Richard_Halley

Free will is a perfectly fine term. You seem to be agreeing that being "free" means being "unimposed upon by reality and its laws." This is not so.

Skywalker, you should e-mail Betsy and ask her for her articles on the matter... they might clear this whole thing up for you. In any case, I think you are correct in saying that this is not a philosophical matter primarily, but a psychological (and physiological?) one, and so, is not to be lumped in with Objectivism.

Tryptonique: Are you suggusting that, because we have not invaded every country that we should, that we may not invade any of them? I hope that this is, in fact, not what you are suggusting.

DPW: after Joe's most recent post, there is no reason to continue this discussion. Joe has stated that he was in error in making his origional post, that he stands by his , and that, in the case that you want to find out for yourself, you should do so. Some of your points are valid, some of them not so, but upon the posting refered to above, none of them are significant. In fact, this discussion should now be over, and any further posts attacking either Diana or Joe (or anyone else for that matter) for the contents of this thread are unproductive (as they are attacks, not on ideas, but on people). Daniel: Yes, one should expand outward, but one should not attribute ones own expansions to Ayn Rand. Expansions, implications, applications, etc... of Objectivism are just that--expansions, implications, applications, etc...--they are not a part of Ayn Rand's philosophy. If the ARI is calling Dr. Peikoff's recent work Objectivism (which I highly doubt), than it is doing so improperly and against Peikoff's own stated view on the matter.

I seems to me that those, here, who are arguing (poorly) that Bush lied, are intending for that to imply that we should not have gone into Iraq. I would like to point out that, even IF Bush lied, that says nothing about the moral nature of the war in Iraq. Incidentally, that moral nature has been discussed on a number of threads in this forum, as well as a number of essays written by Objectivists. Check them out, if there is any doubt in your mind.

My assesment was not: only foreign attacks are a concern, but: foreign attacks are more of a concern than domestic ones. If you wish to argue otherwise, that is fine, but you will be discussing the topic of who to vote for, not whether or not to vote. If neither candidate was preferable over the other, than your argument not to vote would be perfectly legit. However, if you consider both candidates, conclude that one is x amount better than the other, then decline to vote, you have turned your back on x amount of your rights. Now, if you want to argue that, morally, Bush=Kerry... I would be happy to discuss it with you, but to aruge that voting, as such, is immoral is absoutly absurd.

More specifically, he claims that this is possible because distance is not determined by how much is in between two objects, but by some comparison between the identities of those objects. He said previously that your straight line--actually, he said this about a ruler or tick marks I may place on that straight line--is no more than an epistemological tool for percieving that comparison, and that nothing need actually exist (not even your line) between the two objects for there to be distance between them.

Actually, since Joe provided us with a response he received from Diana after he made their discussion public, we know the above not to be true. I was given the impression that Joe was judging not only her claim, but the description, reasons, and context she gave him with it. If he was not, than he did jump to conclusions and you are exactly right in the above. Now who is jumping to conclusions . I defended nothing, I merely pointed out the flaws in your argument. Never did I say anything which defended Joe's conclusions (at least not based on the information he has given us in its defense). This may not have been clear, but my statement was about personal attacks in general, not only yours. So, in fact, I was doing quite the opposite of defending Joe's statements. And this aside, I see no evidence that their was any malice in Joe's argument, This would be true if you had said: "Such actions only push rational minds away from Objectivism." But your claim was that Joe and people like him are what pushes people away from Objectivism. That is an unfounded personal attack, as it is only one particular action of Joe's which is discussed in your "significant number of words defending" it. Firstly, the fact that Diana is still thinking through the issue is not relevant. This is so because the quotes in question were in response to an argument, not just some preliminary stance taken by Diana. Basically Joe's argument is not an assessment of her preliminary stance, but of her argument against the closed system view. Second, I was not given the impression that it was only one sentence in question, but an entire discussion, which, as you have pointed out Joe provided only part of (as representing the rest). If Joe's claims are based only on one sentence, than you are correct in saying that he should not have drawn the conclusions that he did. Either way, I agree that he should not have shared them publicly, as it could accomplish no more than to patronize Diana, and since all of the evidence which he provided us with was available to anyone who wished to e-mail Diana asking her about her views. However, I find it more likely that his origional posting was a mistake, not a malicious attempt to discredit Diana. And Betsy, while everything you said is true, I don’t think Joe was arguing against any of it. His reference to the HBL loyalty oath seemed to, more logically, point to a different quote, one dealing with implications, applications, and extensions of Objectivism (which is what the question he was responding to was about). And his statements about Diana seemed to be saying that she was about to make the wrong decisions, because she was using the wrong premises.

Quite right feldblum, but I thought that had been clear long ago.

This is nonsense, Joe has previously stated that the discussion began with him congratulating her, and then asking why she does not yet support the ARI position. So he did exactly what you suggested, and from there was given information regarding How do you know this? From Joe's posts, I would guess that his discussion with diana included a number of such requests for further clarification. However, I think there is one good point in all of this: e-mail Diana yourself, tell her why the closed system is correct, and judge her response to you yourself. Out of respect for her (now obvious) wish that such discussions remain private, I will not be quoting her response to my own e-mail... but I will say this: I am inclined to agree with Joe's assessment. In the meanwhile, drop the personal attacks. This: is uncalled for and counter productive.

In your opinion... as stated in the topic linked by Joe, there is currently no objective critera for judging music, so it is fair game.

Yes, feldblum... I thought that had been clear in previous postings or I would have worded my statement more carefully. Thanks for the correction. Why do we need to judge music based on artist or genre? What may we pick up from these that we may not pick up from our objective criteria?

Yes, a fun film with a good message... "They really lived."

Hopefully this is a joke... else it is completly absurd. The topic Joe linked should show exactly why.

Skywalker: Jazz, by definition, is improvised. Improvisation is one of the criteron for a peice to be called jazz. I have never heard of Pat Metheny, but based on your description, he could not properly be called jazz. In any case, the degree to which a peice is compositional is precisely the degree to which it may be appreciated as such.

No, but a persons VALUES do... assuming they are judging Objectively. There are two possible explanations for this (and your socialist aquantinces).... 1.) These two composers--among others--had certian political/philosophic views and different values. Rand suggests such a situation with regards to Victor Hugo, if I recall... 2.) Either you or they (or both) are not judging objectively. This is very likely since, as mentioned earlier, there has yet to be an objective criteria for judging music.

What are you talking about? Have you forgotten this quote Joe provided us with: Joe did not have to give a clear statment of Mrs. Hsieh's position, she did it for him, and he needed only quote it. Incidentally, Joe's recent statments have been backed up with direct quotes from Mrs. Hsieh. If you would like to argue that Joe's assesment is incorrect, you are going to have give some reasons why.

I will respond to it now... Daniel--or rather, the statement which he quoted--is correct. There is, at present, no objective standard layed out for the judgment of music. As I, and now feldblum, have stated, even if such a standard did exist, it would merely identify what sort of music should be identified with certian values. Even--in fact, especially-- when judging objectively, the music judged as good by an Objectivist will be different from the music judged as good by a Marxist.

One need not be unlawful to be evil... Kant was evil because of the ideas which he advocated, not because of actions he took part in, nor because of any actions he encouraged.

Working on that now, Stephen... I have to write the first four first though... might be a little delay.

Yes, Mr. Speicher. I would also like to thank you. I had not previously seen your articles, and they answered a number of questions which I had concerning Little's theory.

Certianly not. While there may be complications for an Objectivist officer under the current system, law enforcement is a legitimate and respectable profession.

Axiom: Based on our terminology, I think we were talking about soccer, not american football. There are 32 professional american football teams. You are correct, it is not. Enjoying a sport is not an indicator of bad values but of good ones.

Feldblum... The number of years must be fixed in order to protect fairness. One is not entitled to more extensive rights becuase one has more money... Essentially, you are arguing for making rights arbitrary.

Jokes such as that are inappropriate to rational discussions, feldblum, smileys or no.