Thomas M. Miovas Jr.

Since this thread dovetails into the DIM Hypothesis by Dr. Peikoff, and since I didn't see a thread on that topic, I started a thread on the DIM Hypothesis here.

It is with great fascination that I am listening to Dr.Peikoff's lecture series "The DIM Hypothesis," The Epistemological Mechanics by which Philosophy Shapes Society. This course, for a limited time, is available via the Ayn Rand Institute website. I'm only up to lecture 6 of the series, but I have a preliminary assessment that differs from Dr. Peikoff's as to why there are five and only five divisions. His analysis of why trilogies tend to exist in the history of philosophy was fascinating, and he basically broke those down into three: Integration, Misintegration, and Disintegration. However, I begin to wonder why there were only three when a logic table analysis would indicate that there ought to be four (for any given proposition): the positive, the negative, the contra-positive, and the contra-negative. Later, he broke down two of his divisions into subdivisions giving five total designations; so, again, why five and not four? And then I began to understand that the logic table gives four designations, but then one could be ambivalent about those (or within those) -- or agnosticism with regard to principles as such -- and that would give five divisions. The logic table analysis is: 1) positive 2) negative 3) contra-positive 4) contra-negative [5) ambivalence regarding the above] For example, let's take the axiom "Existence exists." A logic table would generate: 1) existence exists (I) 2) existence does not exist (D2) 3) not-existence exists (M2) 4) not-existence does not exist (D1) [5) (ambivalent) maybe not-existence exists (M1)] For art, one would generate: 1) concretization of abstractions is necessary (I) 2) concretization of abstractions is not necessary (M2) 3) not-concretization of abstractions is necessary (D2) 4) not-concretization of abstractions is not necessary (D1) [5) (ambivalent) maybe concretizations of abstractions is not necessary (M1)] Since DIM focuses on integration, let's take that: 1) integration is necessary (I) 2) integration is not necessary (M2) 3) not-integration is necessary (D2) 4) not-integration is not necessary (D1) [5) (ambivalent) maybe integration is not necessary (M1)] I'm interested in discussing this lecture series, which is why I started this thread, and after having taken the full course (in a few weeks) I may post a more complete assessment on my own website in a longer article. By the way, I tried to email the above as a question to Dr. Peikoff, but evidently his email box is full so it was returned to me. Maybe one day I will be able to ask him the question.

Politics is a branch of philosophy; and a rational politics has been written about in the Objectivist literature at length. This rational politics hinges on the concept of individual rights and grounding them in the nature of man and the requirements of him being able to use his mind to further his own personal life without the threat of physical force being used against him. The evils of religion have also been written about at length; especially the idea that one needs to ground one's ideas on the perceptually self-evident and using logic to organize one's observations, which religion qua pseudo-principle rejects. In short, one cannot have a mystical metaphysics and a faith-based epistemology, while at the same time claim to uphold individual rights; because it can't be done. President Bush and his fellow Conservatives have shown that by basing their arguments not on reason but on faith, that our individual rights will not be upheld. Not only did the Conservatives not roll back the damages done by the Liberals; they added even more damages of the same type and set up Federally funded faith-based initiatives. In other words, those Conservatives who voted for those measures or did not vote against them were saying, at least in effect: "Yes, this is what we want. We want more government intrusion into business (which the Liberals already gave us) and we want more government intrusion into your private life by forcing you to pay for an ideology that we are pressing, whether you agree with it or not." And the ideology they want to push is faith; i.e. anti-reason. And I think that is what makes this the turning point in history. Had the Conservatives merely "gone to the left" to "reach center" in order to get votes, well...that would simply be more of the same ole politics as usual. It's disgusting, but it wouldn't de-rail us. Having the government get involved in supporting one faith or another -- i.e. Christianity versus Hinduism, for example -- would de-rail us; and at the root of our somewhat Enlightenment culture. At this stage of our culture, which is already teetering away from reason, we do not need to be pushing for anti-reason; especially on the part of the government which is supposed to be upholding our individual rights based on reason and reality. It was time for them to go before they did any permanent damage. And it will be interesting to see if the Liberals turn back the faith-based initiatives.

Black diamond, give it a break. Or was it mere convenience that you left out my parenthesis when you quoted me? I'm acknowledging that it is possible to have knowledge of a certain field, such as philosophy or Objectivism, and yet not have fully integrated it. There was a philosophic reason to reject the conservatives -- namely their inability to ground freedom in secularism (i.e. reason and reality), and due to that, their desire to see church and state united. Now, had they just not grounded freedom rationally and had not attempted to unite church and state, then they wouldn't have been so dangerous. But they did do that, and therefore had to be rejected -- rejected philosophically and politically. If you don't understand that, then you need to work on your integrations. Or let me put it this way: To the extent you don't understand that, it is to that extent that you don't understand Objectivism. You know, it's not as if a secular grounding of individual rights does not exist. And it's not as if the Conservatives have not been preaching for many years now that freedom comes from God. Maybe it's time we took them at their word -- if there is no reason to uphold individual rights (in their view), then they won't uphold individual rights. And they haven't, so we need to reject them -- and especially reject them as a viable alternative to the Liberals; because they aren't.

I think there is one aspect of how to rate Bush regarding theocracy that hasn't been mentioned in this debate. He and his staff had total control over what kind of government to set up in Iraq, and they made sure that two religious groups would be represented as a central part of that government: the Shiites and the Sunies. So, instead of setting up a limited government to help secure individual rights, he made sure the Muslims would be represented qua Muslims. Of course, he doesn't think Islam is the problem, or that religion qua religion is the problem, despite the fact that the attacks of 911 were done for religious instigation. He keeps saying that Islam is a great religion and doesn't have the foggiest idea of why religion qua religion is anti-freedom; which he doesn't get even after all of the insurrections in Iraq are being motivated by religionists. Those guys setting those roadside bombs don't want freedom; they especially don't want us to have freedom. And they keep saying that and Bush keeps not hearing the message. As proof of this inability to get the message, he thinks the message of the election is that he ought to work with the Democrats to form a bipartisan government. And he practically gave the Democrats everything they wanted in his speech. If he was a man of principle and his back was against the wall, after the election is when he should have said: "I'm not going to back down. I am right and I know it!" Instead, he caved, including handing over Rumsfeld's head on a platter! With friends like him, who needs enemies?

I don't think Dr. Peikoff is the standard of deciding if someone understands Objectivism or not. To do that, one would have to understand Ayn Rand's works and then make a judgement on that basis, including judging whether or not Dr. Peikoff understands Objectivism -- and more broadly, is he rational. So, yes, I think it is possible for people to understand Dr. Peikoff and yet still disagree with him. It's possible to understand what Ayn Rand has said and still disagree with her. I mean using your own rational judgement. However, the debate, at least in the early stages, was not focused on philosophic fundamentals; which indicated that Dr. Peikoff's statement was not understood. President George Bush made this election a referendum on the War on Terror, especially a referendum on what's going on in Iraq. He needed to be told NO! Don't stay the course! Either win this war or get the hell out of it. And I think that is what the American people were saying to him. In other words, I don't think the American people were voting for more socialist statism; they were voting against President Bush and his cronies. Unfortunately, I'm not sure one can draw an extension from that and say that the American people were voting against faith based initiatives, which would be why Dr. Peikoff was against Bush. If the people who were against Dr. Peikoff could come up with a principled philosophic statement of why President Bush and the Republicans should be supported, then they would have something. But I don't think they did that. So, in that sense, they didn't show that they understood that the world is moved in terms of philosophic fundamentals; and in that sense they don't understand Objectivism. To be clear, I think a lot of them do understand Objectivism (to various degrees) -- most of them are not novices; but they were very wrong on this issue. They were especially wrong to attack Dr. Peikoff as if he didn't know what he was talking about; which is what they were saying when they called him a rationalist or saying that he was involved in a rationalization.

I meant no disrespect for the owners or moderators of the boards. In fact, it was my respect for them (The Forum and Objectivismonline.net) that prompted me to post a message there. I occasionally post a message to a forum I don't respect, but not very often, and I'm usually in "attack mode" when I do that. I wasn't in "attack mode" on either forum when I stated my views and observations. I have known Steven Speicher for a very long time via web forums of one sort or another for almost twenty years, and I have met him a few times. But, I'm sorry, I don't think he understand what Dr. Peikoff is getting at. I also know David Veksler personally, and have enjoyed meeting with him to talk philosophy and Objectivism; but, if he doesn't understand something, I tell him. For anybody who takes ideas seriously, if you think I'm wrong (and can back it up), tell me. Politeness should not be used as a substitute for directness. However, as far as I am concerned, I was being both polite and direct. By the way, as of 10:30 PM central time, the House of Representatives has gone Democrat, and the Senate is not far from an overturn as well. I don't know what the political commentators or the politicians will think about that, or what will be made of it, but it might be interesting to listen to them over the next few weeks.

As a point of observation, both with regard to The Forum for Ayn Rand Fans and Objectivismonline.net, the initial reaction to Dr. Peikoff's statement indicated that a great deal of thought had not been put into the replies to his statement. A great many people took it personally that Dr. Peikoff would say that people who took the opposite view of his, to vote Republican instead of voting for Democrats, did not understand Objectivism; that is, they did not understand that the history of the world is moved in terms of philosophic fundamentals. And they were outraged that Dr. Peikoff would come right out and say that. Dr. Peikoff has written extensively on philosophy and its applications, most notably The Ominous Parallels, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, and most directly applicable to this thread, "Religion Versus America." So, when he says there is a great danger on the horizon to this country and that this danger is the Republicans, then it is time to stop and think about the issues before running to an on-line forum to express your opinion. And there is a big difference between Dr. Peikoff saying that someone is being rationalistic versus someone else saying that Dr. Peikoff is being rationalistic. Dr. Peikoff is a great teacher of the philosophy of Objectivism, which means that he is ahead of the curve. However, the immediate reaction to his statement was basically, "What the hell are you talking about?!" and "We are not the rationalists, you are!" But to accuse him of making a rationalization is even worse, and that particular post is still up on the Forum (#176); which shows no respect for Dr. Peikoff at all. As I've said before, I champion the virtue of independence. And there have been many thoughtful replies to Dr. Peikoff's statement once things cooled down a bit. But I do see some comments as stemming from a misunderstanding of Objectivism; especially the idea that history is moved according to philosophic fundamentals. And I do see that people who don't understand that are the ones accusing Dr. Peikoff of making a rationalistic argument detached from the facts. If you find that offensive...well...it's not said to be offensive. It is said to conceptualize an observation.

Thank you for your understanding. I cannot comment specifically on whether the Republicans are M2 or not, since I haven't gotten to that part of the lecture series. And I have a difficult time logging in, presumably because so many people are listening in at the same time, though the course is very informative overall. I plan on increasing my donations to ARI, since they have made this course available.

I've just been asked not to post to the Forum for Ayn Rand fans after posting the following reply to a similar thread, which was promptly deleted. I don't like where their thread is going, which is why I posted the message. Judge for yourself. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ When I first started to read this thread, I was actually proud that there are enough students of Objectivism out there who would openly disagree with Dr.Peikoff and state their reasons why; because independence is a virtue -- and it is good that said students are not simply accepting something said by one of their best teachers (second only to Ayn Rand) without thinking it through. But I have to draw the line at people here claiming that Dr. Peikoff is either being rationalistic or involved in a rationalization. Given the context, I'm not really sure which one was actually meant. A rationalistic argument is one that is deduced from supposedly higher principles, though the conclusion does not conform to the facts. The higher principle may also not conform to the facts, but one can be rationalistic about conclusions drawn from proper principles. For example, let's say one has the principle that matter has color, and then concludes that because atoms don't have colors therefore they are not matter. That would be rationalism. A rationalization is the attempt to justify an emotional response (or a conclusion) by using a sort of pseudo-reasoning. For example, let's say someone is a racist. He has no grounds for saying that all of a people of a certain race are less than human, it's just something he feels. He then goes around making up things about them -- i.e. all Jews are dirty by their nature, or they congregate together like rats, etc. The fact that these pseudo-facts are not true does not make it a rationalization, what makes it a rationalization is that one has an unjustified evaluation and tries to justify it on something that is made up. And it does seem as if some of you are claiming that Dr. Peikoff is making it all up, perhaps to justify his DIM hypothesis. Look, if you don't understand things the way Dr. Peikoff does, fine -- go by your best judgement; but don't go around claiming that because you don't understand something then Dr. Peikoff must be a rationalist or must be making a rationalization.

I guess Dr. Peikoff can rest easy tonight. Judging by the Forums for Ayn Rand Fans, the Forum for Objectivismonline.com, and the NTOS message board (North Texas Objectivist Society), there aren't many students of Objectivism who thinks that he is infallible. So his status as the "Objectivist Pope" has been dethroned. Not that he ever wanted that position in the first place. In fact, he has been quite irritated that some people would think of him that way. And when one touts a philosophy that holds independence as a virtue, one has to expect to get some flack here and there. We are not members of a lock-step cult, after all. However, I have to take issue with those saying that Dr. Peikoff was giving an argument from intimidation or an appeal to authority in the following two quotes: "Given the choice between a rotten, enfeebled, despairing killer, and a rotten, ever stronger, and ambitious killer, it is immoral to vote for the latter, and equally immoral to refrain from voting at all because 'both are bad.'" "In my judgment, anyone who votes Republican or abstains from voting in this election has no understanding of the practical role of philosophy in man's actual life - which means that he does not understand the philosophy of Objectivism, except perhaps as a rationalistic system detached from the world." Dr. Peikoff sees the Right, insofar as they are pressing for religion, as killers with a strong ideology behind them, who want to take over the government, making further and further encroachments against the separation of church and state, until the United States Government is fully supporting, with tax donations, the ideology of Christianity. That would make this country a theocracy, even if the President would not be considered The American Pope. I agree with his reasoning, especially insofar as President Bush and others in his party have pushed for and have gotten "faith based initiatives" pushed through and are now law. That is, your Federal tax dollars are now supporting your destroyers on the Right. And they know they are doing this. Leading Conservative talk show hosts, such as Rush Limbaugh, have said that the Right needs to do this because we need to catch up with the Left, who has had government support for their programs for decades. And when asked about the separation of church and state; they say that there is no such legislation, it only says that there cannot be a Federally sanctioned church. In other words, so long as the booty is spread out to all true believing Christians equally, then the US Government is not supporting a particular church -- they can support Catholic initiatives, Protestant initiatives, etc. and claim that they are not supporting a church; so they hope to be able to get away with it. It is obvious that the Christian Right sees themselves as having the same philosophy, despite some grudging differences on how to worship and other relatively minor details -- minor when compared to the ideology that morality ought to be legislated by the government; that Christianity ought to be enforced at the point of a gun. The fundamentalist Muslims want to use the sword, but the Christians are going to be more humane about it, they will enact laws based on The Ten Commandments; and many of them say that this country was founded on the Sermon on the Mount! In my opinion, the only mitigating factor is the War on Terrorism, and whether idealistic terrorism is a more immediate threat to liberty in this country. So it looks like the bad guys trying to take over are the Socialists idealists, the Muslim idealists, or the Christian idealists. Socialism is no longer a viable idealism for most of the West; Muslim idealism doesn't stand a chance (at least not in this country); and Dr. Peikoff is right that the Christian idealists are up in arms and rising to take over. When Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, it didn't last much longer; not as the great "country" that it once was. The moral authority backed by the power of the state led directly to the Dark Ages. I don't want to see that happening to The United States of America.

I'm not exactly sure who or what you are replying to, since you didn't include any quotes for immediate reply. Objectivism holds that consciousness is an axiom (self-evident and all-pervasive to man), and that consciousness is efficacious (you had to use your mind to direct your thoughts and your fingers to post your message). However, evolution is a special science, and Objectivism qua philosophy is not dependent upon the special sciences. A rational philosophy comes before -- or is antecedent to -- any special science, because it is the principles of a rational philosophy that guides the scientist, not the other way around. So, whether or not consciousness or volition (an aspect of human consciousness) evolved or not is beside the point that consciousness and volition for man are self-evident and do not require evolution or any other science to confirm it. And I wouldn't say that consciousness or volition transcends the physical, but rather that the physical (or matter) is not axiomatic, though consciousness is. In other words, the physical or matter are higher-level concepts, whereas consciousness is at the base of all knowledge and all-pervasive to all knowledge. Epistemology, the study of man's mind, doesn't have anything to do with, say, the biochemistry of the brain; but in order to study biochemistry one needs a rational epistemology as a guide as to how to form concepts and how to place them in the proper context and where to place them in the conceptual hierarchy. The bottom line is that biochemistry, physics, evolution, and the other special sciences are dependent upon a rational philosophy; and it is philosophy, not the special sciences, that "dictate" the terms of what is rational and what is not.

I understand you wanting to keep all the posts going, for context of replies, if nothing else. But why not remove them if someone asks you to? Would that involve a lot of effort on your part and also mess up the context of the thread? What do you mean by a one hour edit limit? Does that mean I only have one hour to decide if I really want my post to be read on your forum or not? I was involved in one forum, an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) forum, in which I asked them to remove one session I had hosted, because I very strongly disagreed with what I had written about a week later. Out of courtesy to me, they did remove it from the archives. However, IRC is very extemporaneous, like a conversation while it is happening, and there isn't much time to edit as one writes.

As a point of clarification, certainly I want my work submitted to this website forum to be distributed via the website server distribution system -- else why would I post to this forum in the first place? Effectively, I grant the owner / operators of this website a non-exclusive license to redistribute my work offered here within certain limits. From time to time I will participate in an ad hoc intellectual activism issue website / forum where the owner / operators claim ownership of everything written to it, but then my participation becomes very limited. After having posted to a forum for quite some time, the owner decided that everything I (and everyone else) posted to that forum was the property of the forum owner / operators *and* that what was posted there was exclusive to that forum; but I protested that decision, claiming that I hadn't been paid for my work and that if he wanted exclusivity and copyright ownership, then he would have to pay me for my work. He basically then decided that effectively he had obtained a non-exclusive license to redistribute the works posted to the forum via the forum, which is what everyone participating in the forum thought he had meant from the beginning anyhow. So, just because some of my work has / had a wide distribution through various methods, it doesn't mean that I have signed away my copyrights; unless that is specified in the Terms and Conditions of participating in that forum.

Copyright Issues Due to the fact that I have had some associations with some dubious characters in the past, I need to make the following statement: I retain the copyright to everything I have ever written, whether it was written under my legal name or a pseudonym. No copyright of mine has been legally transferred to anyone, with the exception of some educational material transferred to a Montessori school for their distribution that was paid for in full. For everything else I have ever written, I retain the right to say that any distribution can only be made if my permission is granted in written form. I hereby withdraw any previous permission to distribute my material in any form, unless you have my permission in writing: and I want to see a copy of any supposed agreement. For more information please see: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html TRANSFER OF COPYRIGHT Any or all of the copyright owner's exclusive rights or any subdivision of those rights may be transferred, but the transfer of exclusive rights is not valid unless that transfer is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner's duly authorized agent. WHO CAN CLAIM COPYRIGHT Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright. If you think you have acquired the copyright to any of my works, which I forthright deny (with the above mentioned exclusion), then please contact me at: mailto:[email protected] or mailto:[email protected] 06/19/2006 Thomas M. Miovas, Jr.

The following is a reply to a friend's reply to Peter Schwartz's article Freedom vs. Unlimited Majority Rule. My friend's reply can be found here Establish Individual Rights. One might wonder why I am posting my reply here, instead of on the blogspot, but the reason is that in order to reply via the blogspot I have to sign up for a blogspot of my own, which would become too much to keep track of with this forum, other forums, and my own website. I'm posting it in this thread because one of my reasons for having long-term optimism is the work of the Ayn Rand Institute and other Objectivists around the world. I'm also debating putting up a whole series of anti-Muslim terrorist cartoons and snub-them images that I began receiving shortly after the terrorist attacks of 9-11 and near the beginning of the Afghanistan war onto my website. Keep in mind that one reason we were able to conquer Afghanistan and Iraq so effectively, is that the enemy is easily aggravated by such images and insults; so they popped there little heads up upon being so insulted and got them shot off! $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ While I agree that establishing the rule of individual rights will help to uphold justice both in the United States and abroad (especially in those countries that were / are our enemies), I have to disagree that The Ayn Rand Institute didn't say anything about the German person being thrown in jail for claiming that the Holocaust never occurred. By choosing to speak out on the most grievous attack on individual rights -- Fundamentalist Muslims threatening to kill anyone who shows disrespect to Mohammed, especially those who depict him in cartoons -- they have spoken out against all of that same class, the initiation of force against those who are only speaking and writing without themselves initiating the violation of individual rights (through the explicit and immediate threat of force). If the German government wants to make the claim that evasion is an evil, I'm all for that; but the person who evades has not initiated force against those who he is evading, and therefore the law should have nothing to say about it, nor should the law do anything about it. That is the nature of individual rights: One is free say, write, or do anything one wants to do, so long as someone else's individual rights are not violated. The people who speak out against terroristic Islam are likewise not initiating force, even if what they say is offensive to those who are practicing Islam. An offensive piece of writing or speaking does not violate anyone's individual rights, so people who do so are free to speak or write what they chose in a society that upholds individual rights. If your sensibilities are insulted, that is not the initiation of force. It is not the initiation of force if one says that the Holocaust did not occur; it is not the initiation of force if one says that Islam is part and parcel to terrorism by implication (i.e. all those who are not Muslim should be killed); it is not the initiation of force if someone says something in an offensive manner; it is not the initiation of force to speak one's mind when no immediate threats are spoken or written. I fully support the Ayn Rand Institute's goal of re-affirming individual rights by focusing on the most egregious violations first, since they have a very limited budget and personnel to carry on such a campaign.

Everything that exists is something specific whether or not we are aware of it. However, we can't always identify it immediately upon perceiving it or becoming aware of it via implication. So, that it exists comes first, that we can identify it comes second, and that we are aware that we are aware of it comes third. As in, "I don't know what it is, but I know it is something" (where identity is implicit). Yes, existence exists independent of human consciousness, so in order to know reality we must study the items that do exist, rather than having an inward focus. And we can only have an inward focus once we have some content that arises from the awareness of entities. The term "objective reality" actually has several components. That reality (and the items it is comprised of) have an existence independent of the human mind, and from that those items can be understood. The understanding of something being what it is does not add identity to the object, but because it has identity it can be understood. I'm using the term "understood" very broadly here, to mean not only conceptualizing the knowledge, but also perceiving it or being aware of it via implication. In other words, our sense do not add identity to the object either, but rather because it is what it is it can be perceived the way it is -- i.e. the green color of leaves is not added to the leaves by visual perception, but rather the leaves have an existence and an identity such that with a certain perceptual ability they are perceived as being green because they are green. The topic was people making an intellectual turn-around, in part due to my input. And I can already see that your mind is changing just in the questions that you are asking, since you are now beginning to better grasp the Objectivist position on certain topics. And I helped make that happen Whether you go the rest of the way or not is up to you.

Both existence and identity are axiomatic concepts because at our first glance we are aware that there is something there at the perceptually level. To put it in terms of emphasis: "there is something there" (existence) versus "there is something there" (identity). The objects that we perceive are not created -- in whole or in part -- by our perceptual apparati nor by our mind, they exist even if there is no one there to perceive them or even if there is no one there to conceive of them. However, to be conscious requires there to be something to be conscious of. Consciousness is the awareness of something. Once we are aware of something, then we can introspectively be aware that we are aware of that something, which is how we develop the concept of consciousness -- our grasp of our grasping (if you want to put it that way). If there was not anything there for us to be aware of, then awareness would not be occurring. The three primary axioms in Objectivism are: existence, identity, and consciousness. In one sentence one can put them all together: There is (existence) something there (identity) that I am aware of (consciousness). Context is crucially important. Statement (1) is referring to epistemology (the nature of man's mind), whereas statement (2) is referring to metaphysics (the nature of existence). Objective reality means that existence is real, is composed of entities (objects) that act according to their nature, and can be grasped by the human mind. But the human mind, in order to grasp existence, must act in compliance with objective reality. One's emotions, wishes, hopes, or fears do not change the facts; nor do they conceptually identify the facts. One might feel love, for example, but if one does not have any current facts to back up that assessment, then the facts must come first, if one is to remain objective (proper functioning of the human mind in grasping existence conceptually). And, as one does not have the object to be aware of and thus does not have consciousness, so if one does not have the facts then love can not be real. One might wish that someone would be such and such a way, but they are what they are, and one's mode of consciousness will not change those facts. One might hope that one can somehow get the proper information to make an objective assessment, but barring those facts, all the hope in the world won't float that boat. One might have fear that someone is out to do them harm, but, once again, an emotion is not the means of making an evaluative assessment of the actual facts. I think one of the most wonderful aspects of Objectivism is Ayn Rand's analysis of where emotions come from, and how romantic love can be fully based on reason -- which means one must go by the facts and not by one's emotions. Wanting someone to love you without providing them with the appropriate facts for them to make a proper assessment is a betrayal of both existence and human consciousness. It's like saying "You must be aware of me without having any awareness of me," which, as has been pointed out above, just won't work. It is putting an "I wish" above an "it is."

This isn't as clear as it should have been. It was ambiguous, and therefore suggestive. So, let me clarify it further. In Objectivism, the terms "intrinsic," "subjective," and "objective" are used a bit differently than in other philosophies. What these terms refer to is the nature of concepts ( or universals) and how they are developed, where they reside, and their relationship to existence. The term "intrinsic" refers to the idea that concepts are an aspect of existence apart from the human mind; the term "subjective" refers to the idea that concepts are an aspect of the human mind apart from existence; while the term "objective" refers to the idea that concepts are developed from an observation of existence that is then integrated by the human mind. With these definitions in mind, one can do a further analysis and realize that neither percepts nor memories are concepts and therefore, according to the above outline, do not come under the heading of intrinsic, subjective, or objective -- at least not strictly speaking. While both percepts and memories come about due to our interaction with existence, they do not come about by a process of mental (cognitive) abstraction. Percepts are the raw data, and memory is the storage of that raw data in non-conceptual form. Of course memory can also store concepts and cognitive elements -- that is one can remember what one was thinking -- but memory is not conceptualization; although one can use conceptualization to better access memory (i.e. put a label on a memory or conceptualize a memory for easy retrieval). Using the tree example mentioned earlier: When we perceive the tree we perceive it in a perceptual form depending on the senses being used to be aware of the tree; When we access that information internally, we remember the tree; When we observe two or more trees, we can then develop the concept "tree." We do not perceive the concept "tree" nor do we remember the concept "tree" until we have developed it by means of a volitional attention to the trees and mentally abstracting what is different about a trees versus other things we perceive, and then integrating the similarities of one tree to the other tree into one mental unit. This process of conceptualization is objective so long as it is based on the facts and so long as it is done in a non-contradictory manner (i.e. so long as it doesn't contradict other concepts we have already developed).

I agree that this has nothing to do with the "limits" of perception, but rather it has to do with the nature of the human mind: The mind is individual. What a person is able to observe and to integrate has more to do with his learned abilities and skills, rather than perceiving something or not perceiving something that someone else may or may not be able to perceive. After all, Helen Keller did rather well for herself, once she was taught sign language, even though she was both deaf and blind; and she even learned how to communicate her ideas via the spoken word! So, even though she lacked two very crucial perceptual abilities, her mind was able to integrate what information she could perceive -- primarily touch -- and became a very intelligent woman. But even for someone who has all of the normal perceptual abilities, the world can come across as a booming buzzing confusion even in adulthood. I remember when I first started to work at a very large chemical industrial plant. At a distance, it was just a bunch of unusual buildings spread out over many acres. Some noises could be heard, but it was just background loudness when compared to the surrounding mostly silent wilderness. Our orientation began in an enclosed office room for several days, and then upon "graduation" we were taken out the back door which lead directly to the heart of the plant. There were new sounds, new sights, new smells -- none of which seemed very pleasant -- and it was impossible to integrate what we had just learned with our perceptions. I mean, pipes were running every which way, small explosions seemed to be going off every few minutes, areas were belching something, and it was just a confusing mess all around! However, after a few weeks of getting to know the plant in the particular via perception and trying to tie it all in together with what I had been taught, my mind began to settle down and it wasn't so confusing any longer. In fact, I began to be able to identify and mentally isolate the various sounds and smells and sights, so that I could then re-integrate these into an inductive knowledge of the plant. Had I just been given the orientation without the walk through and later working in detail at the plant, I would not have been able to put it all together -- at least not any more than a floating abstraction. And I've noticed that even once I have developed skills to do a particular job, and have become very highly skilled at it, a new working environment can still set me into a state of confusion, because the automatized little motions no longer apply in the new setting. I might want to reach for a wrench which was over there at my old work place, but is now over here at my new work place; so I need to stop and observe before pressing on, instead of just reaching. This, of course, takes extra time and can be very frustrating. Even skills need to be re-integrated from time to time, depending on the circumstances (which may change). Of course, in the working environment, there are always those who don't understand this principle, so they think one is stupid because one is hesitant for a while. And there are the jokesters who know damn right well that it takes time to get to know one's way around, so they will try to misdirect you and get you to jump through all kinds of hoops just for the hell of watching you make of fool of yourself. And there are those who watch your every move and try to make something out of it, even though you weren't trying to say anything by the gestures but were merely working. I've developed ways of dealing with each of these types -- without implying that these types are exclusive, since there may be others -- and do my utmost best to turn it around on them when the time is appropriate! I don't like to be messed with; especially when I'm working. The overall point is that perception is the begin point of all knowledge even though one may have an orientation to go through for a while. Holding one's ideas as a floating abstraction is not very efficacious, because reality is not floating in nothingness -- it is as real as it gets.

I did a whole series of essays replying to this notion over on the Forum 4AynRand Fans which you can look up using this link that I called epistemology and hierarchy. I also think that you are using the term "perfect"and "imperfect" without taking man's life as the standard. In other words, all living beings have certain abilities (Aristotle called these powers) that makes it possible for them to survive. And these abilities or powers are perfect in that they are what they are and give you the abilities that you have.

I agree. Communication is one of the best ways of resolving a conflict between two or more people. If I misrepresented your position, that wasn't my intent. However, I do think that your conceptualizations of the nature of perception, conception, and memory are cutting your mind off from reality. I appreciate your reply, and I will explain what I mean in more detail. I have parsed down your reply to what I think are the essentials of what your position is. Your position seems to be stating that when we perceive something, our mind creates a representation of that item which is actually what we are aware of. This sounds very similar to Kant's sensory manifold. However, our perception of something is not a mental representation of that something within our minds. We perceive the item, not some fabrication constructed by our sensory and mental equipment. We perceive an item the way we do because we are what we are and have a specific sensory equipment and a specific mental equipment. But this does not mean that we perceive something for what it is not. Nor does it mean that our grasp of an object is somehow super-added to what the thing is. Nor does it mean that our grasp of an object is somehow less than what the object is. We perceive the object, which is why our perception is objective. So, when we look at a tree and see the branches, the leaves, the bark, etc. that is what the tree is. Those branches, leaves, and bark are not a mental representation of the tree. It is not something that is constructed out of "imperfect" information regarding the tree. It is the tree that we perceive! Perception is the starting point of all knowledge precisely because it is infallible; and therefore objective. We don't have volitional control over how we perceive something -- i.e. we cannot chose to see the leaves as pink when they are in fact green, like some sort of computer color coded display -- we perceive it for what it is, as it is, and have no control over how we perceive it via some internal control system. If your position was correct, then you are implying that we would have some sort of internal control over how we perceive something, as if we could program in a color code for a specific frequency. That is the bottom line for what it would mean to say that our perception of an item is a representation of the item. But our mind is not a little person inside us who is looking at a computer display screen! You may say that is a straw man argument, but that is the implication of saying our perception is a representation. Our memory, likewise, is not a representation of the item. Memory is the ability to recall sensory-level information that is stored within our minds. And I will grant you that the access of memory is not an easy thing to master, and sometimes we cannot recall the details. However, this does not mean that memory is subjective in the sense of not being a memory of the item. It is a memory of the item -- the factual and therefore objective information provided by the senses that is stored and is accessible to various degrees of certainty. To the extent that we can recall factual information, our memory is objective. But a concept of an item and the memory of an item are not the same thing. Memory is the storage of factual information in raw form, one might say; but conceptualization is processing that factual information into a mental entity that retains the information via measurement omission. The key here is that memory is of a specific entity, but conceptualization is a sort of compression of the data from more than one entity. In effect, we can have the memory of one tree, but our concept "tree" contains data from all the trees we have ever perceived and have ever known about. In other words, we don't have a concept of a tree we have a concept of all trees. Because conceptualization requires a volitional processing of information, it may or may not be objective. This processing of the raw data is objective provided we conceptualize according to contextual similarities, but not otherwise. I think you are trying to lump together, perception, memory, and conceptualization as representations of an item in your pseudo-concept "subjective", but I hope I have clarified how these are different enough that one cannot lump them together. In effect, one can't have a conception of "perception-memory-conceptualization" as one mental unit, because perception of an object is infallibly correct, memory can be distorted by imagination, and conceptualization is voluntary data compression which can be done incorrectly (i.e. not according to the facts).

I don't understand what is being said here. "Every time an object is sensed it's vividness is watered down"? Are you trying to say that we only perceive part of what something is rather than the thing itself, so we lose some of the information because we perceive it with our senses (which are limited)? That is, since we don't perceive, say, infra-red or ultraviolet, yet many things radiate with those frequencies, we don't perceive everything there is to be perceived regarding the object and therefore merely by sensing it we are already losing something in the translation, so to speak? Actually, since you are also saying that it gets watered down even more when we try to communicate what it is, you are, in effect, saying that there is no translation. We have no contact with reality, either via the senses or via conceptualization? Objectivism holds a different view. It is precisely because our sense are something specific -- i.e. they have an identity and must act or respond to stimuli accordingly -- we do, in fact, perceive the object for what it is. While it is true that we don't perceive infra-red or ultraviolet, we can grasp those e/m frequencies with our minds, and then detect them by utilizing tools and created devices. In other words, conceptualization opens up the entire universe to us! But whether or not we can perceive infra-red or ultraviolet is not the real point of what you are saying, anyhow. The deeper issue seems to be that because we grasp something via our human capabilities, we therefore do not grasp it for what it is, and therefore cannot convey it to others because none of us really know what it it is that we are trying to grasp in the first place. I'm not really sure how to untangle this. We would have to start at the beginning and work our way through it. But the beginning point of all knowledge is perception -- that is, we conceptualize what we perceive -- and if one is going to take the stance that we are cut off from reality merely by perceiving something right in front of us, then I would have to agree with Aristotle, that such a person needs perception, not conception. However, on the conceptual level, you seem to be saying that a concept leaves out a lot of details, and therefore even if we did perceive something the way it is, we couldn't understand it fully or convey it to others fully. On the contrary, a concept, while omitting measurements, retains everything about the item being conceptualized. This is because a concept, once developed, includes everything we could ever discover about the item -- past, present, and future as a kind of ever expanding file-folder. The concept "dog" (for example, since you mentioned it previously), contains information about every type of dog that ever lived, is currently living, and that will ever live. If one wrote a treatise on dogs -- or let's say volumes on the subject -- one would only begin to scratch the surface of the richness of the concept "dog." So, if you begin to talk about a dog to me, I know what you are referring to -- all dogs everywhere, at all times, everything they can ever do, and everything that one can do with them! Far from leaving out richness, a concept is a vast database! I think what you were trying to say before was that I wouldn't know you were talking about a Cocker Spaniel or a German Shepherd or another specific breed or how fluffy its fur was or other specific details -- but those are already included as soon as you speak the word "dog." If you want to get more specific, there are words for that as well. And if you really want to get specific, you point to this dog; but then again, you can't do that if you don't know what you are pointing to in the first place. Your position would deny any resolution of any confusion, either within yourself or between you and others, because you leave no place to start and have no guide in resolving a conflict. The place to start is perception, and the guiding principle is logic -- or non-contradictory identification of what you perceive and what you know.

When I first read this, my reaction was: What the heck is that supposed to mean? Since no context was presented in the reply, I had to make some guesses as to what he was responding to. Was he depressed because there is a connection between the "subjective" and the "objective" (using the terminology of the given definitions)? Was he depressed because I replied at all? Was he depressed because I think even someone who reads Augustine and Wittgenstein can be reasoned with (at least to some degree)? Was he depressed because he's not sure if he has volition or not? Or was he merely objectifying an inner emotional state that had nothing to do with the thread? He didn't say, so I don't really know. All I know is that he is depressed. But Ayn Rand had something interesting to say about depression. She held that due to the fact that we have a volitional consciousness, periodic depressions were necessary to prod us into a state of checking our premises. Because it is possible for one to lose their motivation, from time to time one has to re-affirm one's motivations in order to volitionally adhere to existence and one's understanding of existence. So, even for a rational consciousness, adhering to existence is not automatic, and probably not even fully automatized. That is, one cannot set a long-term goal, and then strive to reach it, without ever checking that premise of whether or not striving for that goal is worth our effort. Motivation is not something that we can set and then forget. The obstacles one encounters along the way are reality as well, and maybe we didn't take them all into account -- because we are not omniscient, after all. No matter how carefully we thought out the achievement of the goal, other obstacles that we never expected can get in the way, which can lead to a state of wondering if it was all worth it -- i.e. depression. So one needs to re-assess the goal in the context of the new obstacles and re-evaluate the striving for the achievement. Can it be done or not? Is one throwing effort after effort without getting any nearer to the goal? Is it worth it? In some cases one might have to re-assess the achievement after the fact, such as Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden wondering if it was worth it after the John Galt line was built and then the "powers that be" tried to destroy it. In actual news, was it worth building the World Trade Center even though some Muslim Fundamentalist terrorists flew airplanes into them and knocked them down? Only a volitional consciousness can answer that question. Because we are not like ants or termites that automatically rebuild a structure once it has been destroyed. No, we have to will to do it. We have to work our way through the depression of the loss -- correction, we can chose to will to re-achieve our will itself or will to work our way through the depression, as painful as that may be in and of itself. And the same thing can be said about mental structures -- i.e. a philosophy. If someone has gone through the effort of trying to become integrated according to some abstract ideal, and then finds out that ideal is incorrect (doesn't match existence), then one can re-assess those ideals and change them into something more rational. Of course, since Objectivism exists, one doesn't have to start from scratch, which is why it only takes years and maybe decades as opposed to never being able to change those wrong ideals in the first place. To present this in another form, it is only due to the fact that we have volition that we can change our motivations and ideals in the first place. Unlike ants or termites who automatically rebuild perhaps in a place unsuitable for such a structure, because it is encoded in their make-up, we humans can chose to re-assess what we are doing volitionally across the board -- i.e philosophically. In other words, just as those who choose to stay in New Orleans even though hurricane Katrina knocked them down, we can re-assess how to rebuild, because it is not simply encoded in our make-up. We can chose to build a structure differently than before, to make it more suitable, and then to protect it from man or flood.

I haven't replied to the private message because I see a cornucopia of philosophic ideas presented in the discussion so far, and I'd rather take those ideas on wholesale, so to speak, because I've come across this before in my twenty plus years of having philosophic debates across the Internet. In other words, I don't know you personally, but I do want take on your ideas, and by doing so on this forum I might be able to convince not only yourself, but others who have the same problem. You are claiming that whatever takes place in one's mind is subjective, and that whatever one observes via the senses is objective. You seem to grasp on some level that ideas are objectified when one uses a language properly to convey one's ideas -- i.e. that the writing (whether via ink on paper or via a computer screen) does make one's ideas available via perception. However, I think you may be relying too much on definitions; and besides, past philosophers (some of whom you mentioned) were very confused themselves and spread the confusion of their ideas via the objectified process of writing down their ideas for others to perceive. Unfortunately, these philosophers had an impact on our language, whereas Objectivism (except in some rare cases where Miss Rand coined some terms) has not yet had an impact on our language. It is the purpose of a language to clarify one's own ideas, as a primary, and only secondarily to convey one's ideas to others. Because you are right, in a sense, that there is no physical representation of an idea -- until one makes a physical representation of an idea by utilizing audio / visual symbols to represent ideas. If one just leaves an idea in one's head without such physical representations (i.e. a language) one is restricted to the immediate momentary glimpse of an idea that is basically floating around in one's mind that one cannot grasp fully until it is tied to the senses. And I have to wonder about the psycho-epistemology of those who cannot write clearly. The beginning point of all knowledge is sense perception, and it is proper that we can utilize a language to bring our ideas "down" to the perceptually self-evident. By this I mean that what we perceive is real, and the primary function of a language is to make our ideas fully real to us via perception. This is the way in which ideas (which occur "in our heads") are brought out for our objective inspection. However, this process can take place (to some degree) even if the ideas are not written down, but only to the capacity that one can hold a language in one's mind via memory. It is useful for an individual to write things down even to himself and only to himself, so he can check the accuracy of his ideas to the perceptually given -- to test out the idea; to see if it matches reality. Can you imagine what it would be like to have someone else "in your head" (i.e. telepathy), or looking over your shoulder as you write something down and making comments, and then saying "Aha! You just said X shame on you!" When you were actually involved in an extended version of a typo? Or if you were trying to work something out for yourself and someone ran away with the idea, like the doctors and the fly example I gave earlier? So, it is fortunate that ideas take place in our heads where no one else has access, or that we can write things down in the privacy of our own note pads, and then check them for accuracy before we send them out to someone. So, writing something down extends the abilities of our minds -- the ability to review one's ideas at the perceptual level and to see if our ideas match objective reality or not. This is how ideas are made objective -- in the sense of making them perceptually self-evident (ideas that can be seen with the senses). Once we do that, then we can embark on making our ideas objective in the sense of making them match reality, but the order this is done is to put one's ideas together in one's own mind (using a language), and then write them down (in a language), and then review them to check their accuracy (checking to see if the objectified ideas actually do match reality or not). What I am suggesting is that the earlier philosophers that you mention objectified their philosophy by writing it down, but they didn't check to see if those ideas matched reality; so they were not being fully objective. Besides, if they are going to take the position that ideas can never be made objective (in the sense of matching the reality of what is going on inside their own heads), then why didn't they take themselves at their own word and not try to convince others that ideas could never be made objective (both in the sense of conveying what is in one's own head and by showing that those ideas do, indeed, match reality)? In other words, if a philosopher is going to claim that he doesn't' know what he is talking about -- i.e. that he cannot convey what is on his mind via a language -- then why is he continuing to prattle on and on? What is he trying to do, objectify his confusions? If so, then he should do it himself, by himself, and not publish those tracks, unless he clearly states that he is confused as something for someone else to resolve. However, this aspect of their writing should not be considered a philosophy. The term "philosophy" comes from the Greek for "love of wisdom" and that is what it should remain, rather than a laundry list of confusions written in some half-language that no one can make any sense of. I apologize if this comes across to some as my own prattling, but I absolutely hate that there are ideas out there that confuse people to such an extent that it may take them years -- even decades -- to resolve the confusion brought about by others who claim to be philosophers who don't even know what wisdom is and have no appreciation of it.