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Klarinettus

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Everything posted by Klarinettus

  1. You really should read the fiction when you can. It's excellent. Also, be cautious. The problem with seeing that you have reached the same conclusions as Objectivism and not studying it in depth is that you may have reached the conclusions for different reasons. I held many Objectivist views before I knew what Objectivism was, but now that I have studied the philosophy some, I have a much more consistent and integrated understanding of it.
  2. Antonio Banderas, anyone? I think Christian Bale would make a good Galt, and Anthony Hopkins would be an excellent Hugh Aksom. Still no ideas for Dagny or Rearden that I like. What about Ragnar, and Richard Halley? And what about the villians? It would take a skilled actor to pull off James Taggart.
  3. I first read Anthem in the ninth grade (I am now in the eleventh grade). Upon finishing it, I knew that objectivism was "right for me." I still think that Anthem is Rand's best writing. Later that year, I read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. After that, I started working on the non-fiction, and I started reading articles and watching lectures on the ARI website. I'm reading ITOE and The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Berstein at the moment. Not making much progress though, because I'm getting a hefty amount of schoolwork. It kills me to have to read Howard Zinn instead. I read Anthem for a school assignment and found Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, as well as all of the non-fiction, on our bookshelf at home. It turns out that my dad is quite the Ayn Rand fan. Seventh Grade might be a little bit early, softwareNerd. As a seventh grader, I would have claimed to have understood it, but in retrospect, I probably wouldn't have. Reading Anthem for the first time is a special thing. Don't waste it.
  4. In alphabetical order (straight from my iTunes playlist) Alexander Glazunov - Symphony No. 4 in Eb Major, String Quartet No. 5 Anton Bruckner - Symphony No. 4 in Eb Major Antonín Dvořák - Symphony No. 9 in e minor, Cello Concerto, Romance in f minor Claude Debussy - Prélude à l'áprès-midi d'un faune, La mer Dmitri Shostakovich - Festive Overture Edward Elgar - Cello Concerto, Enigma Variations Gerald Finzi - Cello Concerto, Clarinet Concerto Gustav Holst - The Planets Howard Hanson - Symphony No. 2 Igor Stravinsky - The Firebird Ludwig van Beethoven - Syphony No. 6 in F Major Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade Ottorino Respighi - The Fountains of Rome, The Pines of Rome Samuel Barber - Adagio for Strings, Overture to The School for Scandal, First Essay for Orchestra, Violin Concerto Sergei Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 2 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Requiem Currently, I'm getting into a lot of British music. Listening to a lot of Elgar, Vaughn-Williams, Howells, and Finzi. All great stuff.
  5. Believe it or not, I play a character on the Shadow Moon server (quite a big coincidence as there are many many servers). I can remember Oz advertising that they were GLBT friendly since I first started playing there, many months ago. Kind of odd that Blizzard took action against them but waited after the guild had been well established for a long time. What most likely happened was that another player claimed to be offended by one of the recruiting messages and reported it to a GM, which explains why they've added a separate recruitment channel. Odd thing is, I don't recall seeing Shimmre or anyone else from Oz for a long time.
  6. I'm sorry that it's taken me this long to respond, I've been really busy. DPW: Excellent summary, in language I can more than easily deal with. I promise to discuss what I have learned here later in this post. BurgessLau: I have read Anthem, Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, The Romantic Manifesto, some of The Virtue of Selfishness, some of For The New Intellectual, and The Ayn Rand Lexicon. As I was not reading them specifically looking for information regarding is-ought, I do not know which of these mention is-ought (aside from the obvious ones, The Galt speech, The Lexicon, etc.) It is my understanding that the is-ought problem concerns deriving how man ought to act, based on what is. It is bridging the gap between Metaphysics and Ethics. The part that I was failing to understand is that man's life is his only possible ultimate value. It seemed nice to say that, but I couldn't find the reason for it. "Oh, I guess that makes since" doesn't exactly cut it when you're trying to work out which philosophy to live your life by. Just because I like the end points of Objectivism doesn't mean I want to skip straight through them. I want to understand every step along the way to make sure I've got it right. As far as my current understanding of Objectivism's solution to the is-ought gap goes, values are only values because they help us achieve something, specifically another higher value, which looks like an infinite loop at first, until you see that there must be one end value by which all other values are judged. Since all value roads eventually lead to man's own life, it is the only possible end value. To reject life as the prime value is to reject all values and to choose death, since a constant pursuit of values is necessary to sustain life. Is there anything I'm missing? Anything that needs more elaboration?
  7. Can someone give me a thorough summary of how ought is derived from is? What I'm looking for is something direct and logical, without quoting Rand (I've had difficulty understanding her writing on the topic). Explain as you would to an advanced high school student who's looking to get into the more technical aspects of philosophy, but hasn't taken any courses in it. Thanks in advance, William Clark
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