (your name indicates that you are female?), simply talking problems out, rather than having someone provide a solution to "patch" the problem, can do wonders. If you cannot afford this, do you have someone you can share these problems with? A trusted friend, co-worker, or family member who will just listen to you talk it out? Actually talking about it, and just having someone there to listen, can not only make you feel better, but can crystallize the solutions in your mind even further. YOU will be the one that provides the solution and the impetus to overcome this. Of course, the caveat is that this person should have respect for your ability to self-diagnose and not be telling you that you are fine, because you know that you are not. I know you did not ask for advice beyond what you should read, but may I offer a few suggestions? Lack of physical activity and social isolation are a vicious cycle. You lack them, so you feel badly, which makes you even less likely to go out and be active physically or socially, which makes you feel worse, etc. Try to take a walk each day. Start with short ones and increase the amount of time spent in the walk each day until you are walking briskly at least 45 minutes each day. Buy full-spectrum lights for your house or for the place where you spend most of your time inside: the coily fluorescent kind, NOT regular old incandescent bulbs. They are expensive but worth it. Winter is a depressing time because of the lack of daylight (I'm making an assumption that you live in the northern hemisphere). You need a FULL spectrum light on you when the sun is not out or when you are in a dark room. Although this is not the root of your problem, it can help you to feel a little better because it tricks your body into "thinking" it's getting more sunlight than it is. Sorry if this all seemed bossy or motherly advice. I just genuinely want to help because being even a little depressed is terrible, I know. From your post, you sound like a very intelligent person who has already correctly identified the problems. What you need now is enough energy to take some action.

I knew someone would say that! Bah to you! The guys' list is good for anyone, barring the fashion advice. Even I own a Leatherman... far superior to a Swiss army knife, as any owner can attest. After all, how can a tool of the American woodsman be outdone by a tool of the.... Swiss?.... army....? (Didn't know such a thing existed.) But the woman's list just seems really silly. Especially items 7, 9, and 10. Geeze, how loose do these article writers think the average American woman is? Maybe I'm just old-fashioned and out of touch...

Hmmm. Some input from the opposite sex: This article is anything but silly, gentlemen. It's about 10 things single men should own IF they want to have a lady in their life, not things they should just own for the heck of it. Frankly, I agree with all items except 7 and 8, since I'm not into fashion. But everything else on the list is a great idea from a woman's standpoint, I can assure you. Now, see MSN's dating and personals top ten list for WOMEN. That is even sillier. Check it out: http://msn.match.com/msn/article.aspx?arti...544657%3E1=6657

Inspector, I can't help that the media hypes stories, that the majority of people who use drugs mis-use them, or that they are trying to escape from unhappy lives, or that they are idiots and overdose, OR that they don't choose wisely between a non-addictive drug vs. addictive, or that they don't place themselves in a safe situation before using them. None of us on this forum are advocating the use of addictive drugs or those with serious health effects, such as meth, or their irresponsible use. I cannot even think of "safe drugs" to use except marijuana or mushrooms. Anyone? However, let's get back to the main question, please. Is the use of recreational drugs under ANY circumstances, for non-medical recreational purposes, necessarily immoral? Does anyone answer yes to this question, and why? softwareNerd, I perceive reality wrongly when I use 3D glasses. What I am asking is whether a wrong (but fun) perception of reality is necessarily immoral, specifically when one adequately prepares for this wrong perception by ensuring that the use of a drug causing it will not harm oneself or others by overdosing, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, etc.? Also, the other conditions that I specified above apply: that the use is not to escape from some hurtful or otherwise unpleasant aspect of reality, and that the use is not a habit. It is simply to enjoy the altered perception of reality that is taking place, whether is be visual alterations of objects or auditory alterations of music.

Exactly. Are dreams mindless? They're an altered state of consciousness! The use of recreational drugs before the point of losing consciousness causes, not mindlessness, but an altered state of consciousness. If it resulted in mindlessness, the use of recreational drugs (LSD, marijuana, shrooms, or whatever else) would not result in art, literature, or science going on.

Oh, really? You've never been to see a sci-fi movie and imagined yourself as one of the characters? Never read a sci-fi book? Never put on 3-D glasses, enjoyed an optical illusion, or enjoyed looking at a hologram? Never rode a ride at Disney World that played tricks on your body and brain? The purpose of such activities, which are all escapes from reality to differing extents, is key. And the purpose of each IS to escape from reality.

What I am saying is that context is key, that you and Inspector have dropped it, and that you should go back and read all the posts here, especially those of BurgessLau and DavidOdden, who display consistently good thinking on this forum (much better than myself), and begin to think for yourself. And if anyone can show that something I said is wrong, rationally show it, then I welcome that. Clue: a happy self-confident man does not want to get stoned for the purpose of escaping the reality of an unbearable inner state, an atrophying mind, or something else one doesn't want to deal with, in the same way that it would be immoral to use food to temporarily escape the reality that one's job stinks, two bottles of wine to escape the reality that one's dog died, or a bunch of porn flicks to escape the reality that your partner doesn't want to fulfill every one of your desires in bed.

Well, Exabyte, if you adopt every opinion Ayn Rand ever had, that would mean that you also believe that hardcore pornography is unspeakably disgusting and that homosexuality is a contradiction (or some such, I can't remember her exact words on the latter topic). Objectivism is a philosophy that tells us how to think, not an ideology that dictates to us what to think. Use the philosophy to think for yourself about why she said what she did, and whether there might be scenarios or contexts with which she was unfamiliar. She is also clearly speaking in the context of drug addiction in that paragraph, during a time in US history when such problems were rampant. Clearly, happiness is acquired through productive achievement. But I don't necessarily view the use of recreational drugs as necessarily "mindless" or an attempt to reduce focus or rationality. On the contrary, nicotine, caffeine, and other classes of drugs can be stimulatory to the brain. I've smoked cigarettes on just a FEW occasions when I really need to focus intensely on something. During those times I can smoke one per day and then leave them alone for months. I don't see anything wrong with that type of use.

BTW, it's kind of hard to abuse 'shrooms because you'll have a horrible trip if you are at all unhappy, frustrated, or discontent at the time of use. You have to be perfectly relaxed before taking them. I guess that's why they are not widely used....

Besides BurgessLau's excellent points on happiness and how to obtain it, this thread seems to be revolving around the health effects and addictive properties of recreational drugs. But I would like to point out that there is one class of recreational drugs that are NOT addictive, nor do they have ANY adverse health effects (unless one considers an allergic reaction): psychoactive mushrooms. Most users who do use them partake no more than a few times a year. The experience is long and intense and usually not desired more often than that. The active compounds are psilocin and psilocybin, which are in the same class of compounds as LSD. The type of experience desired is regulated by the dose, and can range from mild visual hallucination to auditory hallucinations and more (splitting of the ego, loss of reality, objects morphing into other objects, etc.) In fact, LSD was first isolated from a fungus. Personally, I see no problem with the more non-addictive recreational drugs used out of curiosity or entertainment, as long as one's happiness does not depend on it or it does not become a habit used to escape from reality. There are lots of things that are used in such ways: food, porn, etc. No difference. As mentioned above, some people find artistic or other inspiration from the experience. The best inspiration I can think of was a scientific one. Cary Mullis reported that being high on pot inspired his invention of the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) process: he hallucinated about DNA molecules replicating, and he then duplicated that hallucinated process in the lab. This process is the basis of an ENORMOUS industry - practically everything in even a simple molecular biology lab uses PCR: cloning, DNA sequencing, genetic engineering, phylogenetics. God - I shudder to think where we would be without it today.

Felix, was it you who mentioned in an earlier post in this thread that all knowledge is built on the sciences? I don't think there is any conflict between the determinism of nature and free will. Consider that there is a decreasing order of predictability within the hard sciences (from physics to chemistry to biology, which has the least predictable systems) to the social sciences, which are even less predictable in terms of individual behavior (sociology, psychology). Are you saying that because we can predict with extreme certainty where a ball will fall given that we know everything about its parameters of movement, that we should be able to predict human behavior if we know everything about the brain? The extreme complexity of the system makes this highly unlikely. Furthermore, even if it were possible to predict human behavior, it wouldn't rule out the fact that other choices the person made affected the predicted choice. Perhaps I can be clearer. I have read and posted elsewhere about studies being done on identical twins raised separately and the fact that they were more alike than expected (i.e. they shared more similarities than siblings raised in a different environment). This gives some weight to genetic determinism. However, I have personally known identical twins raised in the same environment, and they were very different people. They chose different hairstyles and clothing and had different hobbies. One was gregarious, the other quiet. Both have identical genes and a very similar environment, being raised in the same household and schooled by the same classroom teacher for SIX years. (I went to a small rural gradeschool with only one class per grade with these two girls: Jill and Jeri ended up being on Donahue as prime examples of twins that are very different.) This is a concrete example that shows that there is a range of choice available to everyone, and that even when genetics and environment are held constant (or, in the case of environment, close to constant) in two different individuals, they will still make different choices. It's true that someone with an IQ of 90 isn't going to be a rocket scientist and that they are somewhat determined by their genes, in exactly the same way that I'm not going to sprout wings and fly simple because I want to. But that doesn't mean that EVERY choice we make is determined by our genes.

Dan, I think I understand why wasting food, or any produced item, bothers you. It bothers me, too, but wastage in and of itself isn't necessarily wrong. I think the root cause of the waste bothers you, but you have failed to identify what it is. Please correct me if I'm wrong. First, the issue of wasting food. Let's consider the type of person who goes to the Chinese buffet, takes seven dumplings, eats half of one and decides he'll throw the rest away and go back for several more plates in the same manner. I don't like this type of behavior because it indicates one of two things: either the person isn't hungry in the first place or he doesn't know what he even likes. This type of action is typical of a child. Both indicate a lack of thought or consideration that should guide any activity. It is hard to have any type of respect for such a non-thinking person. The same would apply to someone who buys a bunch of clothing and then gets home and decides he/she will throw it in the garbage can. SoftwareNerd, this is different than someone making good use of an item and then deciding to throw it away if it is not useful or give it away or sell it if it is; the type of situation you indicated above. As for grocery stores and farmers 'wasting' food, we have to define waste. Farmers often plow a crop back into the ground to fertilize the soil. This is not waste at all. The $$ lost in sale of the crop is worth what the farmer gains in soil fertility. Likewise, farmers sometimes milk their cows and throw away all the milk because the cost of bringing it to market outweighs the revenue, depending on market conditions and crazy government regulations trying to control food prices. This is not irrational or wrong. As for grocery stores throwing away rotten vegetables and such, this is unavoidable, and although the volumes they discard are huge, they are minor in comparison to what they sell. I can't see that any company that wastes excessively will be in business for long. It's difficult to make a large profit on food; it's not an easy industry to be in. Something like 50% of restaurants go under in their first year of business. At a household level, I waste quite a bit of food. I try to reduce my waste mostly to save myself money, since I'm a poor student. I would prefer that my biodegradable waste be composted so that it can be further used by myself or others, rather than sit for eons in a landfill, but in my current housing situation I don't have the space to make my own compost pile. I used to use compost for fertilizer for a huge garden. I would wish to do this, if I could, to make FULL use of an item and to save myself money. Defining waste as "the indiscriminate purchase and discarding of items," I would have to disagree that an increased level of waste indicates increased moral virtue. (But I think softwareNerd has defined waste differently that I do in his examples above.) The only thing that indiscriminate waste indicates is a lack of understanding of the value of money. As Howard Hughes says to Katharine Hepburn's mother in the movie The Aviator: "You don't think much of money because you've always had it." Dan, I also don't understand why you would care whether prices go up, down, or sideways due to "wastage." In the long run, a free market takes care of itself.

hmmmmmm....... well, it has been a few years since I read the Goblet of Fire. But I thought the special effects were good! I'll have a read on your blog later. Right now I'm on a very slow computer. Very nice blog, BTW.

Definitely the first, maybe the second. In fact, I just got done making NINE pies: four pumpkin, 1 chocolate, 1 apple, 1 strawberry rhubarb, 1 pecan, 1 cherry.

Then we have no quarrel, and it's not my cup of tea, either. The longest I've ever been out in the middle of nowhere it is about a week, and then I'm ready to get back to running water! I do very much enjoy being out there. There's a physical exhilaration that I get that I don't get from living here in the suburbs and certainly did not get in the high rise I once lived in. I don't expect that everyone can experience it, only that they accept that I do. And actually, it makes me appreciate modern conveniences even more once I get back. I think I would really like to do such a thing for a few months to a year, perhaps eventually. Not with as few tools as he had, not as far out as he was, not with the self-imposed isolation. Generally, I like people and don't want to isolate myself THAT much from them. But, I think it would be a lot of fun to build a house from scratch. In fact, this would be similar to building one's own car or boat from a kit. And then there are the folks that probably can build their own cars from scratch. I'm sure the cars would not rival anything produced by a mechanized process, but you could certainly say of the person that did it that he or she was talented! Perhaps I can be clearer here. The reason I agree with the overall theme is because it's true. It's self-evident. But when we start breaking industry down to categories and looking at the effects of those industries on individuals, it gets messy. Example: A few years back, there was a guy who died from eating genetically modified corn. (He had some unpexpected allergic reaction to it or something.) This wasn't anyone's fault, just an unforeseen mistake. So, while we can all agree that the genetic engineering industry has been far more helpful than harmful to society overall because it creates massive quantities of food, and often better quality food, that doesn't mean that the guy who died needs to value the genetic engineering of corn, just because genetic engineering is an industrial activity and he is part of society. See what I mean? Likewise, I don't value those little Palm Pilot thingies anymore than a pad of paper and pencil, because a few years ago when my battery died I lost all kinds of information. So while I understand that they are useful to some people, I do not value them. That doesn't mean I don't value OTHER industries. I wasn't going anywhere with it, except to say that we can all make our own decisions with regard to where we sit on the continuum of self-sufficiency vs. total division of labor. Personally, I can't imagine wanting to eat Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant. This, my personal decision, would be half-way between growing all my own food vs. buying it all AND the preparation. But I know that there are plenty of people that do eat in restaurants for Thanksgiving every year, and enjoy it very much! I honestly can't fully understand how convenience can trump the taste of a home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner, but that's okay (it probably has something to do with too much leftover turkey or too many nasty cooking pans... eeeewwww). But, anyway, I digress! I don't NEED to understand. I just accept that that's the way they like it. That's my only point. As long as a person's decisions do not infringe others' rights, to each his own! Some people find great satisfaction in performing tasks to completion without division of labor. For instance, I like to knit. I find it relaxing and rewarding to make something nice with my hands. So I would prefer to wear a hat I knit myself to one I could buy in a store, because the quality is actually better. What I mean is, I can get good quality wool at a fairly reasonable price, so the time involved is worth the quality of the product, vs. something cheap made by an automized machine from acrylic yarn. I can't afford good quality wool products made by a mechanized process. Anyway, I would certainly not take it so far as to spin the wool into yarn or sheer the sheep all by myself. But in fact, I am sure there are knitting freaks out there who do just that... and that's fine!

Well, I heard that if you're a British citizen, they supposedly send a box of grapes to you when you turn 100 years of age.

Free capitalist, judging from Inspector's presumptuous and patronizing treatment of others on this forum, in addition to myself, I don't think an apology is to be expected. After reading some of his statements in other threads, I no longer take the comments personally. On mountaineer man: I actually watched the film Alone in the Wilderness again last night. Proenneke states in the beginning of the video, his reasons for doing this. He wanted to challenge himself physically and mentally, to see whether his knowledge and skills in the wilderness would be enough to survive, to see whether his own company would be sufficient to sustain him. He wanted to see if he could live the life of his dreams, not just dream the life. He also said that in the production of items in society, men worked on little pieces at a time in assembly line fashion, and that this was not satisfying to himself personally. "Doing a job to completion satisfies me." He did use tin buckets, cement, axes, saws, canned food products, tarpaper, polyethylene, and a shotgun, to name a few. The reason seems obvious. He can't make those items himself apart from assembly line production. If he could have, I suspect he would have tried, in order to perform a job from start to finish, to completion. This is different from a wholesale rejection of mechanized technology such as the Amish do. Their rejection of certain technologies (such as cameras, etc.) stems from the mysticism that such items are inherently bad. from what I can see, Proenneke's rejection of certain advanced mechanized technologies stem from the fact that using them wouldn't be challenge enough for him. But rejection of someof the technologies (such as a gun) clearly would have been pushing it too far in that landscape. Inspector, you said stagnation is death. I agree, but we all have a different concept of stagnation. Clearly, this man's idea of stagnation was spending the rest of his days driving back and forth to the grocery store when he was physically and mentally capable and up to the challenge of growing and hunting most of his own food. I suspect that is why people risk their lives climbing Mt. Everest and other high peaks over and over again, until they die, with increasing levels of challenge each time. The thrill alone is worth it, and they value it more than they value everything else. That doesn't mean they must use the climbing tools that Sir Edmund Hillary did. There's lots of cool modern climbing gear available now. Of course, if someone DID want to get all decked out in Hillary's original gear and try climbing Everest without an oxygen mask, well.... more power to him or her. This is no different from me cooking Thanksgiving dinner instead of going out and eating it at a restaurant. Some folks might even take this a bit further than me and "grow" their own turkey, if they live on a farm. Mightn't it be cool to imagine your entire Thanksgiving dinner being produced as a direct result of your own labor, just like the first Thanksgiving? The grocery store is great because it's convenient. But if we sometimes value something else over convenience, there's no conflict. on deserts: Anyone who thinks deserts can't be beautiful has never been to Utah, New Mexico, or Arizona. This is no different from enjoying the moon, the sun, or the stars, which are also untouched by the hand of man. on the theme that industry has been more helpful than harmful: Again, Inspector, you love to drop context. I don't disagree with the overall theme, as I specifically stated the first time I ever used that phrase in this thread. As for the rest of your judgments, I'll leave to the rest of the readers to judge for themselves whether you are correct.

Warning. Spoiler for those who have not read book. I was very impressed with this movie. Albeit long, it got all the essentials in and was remarkably true to the book, except for the explanation of how Crouch's son was released from Azkaban and had his father under the imperious curse. These Harry Potter movies just keep getting better. The special effects were amazing. How about that Quidditch World Cup Stadium?? WOW!!!