entripon

I didn't know that Kant said that (I gave up on the Critique of Pure Reason about halfway through), but if he did then he's partially right. Human reason has to (at least implicitly) know that it's free in order to function, and since our minds are not infallible, they in fact must be free for us to be able to reason (or else we would never be able to trust our conclusions (not that we would have a choice about whether to trust them or not (don't you love parentheses?))). On the other hand, if reason was taken in a broad sense to encompass any sort of faculty of identifying the nature of reality and the relationships between existents, there could hypothetically be a non-volitional consciousness that possessed the faculty to reason (in which case such a faculty would be necessarily infallible, or it wouldn't be able to be called reason). I don't know whether apes possess volition or not; their close evolutionary link to human beings and the communications experiments done on them lead me to think that it's possible on some rudimentary level, although there's no hard evidence for such a thing. If they did, then they would have to in some form know of that fact, and if they didn't, then they wouldn't. The more I argue for the existence of free will, the more I think such argumentation is a dead end road. Not that I don't enjoy discussing such things, but it's really not very productive. The only way for somebody to accept the existence of free will is to see it for himself, and since all argumentation presupposes the ability to direct one's focus and mental processes, there's not much way to argue *against* determinism except by pointing out the stolen concept therein and showing that volition does not contradict causality. I think I (and others) have done that, so there's not a whole lot more to debate.

The Communist Manifesto isn't a long, boring work; it's a short, rather interesting work, although obviously horrid philosophically. You were probably thinking of Das Kapital (which I haven't read, and don't plan to).

The answer is on page 69: And to donny: I don't think anyone can really believe that life is pointless; they can say so explicitly, but if on a fundamental level they actually agreed with what they were saying, they would just go lay down and die. You may say that your life has no purpose, yet you still pursue values, you still try to stay alive and be happy. You've made the irreducible choice to live, to accept existence, and that gives rise to purpose and value in your life. *edit* The same thing applies to free will: if determinists really believed that they had no volition, then their mind would be paralyzed and they could not function at all as human beings.

lol, try the court of public opinion. We just need enough people to understand the proper purpose of government and why welfare, taxation, etc. are evil, and the rest will follow.

If by "group", you mean nation or government, then I think the individual just has to make a cost-benefit analysis of the dangers and rewards of living in a particular place, under a particular government. For example, he may have been offered an excellent job in a country that is a gross violator of human rights. He would have to determine which is more valuable to him: living in a more free country and making a modest wage, or living in a less free country and making a great deal of money. No matter what location he chose, he should obviously work from the inside to do everything in his power to make the government more rights-respecting. No, the individual's rights are being violated. Unless, that is, this "group" actually owns all of the land under its jurisdiction (such as in an apartment complex). Governments, however, do not own the land they police, and their legitimacy is directly proportional to how much they respect the rights of their citizens. If there is a legitimate government in place, however, an individual *has* to respect its authority and may not secede from it while continuing to live in its territory. To do so would be to refuse to submit to an objective body of law and essentially to say to one's neighbors, "I don't have to justify my use of force to you."

I recently took Leonard Peikoff's online course, "Objectivism Through Induction", where he attempts to dispel this mindset (which I have been guilty of many times). Looking for a logical deduction for every point rather than looking for an induction based on your experience is called 'rationalism', and it's a very bad (but very common) way to think. The evidence of your senses is more powerful than any argument; until you see the truth of a philosophic point, it will never be real to you. That's fine. Once you accept free will you can go about looking for how it emerges (why, under what conditions, etc.), but deducing it from some aspect of determinism is definitely not the way to go.

If you can't predict the outcome of a deterministic system (because of HUP or lack of data or other measurement problems) it's still a deterministic system. If human beings were a deterministic system, then we would indeed have no free will. However, it is by no means axiomatic that all entities in the universe are governed by "billiard-ball" style deterministic causation, which is the false premise held by individuals who don't believe in free will. To quote Peikoff from OPAR (p. 68), Determinism is not an axiom; it is an induction from countless instances in the universe where entities act in a predictable, linear progression, one event following after another in a causal chain. The problem is that determinists try to over-extend the reach of this principle: it is true of rocks and trees and clocks, so it must be true of human beings, right? Not necessarily, and indeed we can observe directly that that is not the case. The identities of rocks and trees dictate that they act in a deterministic fashion, while the identity of a human being dictates that he must make choices. There is no contradiction and no violation of "physical laws" (which are simply human inductions about what we observe happening in the universe). We see directly that we have the ability to choose, and no later "discovery" of science can undermine that fact, since all knowledge is dependent upon it.

I thought about it. The moon isn't a planet; it's a moon. hehehe; j/k

If you're looking to make a cross-platform 2D game then I would wholeheartedly recommend the SDL library. It is very easy to use (and quite powerful), and it has components for graphics, sound, input, etc. You should be able to pick up the basics fairly quickly from the online tutorials. Gamedev has some decent game tutorials, although it's almost always easier to learn from a book. If you can find a good book on general game programming (that isn't limited in its application to one API), it would definitely be worth the money. Most of the books I've read in the past have been language or API-specific, however, so I can't really recommend anything in particular. Good luck!

In the debate forum thread on volition, donnywithana stated: Now, this thread is not intended to be another discussion of free will, but rather a discussion of the necessity of self-evident data to form the basis of knowledge. All knowledge has to start somewhere - a proof cannot consist of an infinite string of premises going back an unlimited distance. The purpose of proof is to demonstrate through a process of logic the relationship of a proposition to reality. Reality is the starting point, and our senses are our only direct means of perceiving it. In order to gain any knowledge, then, we must start with our sensory perceptions, accept them as self-evident, and work our way up from there. Note that the same principle applies to the information we acquire by introspection as to the information we acquire through extrospection: it is the foundation of all of our knowledge, and cannot be invalid. Many people accept the data of their external senses as obvious but think that their sense of introspection is somehow tricking them (for example, into believing in volition), without realizing that the same arguments against skepticism about our external senses apply to all forms of sensory experience, whether focused on the outside world or the internal world of the mind. Also, our mental existents can be measured, although perhaps not to the same exacting accuracy possible to physical phenomena. That we cannot (currently) use physical tools to measure such things is irrelevant; we can discover their identities from direct observation. If anyone has any other comments (or if donnywithana would like to respond), then post away.

I think the primary principle that needs to be kept in mind when considering "selfish welfare" is that to the extent that an individual is coerced, including being deprived of the values that he creates (his property), that individual is unable to produce new values, and thus to be a value to you. (Phew, that's a lot of "values".) A system whose result is to "punish the good for being good", i.e. by depriving them of their property, can never be beneficial to you, even if its aim is something that you see as a "good cause". If helping unfortunate individuals is a value to you, then by all means do so, but don't force others to ignore their own values in order to follow the dictates of your mind.

I could be wrong, but when EC said "Yes" to the "t and t+1" example I think he meant yes, that would contradict volition. If every state of the mind followed directly from previous states in a clockwork fashion, then there is no choice involved. Observing the workings of our consciousness, however, we can see that that is not the case. There are many factors involved in our decision making which may sway us in one direction or the other, but they do not determine us to make a particular decision; we can choose to think or not, to follow our desires or not, etc. I'll be the first to admit that I know very little about neuroscience, and I could not venture to describe the exact relationship between the mind and the brain. I can only say from my own limited knowledge and from direct observation that the mind exists and that it is related to and dependent upon the brain, but that the two are not the same thing. If you took a living brain into a laboratory to be examined, no matter how much you looked you would never find concepts or memories or imagination. You could find the physical components of the brain which make such things possible, but not the faculties themselves. I also know that this non-physical faculty of consciousness is able to affect physical changes. As I type this post, my brain is sending electrical impulses to my hands, causing my fingers to move up and down on my keyboard. The root cause in this chain, however, is my mind, thinking intently on the subject at hand, pondering word choice and sentence structure. To say that the movements of my fingers are caused entirely by a group of neurons firing deterministically is to ignore the obvious, self-evident contribution of my *volitional* consciousness. Believe me, I understand where you're coming from, because I agreed with you at one point. I just could not fathom how a group of deterministic particles could give rise to consciousness and volition, and I still don't know the answer to that question. But... although I don't know how the brain gives rise to consciousness, I do know that it does. The evidence is staring me in the proverbial face, and it is impossible to ignore.

Also, just to add another point I think is important: Since the existence of volition is self-evident (self-evident meaning directly perceivable) no one can "prove" to you that it exists. You just have to honestly examine your own mental processes and draw your conclusions from that. Denying the existence of free will is akin to standing directly in front of a tree and denying that the tree really exists. It is perfectly valid to ask how volition exists (and that is a question for science), but it is not valid to question its existence as such.

I was trying to demonstrate the self-evidency of volition, and the fact that it must be implicitly accepted even by those who explicitly deny it. And volition is reliant on non-physical factors - namely one's consciousness. Consciousness clearly exists and has some sort of causal influence over the physical realm, but it is just as clearly not a physical thing itself. It comes about due to the brain being structured in a certain fashion, and the physical states of the brain affect its operation (as evidenced by "chemical imbalances" or other brain conditions causing mental health problems), but it is not the same thing as the brain. This consciousness also *somehow* has the ability to monitor its own functioning and select among various courses of action, without being forced or determined to choose a certain path by any deterministic physical factors.

For those who are still struggling with (or downright disagree with) the fact of volition, I would suggest a simple exercise which helped me out when I was having the same troubles: Go lie down on your bed, or, if you're at work, just recline in your chair and close your eyes. Simply lie there and don't get up; after all, you don't have any choice in the matter, you're determined to do so. Maybe you have some errands to perform; it's really a shame that you can't get up to do them. It's also a pity that you can't get up to eat or to go to the bathroom; yeah, you'll eventually die, but that's none of your concern; it's out of your hands. As time passes, it will become increasingly more difficult to convince yourself that you are not in control of your own actions, until finally you will have to give in to the facts - nothing is compelling you to stay motionless but your own act of volition. Volition is self-evident. We don't know how it works, but we know that it does. And, as Dr. Peikoff says in OPAR, volition does not contradict the law of causality, it is simply a unique instance of it: every entity has only one action open to it at any given time, and for a human being that action is to choose. You must choose something, but the content of the choice could go either way. This point took me a while to grasp, but I think it is illustrated fairly well by analogy with another action, such as walking. No matter where you are walking, you are still performing the same action. You could be walking to the store or to the post office or wherever, but regardless of the content of the action, the action itself is still the same.

I'm actually rather surprised by most of the opinions here; I personally find Peikoff's writing to be superb, and, quite honestly, better than Rand's (at least in non-fiction). This is most apparent to me when the two are read side by side, such as in The Voice of Reason. Rand's essays, while good, do not seem to convey as much information as succinctly as do Peikoff's. As for Rand's having a greater understanding of her philosophy, I think in many cases this actually gives Peikoff an advantage, since he was at one point struggling to grasp Objectivism just as his readers are, so he knows where things can be unclear or confusing. I have encountered numerous cases where Rand simply glossed over a point which she no doubt thought obvious, but which I, as a student of Objectivism, couldn't wrap my head around. When I turned to OPAR, however, I more often than not found a discussion of the topic that was more in-depth, easier to understand, and all around more enlightening. Obviously one should read both Peikoff's and Rand's writings to gain the best possible understanding of the philosophy, but if I had a choice between OPAR and Rand's collective non-fiction writings, I would choose OPAR.

Hey there; I just registered for the forums last night, so I figured I might as well introduce myself. I have been on the wrong side of basically every argument at one point or another; I've been a socialist, theist, anarchist, you name it. I started seriously studying Objectivism about two to three years ago; I read Atlas Shrugged when I was in grade school, but at that age it was obviously too much for me. When I picked up The Fountainhead a number of years later and saw the utterly evil Ellsworth Toohey espousing the views that I had come to accept, I had to find out more about this woman who had presented such an astounding moral defense of egoism and capitalism. Like many beginners to philosophy, I started with my greatest interest in politics, for that was, as I saw it, "practical philosophy". I had never been interested in what I saw as pragmatic arguments for a certain political system; what did I care whether poverty had historically been lower under free economies, or whether capitalism lowered unemployment? I was interested in moral arguments, and before Ayn Rand I had never seen such a thing from defenders of capitalism. Once I started reading more into Objectivism, I saw a rock solid moral argument for laissez faire, but unfortunately it took me a while to understand the relation of this tenet to the rest of Rand's philosophy. I, like many libertarians, took the non-initiation principle as near-axiomatic, which led me into trouble down the line until I had some of my confusions cleared up (in many cases with help from people on this forum). I don't want to denigrate Ayn Rand, but while her philosophy is brilliant and correct, I think she in many cases does an inadequate job of presenting it in her books. (The same could be said, to a lesser degree, about OPAR.) I have often had to come scour the internet for a more in-depth explanation of a principle, and this forum, among other sources, has been invaluable for that purpose. My understanding of Objectivism is far beyond what it was in those days, but I'm still in the process of learning. I'm currently taking Leonard Peikoff's online course, Objectivism Through Induction, and I found that I have in the past been far more rationalistic than I had originally suspected. Even after all the study I have done, I find that I am growing every day. Somewhere I heard a quote attributed to Ayn Rand in which she said, "I don't know how I survived yesterday without knowing what I know today." I feel exactly the same way. Anyway, hello to everyone; you'll probably see me around here fairly often in the future.

Hi, this is my first post here; I have browsed the forums for a while, but this thread piqued my interest enough that I decided to register. I was a Catholic before discovering the works of Ayn Rand, and I am fairly familiar with Christian apologetics. Burgess (or should I say Brian?) presents the Catholic position quite well, and I would just like to address a single point which is in my experience very commonly made by apologists for faith. Burgess states: In this position, which is the official one taken by Catholic apologists, faith is belief in something based on the authority of the individual(s) relating relating the information to you. By this (incorrect) definition, "faith" would indeed be a proper and correct means of knowledge; in fact, we use "faith" every day when we read the newspaper, watch television, or listen to a story from a friend or co-worker. When we watch the nightly news, for example, we do not experience the news stories first-hand, but we have no doubt that they actually occurred. We do not (in most cases) have any grounds to think that the newsmen are trying to deceive us or that their story might be fabricated. We accept their reports based on "faith". The problem with this conception of faith lies in the fact of its basis in authority. Before one can accept a piece of information on "faith", one must first establish the authority of the information's source. The only way to establish this authority is through the use of reason. We accept the reports of news anchors because (among other reasons) we know of countless instances in the past where they have been correct, we know of others who have verified their accounts, and we know that if they presented false information they would find themselves out of a job. In order to accept the information found in the Bible, then, we would have to verify using reason that God exists, that he cannot lie, and that the Bible is in fact his word. None of these things can be verified logically; every one of Thomas Aquinas' arguments for the existence of God has been thoroughly refuted. Even if these assertions could be verified, however, "faith" in this definition would retain a limited use as a handmaiden of reason, rather than the other way around. The circular thought process I have seen in the minds of many Christians goes something like this: We know that God exists because the Bible tells us so. We know that the Bible is true because it was written by God. Perhaps seeing this contradiction, Aquinas and other theologians attempt in vain to logically validate the existence of God. Ultimately, however, in order to retain their positions, they have to resort to faith in the proper sense of the term: belief without evidence or proof; belief based on whim, emotion, or fear.