RationalEgoistSG

Tom, I agree with your statements about the Humean concept of causality, that is not what I am unsure of. You say that your nature is such that all of your actions are caused by you. You are making a statement about human nature. My question is not, why does this human nature result in a certain action, but, why do we define volitional consciousness as a part of human nature? Also, I agree with the impossible nature of Frank Jackson's hypothetical Mary.

Now that I am feeling better, I can address your questions and comments. It is not personally my line of thinking, but it is the line of thinking that I am having trouble refuting. Ok Ash, I think I agree that the burden of proof is on the determinist's foot to demonstrate that volition is an illusion. However, I am going to disagree with your statement that volition is a precondition of proof. Determinism (hard determinism) states that every human action is determined by antecedent causes, but does not reject that human beings deliberate in some form. There is some course of action picked by a given individual, but the difference between the advocate of volition and the determinist is that the former will say that the individual had the choice to pick that course, whereas the latter will claim that the indvidual's choice was determined by antecedent causes. It seems that your claim that volition is a precondition of proof is based on the idea that one must deliberate about a particular thing in order to determine it to be true or false. (If I am incorrect, please correct me.) However, it seems pretty clear to me that I can be determined to arrive at a particular conclusion, but that does not in itself negate such a conclusion from being correct. CF, this seems like begging the question to me. I do not understand why volition must be an axiom, nor do I understand why consciousness existing as a mental entity must also be an axiom. For all three of you, again, keep in mind that I am playing devil's advocate here. I am trying to understand how to completely defeat the arguments of the determinist and the materialist. Thanks.

Sorry I haven't answered all of your questions, I would definitely like to, but I recently came down with a pretty bad bug. I just wanted to let you all know that I'm not ignoring your questions, but I'm going to wait until I'm well so I can use my mind properly.

I love Tchaikovsky. I would suggest: 1812 Overture (my personal favorite) Nutcracker Suite The Sleeping Beauty (especially Introduction, Adagio, and Waltz) Eugene Onegin: Polonaise There are many others that I do not know the names of, but will be checking out.

Why is it that it rains from the sky on some days, but on others the sky is clear? Oh I know, the gods who are in charge of the weather get angry on some days and SOMEHOW make it rain, but on the days when they are happy the make it clear. Clearly these two examples differ in degree. However, I believe they still remain similar. What I am concerned with here is demonstrating how exactly consciousness is supposed to communicate with physical objects. It seems that unless you can demonstrate how this supposed mental existent has causal efficacy on physical existents, you are positing supernatural causes to human actions. Please keep in mind, that I am playing devil's advocate for the purpose of coming to a firm answer on this issue. Secondly, keep in mind that I do not want to reject consciousness AS SUCH. It is self-evidently clear that human beings have a means of perceiving reality. What I am unsure of is the exact nature of this means. Is the human means of perceiving reality a mental existent, a purely physical one, or a combination of the two? And, for whatever answer is chosen, there must be valid reasons for choosing that answer above the others. Based on the evidence that I have seen so far, there is very little physical evidence for the existence of this mental entity that SOMEHOW has causal efficacy of physical events; whereas leagues of scientific research has been done on the physical workings of the human brain. Couldn't a materialist/determinist reply that when I saw your particular request, certain physical events took place in my brain that caused me either to move my arm up or to leave it where it was? It seems that you are "begging the question."

Godless Capitalist, The reason why your inquiries are particularly annoying is because of the fact that you continue to ask these questions while refusing to define the premises that these questions are based on. Furthermore, it has been revealed that your premises have been constantly changing throughout the entire discussion. How is it possible for a rational person to discuss this topic with you when they have no clue what your premises are? We can not read your mind. My suggestion to you is this. List the premises that are resulting in this question that you have. Demonstrate that two or more of the premises are contradictory, meaning, find the source of the problem that you are having. From there, we can help to determine either where the source of your error is, which premises are wrong, etc. BUT WE CAN NOT DO THAT unless you tell us what your premises are! Until you list the premises behind your inquiry in this way, we can not accurately answer your question in any way. I believe that this is what RadCap has been asking you to do throughout this thread. Understand that he is not trying to pick a fight with you, but that he is trying to get you to understand that in order to discuss a particular problem, one must understand the premises that are resulting in the problem first. We can not provide an answer to your question without knowing the cause of your question.

Ash, thanks for the clarification. I agree that the existence of consciousness, as such, is an axiom. It is self-evident in any perception of existence. Perhaps I did not word my confusion in the best way possible. What I am confused about, is how we know that consciousness is a mental existent as opposed to being purely physical, and how we know that our consciousness is volitional as opposed to determined. Thanks.

Capitalism Forever, I am not claiming that the existence of consciousness does not make sense because it is "hard to imagine." I am looking for a proof, a validation of the existence of consciousness, or a good explanation as to why it must be an axiom. The reason why I accept that there is interaction between material objects is becuase of the fact that there is direct perceptual evidence for this being the case, along with leagues of scientific evidence as well. Where is this evidence for the existence of a mental entity that has the ability to cause certain physical events? When one says that, "You know that you can, with your consciousness, make your arm go up and down. It's the same principle applied to the brain," how does one know that it is some mental existent that is causing this physical action to occur? Neither of you have given me a reason to conclude that there is a mental existent (consciousness) that has the ability to cause certain physical events to happen. Unless you can demonstrate that there is a causal connection between the two, doesn't that view seem absurd? I still fail to see how the existence of this mental entity, consciousness, is a self-evident fact.

Welcome to the forum! I am a philosopher/college student/future philosophy professor/writer primarily. I also play the trumpet for recreation and I enjoy a lot of classical music. My favorite composers are Tchaikovsky, Sousa, Bach, John Williams (the modern composer of a lot of scores for movies such as The Star Wars Trilogy), etc. I especially enjoy heroic and epic pieces, as well as pieces that illustrate the greatness of man and his life. I also despise the philosophies of most of the professors I encounter here at college, but it allows me to examine the errors in their philosophies and discover more about philosophy in the process. I have plenty of suggestions for great music to listen to, so feel free to contact me about it. I love listening to the great music that I do know and I'm certainly looking for more music of that kind.

MinorityOfOne and Mattbateman, I thank you for your replies to my inquiry. I think you both identified that my main problem arises from a failure to understand the axiomatic nature of consciousness. I agree that this is the source of my problem here. I simply do not see why volitional consciousness must be axiomatic. MinorityOfOne, please keep in mind that there has been a large gap in time between my first post and my most recent. My recent position is that consciousness arises as an emergent property of the interaction between the brain and reality. If consciousness is not an emergent property of the interaction between the brain and reality, how else can the existence of consciousness be explained? It does not seem to be sufficient to just say that consciousness is. Clearly, since human beings have not existed for all time, there must have been some point where consciousness arose out of some earlier physical state. Clearly, there must have been some point in human evolution where humans advanced from operating on a perceptual level only to the conceptual level. I am thoroughly confused as to why consciousness is axiomatic as well as how to defeat the materialist argument (or the many variations). Please keep in mind that I have read OPAR, and found it unsatisfying in terms of its ability to provide answers to these questions (as well as why the senses are valid, why human beings have free will, and some other small points).

I have been studying Objectivism for almost 2 years now, and there is still a major gap in my understanding about Objectivism's solution to the mind-body problem. In my learning of the mind-body problem here in college, the false alternative was presented that either one uses logic to determine that the mind does not exist but rather it is only certain physical events occurring in the brain; or that one is a mystic who attempts to posit this nonsensical, immaterial consciousness. Even with my limited knowledge of Objectivism at the time, I believed that this was a false alternative. However, since that point, I have not quite understood exactly how Objectivists are able to provide a solution to the mind-body problem without positing some sort of mystical element. What is the exact refutation of philosophers who claim that the mind is merely an interaction between a number of physical things? I've also tried the same line of thought that AshRyan used when responding to my earlier post. It would seem that consciousness is something that emerges from the interaction between a physical existent (the brain) and reality. Thus, consciousness is essentially a relationship between the brain and reality. But if this is so, where does free will come in? If anyone could give their thoughts on this issue, or suggest particular readings or audio recordings on this issue, I would greatly appreciate it.

Hi, welcome to the board. Could you please explain what extropism and transhumanism are?

I have, thankfully, not found it necessary to compromise my beliefs in order to do well on a paper, exam, or in class in general. In fact, while many professors have disagreed with my views, many of them have offered great respect for them, my abilities in thinking, and for my dedication to learning and the use of reason. I actually had one professor personally ask me outside the class after the final exam to personally thank me for being a great student, challenging what was being said in class (business ethics), etc. I just thought that I would share that positive experience with you. For most professors, in my experience, it does not harm you to have ideas which are contrary to their own. In most cases, if you presented a reasoned argument (say for example you are writing a paper on your own beliefs in a given area), most professors will not penalize you for not disagreeing with their ideas. However, there are some professors who will do so. My suggestion for dealing with such professors is to try to find out which professors do penalize for disagreement, and attempt to stay away from them. You can try to find out this information by asking other students who have had courses with the professor, and even ask the professor about it at the beginning of the class (or look for a mention on the subject in the course syllabus.) I wish you the best of luck in your experiences with college professors and the learning process. Don't be turned off to education just because of the ignorance of a few professors trying to push their own agenda.

Welcome to the forum.

Imagine that there were no government, and that everyone were able to "enforce laws themselves." How would laws even be determined? As an individual, I could make the claim that it is a "law" that no one can initiate force against another. What happens when a thug comes along who disagrees with me? How about when a group of thugs disagree with me? You see, if there were no centralized government to enforce the laws, there would be no objective means by which laws could even be determined, let alone enforced. The society in question would reduce to warring gangs all with different ideas of what the "laws" should be and how they should be "enforced."

Marshall, As a moderator, I would request that in the future, if you are to post something such as your post about the Atlasphere article, to post it in a new thread in a different section. Your post does not apply to the Can Objectivists Pay Taxes? thread, nor does it fit in the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Chat. I would suggest in the future that you put such posts in perhaps the Speakers and Events section or Activism for Reason, Rights, and Reality. If you could please practice discretion in where you post such things, I would appreciate it. Thanks.

So being rational means that one can assert that A is not A at the same time, and concepts are determined by whim? A is A, Objectivism is Objectivism. This is not dogmatism, but rather, the implementation of the Law of Identity. Your claims are groundless. Your ad-hominem attack of attempting to discredit my ideas by associating them with "religious content on this web site" is also groundless. Unless you have something to contribute by means of philosophical discussion instead of ad-hominem attacks (which I doubt you do) then please leave.

I agree. My problem here seems to concern defeating skepticism as opposed to the actual question of free will. I feel pretty confident about the rejection of skepticism, but I'm not completely sure. I will be doing a lot of thinking on it. Thanks for the responses to my original query, I believe my question has been answered.

RadCap, I agree with Peikoff's argument that any attempt to prove determinism to be true must be self-refuting. However, the argument presented to me by others was that this merely proves that human beings can not know whether or not we are determined. It does not demonstrate whether or not we are actually determined. At the time that this argument was presented to me, I believed that Peikoff did not adequately demonstrate that we can know that we have free will, but rather, only demonstrated that we can not prove determinism to be true. I believe my confusion was best answered by AshRyan when he said: What I am still having some trouble grasping however is the axiomatic nature of free will. It seems that the argument presented in OPAR is that free will is the foundation for the concept of 'validation' and 'proof' and therefore is presupposed by any attempt to demonstrate its existence. However, couldn't a skeptic come along and claim that this is begging the question? We need to presuppose the existence of free will in order to have knowledge, so let's presuppose the existence of free will. Perhaps my problem here is not necessarily with the arguments for the existence of free will but rather resolving the problem of skepticism. Any ideas?

I just attended a meeting of the philosophical society on my campus, and the topic of discussion was free will vs. determinism. While the majority of the people there wanted to believe in free will, we were having quite a bit of trouble defeating the determinist argument that it may seem to us that we have the illusion of free will, but in reality we are completely determined. Being the vice-president of this society, I selected the readings for this discussion. One reading came from Holbach who argued that all things happen by logical necessity. The other reading was an excerpt from OPAR on how volition is axiomatic. After this meeting, I feel quite unable to defend the concept of free will. It seems to me that the "validation" of free will comes through the demonstration via reduction that free will follows from certain axioms. I am having trouble however determining what exactly this line of reasoning is. Any suggestions?

It doesn't seem to be of much value, but I certainly do not think it is a scam. This thing was just launched, which accounts for the lack of content.

I thought I'd let you all know about this new online community for "admirers of Ayn Rand." It is called The Atlasphere, and it features columns, a member directory, and soon, a dating service. It's basically a way to bring admirers of Ayn Rand together in one place. While I do not believe that all involved (including the makers of the project) are "Objectivists" per se, it still seems like an interesting project. You can find the Atlasphere at: The Atlasphere

One can not "annihilate" one's own free will except by death. A human being ALWAYS has free will, meaning, they ALWAYS have the ability to choose to use their mind or not to (unless they are being forced). I think what you mean by "free will" in this instance is acting on one's own chosen philosophy or acting like a sponge, taking in the contradictory philosophies around you, and acting accordingly. A human being has no choice about the fact that they have a philosophy (since a philosophy is essentially a view of existence and man's place in it). What a human being has a choice about is whether or not they want to allow themselves to just soak up all of the contradictory principles around them as their own philosophy or rationally analyze and organize one's own philosophy against the highest level of scrutiny. So, I believe your question amounts to, can one successfully reverse course from acting like a sponge and instead achieve a rational philosophy? If a human being is acting like a sponge philosophically, it will feel as though they do not have much control over their own actions, since their own philosophy is not the result of their conscious decisions but rather their imitations of others. The damage of such a course of action is cumulative in my opinion, meaning, that the more that one acts in this way, the harder it would be to come to a point where one's philosophy is under one's own rational control. (Take for example, Peter Keating). This being said however, a human being ALWAYS has the ability to CHOOSE to rationally analyze their philosophy and correct all of their contradictions because of the fact that a human being always has the choice to use their mind or not. But, this is SEPARATE from whether or not such a person will be ABLE TO reverse their previous course of action and achieve a rational philosophy. The choice to engage in this beneficial course of action is obviously not enough. Achieving a rational philosophy requires a proper understanding of what reason is, the relationship between consciousness and existence, (and a whole lot of other things). The success of the individual in reversing their damaging philosophy of the past would obviously depend on the context of the situation (the individual invovled, the severity of their identification of their problem, their age, the contradictory philosophy which they currently hold, etc.). Therefore, to answer your question, no complete answer of your question is possible. The POSSIBILITY exists for every individual to reverse their course of action and achieve a rational philosophy, based on the fact that every individual has the free will to use their mind or not to. However, the SUCCESS of such a reversal is completely dependent on the context of every individual situation, specifically, the length of time which that individual acted like a sponge and the severity to which the individual recognizes the problem. P.S. I'm glad that you have reversed your positions in some areas.

Ash, I don't mind at all. I was thinking about doing the same myself.

Don Galt, please do not post on our forum. You've presented the same arguments many times, and we have wasted our time attempting to demonstrate to you why they are wrong, which you completely ignore, and then assert the same nonsense. Believe that we are all dogmatists who don't think and accept Objectivsim religiously, I don't care. Please leave.