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And lets not forget the omnipresent inflation 'tax' that errodes any money you manage to create after paying all of the other taxes. And of course, there's property tax and capital gains tax on any wealth which you saved that was taxed as income but which manages to earn a profit. And, to add insult to injury, the percent of your profit which you must pay tax on does not discount for inflation. And just in case they miss any of your money the first several go arounds, there are fees and permit costs. (The DMV got me for $500 this year for my plate renewel). Fines for businesses by organizations that shouldn't exist.(OSHA, FDA, etc)

In your example, you describe a 'mature' brain. By this do you mean to include the posession of past experiences? In other words, are you suggesting that if you took my brain, which already posesses conciousness, and stuck it in a jar, then I would continue to be concious and self aware or that if you grew a brain to full size in a jar that once mature it would have conciousness? If you mean the former, then you are probably right, but that is because the conciousness had already been formed by reference to reality. Even if reality is removed at a later time, it still existed prior to the development of my conciousness. If you mean the latter, then even given the existence of a physical brain, I disagree that it would develop into conciousness. Without a consistent set of existants conciousness would not be able to actually develop. Conciousness is an act of identification. To identify anything requires at least 2 items in order to be able to differentiate them. So without differentiation there cannot be identification. Without identification there can be no conciousness. The statement Rand made that "conciousness concious only of itself is a contradiction in terms" was in reference to the primacy of conciousness. Existence has to come before identification because, simply you must have some thing to identify. Further, in actuality, many identifications have to come before conciousness. An infant human(the closest real thing to tabula rasa with a capacity for self-awareness that I know of) doesn't see a rattle and think, oh that's the rattle and this is me, therefore I exist. It takes, I am going to guess, tens of thousands, if not more identifications before they are even remotely aware of themselves as a seperate entity.

I don't disagree that there is naturalism in these films, just that they are wholly naturalistic. The very fact that they had heroes in them at all puts them well ahead of "leaving las vegas" in the romantic direction. The endings could have been better in all three of them without a doubt.

I agree with most of your list, but take issue with "the aviator", "million dollar baby" and "cast away". I thought all 3 of these while not romantic outright had fairly strong romantic tendencies. Namely, that they had individuals who accomplished things they set out to do which were predominantely good goals. I would consider them mixed but with 51% going to romanticism. "Lost in translation" and "Leaving los vegas" are great examples of naturalism.

I'm not clear. Are you arguing that forest gump is an example of romanticism, or just that you like it? Because I agree it has entertaining parts. In my original post, I called it funny and well done. Just not romantic for the reasons I have explainied.

In what way do you believe he was moral and virtous? The only things close to virtue that I see is some haphazard altruism and a mindless ability to dedicate himself to a simple task because one thing is as good as another. And in those cases where his actions appear moral it is only because he lacks almost any values; except his attraction to jenny, who is little more then a gutter tramp. He doesn't care about money, meeting the president, whether or not he get's shot, medals of honor, pingpong championships, dishonest endorsements, the actual virtues that the people he likes possess,(I could go on). So when he appears to be acting morally to some people, he is actually just acting without values or direction. Childlike innocence does not build multibillion dollar fishing empires. This is a serious shortcoming and not at all analogous to the details of galt's motor. The premise in this case is that great values can be gained by having no values of your own and letting life jostle you about like a feather on the wind. If you remember the feather floating at the beggining and end of the movie, you will see that it is obviously the representation of the theme. The science behind galt's motor does not impact the morality or theme of the story in any way.

I've only seen 1,2,5, and 8 and did not find them to be very naturalistic. Of course those all have a good deal of fantasy inherent in them. The movie that always comes to mind for me as an example of naturalism is 'Forest Gump'. The protagonist(I hesitate to call him hero) achieves many great things through no fault of his own. The movie, while funny and well done, seems to imply that your choices have no bearing on your accomplishments. That deterministic element is what I essentialize naturalism as. With this elimination of cause and effect, your decisions are disconnected from the consequences. Leaves no oppurtunity for heroism since heroes must face adversity and succeed due to their virtue. Without freewill virtue doesnt exist. Without virtue and it's rewards being inherent in a film I have difficulty thinking that the art is a presentation of the world as it 'could and ought to be'. I can't relate to Gump because I know how hard you have to fight for achievement. That 'luck' is the result of effort. That in reality when he ran back into the forrest 12 times to rescue friends, he would have rescued 3 and then collected the medal of honor posthumously, or if he took a boat out into a hurricane with no knowledge of sailing he would have drowned, or if he let someone else 'handle' his money for him, it'd be gone in 6 months rather then turn into billions. edit:spelling

That brought a tear to my eye. I am stretching my mind to try to remember a public person who discribed themselves as 'a secular human being' in the US and I can't think of one. Stating her (correct)convictions with such pride and certainty is a rare treat. A speech like that should grant instantaneous citizenship if she is not one already. Thanks for posting it.

I wonder if the disagreement may be based on a minor miscommunication. Are you arguing that generally a man ought to act responsibly and help with the situation or that he should be forced to legally? Because generally you are right. I wouldn't think much of the ethics of a guy to knocked a girl up and then took off. But that would depend on context. What we are discussing(as I understand) is the legal obligations, although it was never explicitly stated. If what you are recommending is aplied legally then you have to understand that men would always held responsible for the whims of the woman they sleep with, including the dishonest ones. Do you see the problem with that?

They seemed like pretty general questions. If he just wanted definition it would be pretty easy to look up. If he just wants a summation of them then-What world does man live in? How does his mind work? How should he act? Sums up the 3 parts. I figured he already knew something about the subjest since he seemed to know the the different parts and therefore must have wanted more specifics. Could be wrong. Maybe he just heard the terms somewhere out of context.

Will you rephrase the question to be more specific? I am not sure what you are asking. What is the definition of epistomology? what are the basics of obj. epsitomology???

I believe the actual comment by him is as follows. "If a man says that A is true, and also not-A is true, then he is really nothing but a cabbage-head." I have always remembered that quote because it's so damn funny but I don't recall now where he wrote it. I think it may have been Analytica prioria.

To clarify, I didn't mean maybe for the circumstance that I was in, just that because each situation is so context dependent the particulars would determine the morality and in another similiar situation where I, say, had a cell phone, it would be improper.

On a related note, should government properly be allowed to borrow money? Seems kinda like my grandfather taking out a loan and me having to repay it. I am not real comfortable with that notion. Sounds like wealth redistribution.

I think the "created life" statement is in reference to conception(ironic considering it's an objectivist board). The actual creation of the rights posessing human being that you are concerned with is the one created by the mother over the following 9 months. At that point, an obligation is created. edit: ahh...time delay....you beat me to it inspector.

Men should be responsible for their actions but not for women's choices. So if they got married and conciously decided to have children with a woman and then left, he should be held accountable, but when engaged in recreational sex without that intention, it is only their problem to the extent they choose to make it their own. Another thing is, a man will not end up pregnant if he has irresponsible sex. A woman may. The consequences are her's to consider. This dilemna is essentially why women have a tendency to be more selective sexually. The possible consequences for them have historically been more considerable. It might be a double standard but it is one created by reality not us.

To be clear, I am not a fan of government owning land either but the situation seems a bit more convoluted then simple looting. When they first purchased the state from russia there had to be some transfer of rights to private individuals. You can either give the land away or sell it. They usually sell it as in the 1872 mining law that you referenced where they sold land for $5/ acre. Them selling it indicates ownership and a right to transfer those rights. The alternative of giving it away seems prone to graft to me but might be managed well. I would guess it would be given away based on political connectedness but one can always hope more honest men will prevail. In this particular case, they chose to lease the rights rather then sell the land outright as the mining law would have. Ostensibly due to already having knowledge of it's multibillion dollar oil value. So these oil companies entered into these agreements with the 'owners' of the land and probably do better then if they were dealing with private owners who would rightfully demand a larger percentage if they agreed to let them drill at all. I do not see it as fundamentally different then if they had purchased the land from the government in order to drill on it. If they owned the land and were mining on it and the government came along and wanted a piece of the pie I would be very sympathetic, but a company or individual who knowingly engages in business with the government in this manner or through a government contract doesn't elicit much compassion from me. These deals usually confer unearned rights on someone in particular in the form of government sanctioned monopolies(local or national) rather then the herd at large. That's why you will never hear me say "poor electric company with their price controls" or "poor bank with their regulations". I'm paying $3/ gallon for gas to give them record profits not because of a war in iraq or their business acumen but because the market to build new refineries is closed to new competition through environmental legislation. I just don't put them in the victim category when they are willful participents. "competition, free enterprise, and the open market were never meant to be symboli fig leaves for corporate socialism and monopolistic capitalism."-Tom Robbins Still Life with Woodpecker I think ideally the homestead idea where you give away small tracts to individuals if they live an work on it for a number of years might have been a better way to handle it, but since there really isn't much in the way of free valueless land left it'sprobably not likely to come up. Although if they ever came to their senses and privatized the national and state forests they might should do something like that. I wonder though, how do you fairly determine who gets which sites when giving it away if there is existing knowledge of mineral deposits or oil in certain areas?

This isn't exactly accurate. The money is 25% of the leases and royalties derived from the state's allowing oil companies to drill on the state owned land, which has been invested in securities and real estate. The procedes from these investments pays out to the citizens based on a 5 year average of earnings. You can argue that the government has no right to own the land in the first place, but then, who does own it in the first place when a government purchases it? The purpose of the fund is to ensure that all the money from the sale of mineral rights is not spent by one generation. It actually seems to me to be a better way to fund government then what I am accustomed to. Seems almost like geolibertarianism in a way. So the money isn't taken by force from what I can tell. The oil companies choose whether or not to lease the government property so I wouldn't feel too badly for them. They wouldn't be there if they weren't making money.

In normal life, there are always choices available to act in a proper long term way. It doesn't work to say I was hungry so I stole someone's big mac. Emergency situations put a limit on time and options available. For example, I am not prone to tresspassing or breaking and entering, but several years ago, before cell phones were a commonality, I saw a child on a bike get run over by a truck. After checking to see if he had a pulse, I walked to the nearest house, knocked on the door but no one answered. So i opened it(it was unlocked), went in side and called 911 while the owner was yelling at me to get out of her house. After I showed her the child outside, she forgave me and didn't press charges. From this, you can't get the principle that it's ok to trespass. Only that maybe it's ok to tresspass if someone is going to die soon and no public phones are nearby and no one else is available who offers to call. It's just too convoluted and specific to be useful. Your choices are limited by the particualar circumstance. If someone put's a gun to your head and tells you to pull the trigger and kill someone else, it doesn't make you a murderer. You don't have a choice. In these scenarios that people dream up, you are always stuck between some limited number of immoral choices. Regular life doesn't require you to break ethical rules. It's a given that you have other choices. And emergency situations might, but you can't know for sure without all of the details.

I think the main problem with lifeboat situations is that they are so heavily context dependent that they are largely meaningless unless you are the one literally in the life boat. For example, "What should you do if a 8 foot tall bunny was shooting at you with an AK-47?" To sort it out, even a little bit, without being in the exact rediculous circumstance you would have to ask a good deal of questions. Is he shooting on purpose? Is he pink or green? Have I had any LSD recently? Do I Have a weapon handy? Is he aiming for me? What time is it? Is his clip almost out? Does he have any friends? etc, etc. I don't know if it is correct to say that objectivist ethics do not apply in a lifeboat circumstance. If you are literally in a lifeboat, objectivist ethics might save your life. There just are not any general principles that can properly be applied without full knowledge of the circumstance. So, in short, ethics still are still used but because of the extraordinary complexity and nature of the situation, principles are not likely to be derived.

Nothing prevents it. And I agree that it would be a wise choice. It would also be wise for the women to have that conversation ahead of time. If a contract existed(say a marriage contract which includes that possibility) then there could be an obligation. What you advocate, is that in the absence of a prior agreement, the man is by default, financially responsible for whatever choice the woman makes. It requires action on the man's part without his consent since consent to have sex is not the same as consent to have a child. The question isn't what what ought to do in any particualr circumstance, but one can morally be required to do.

I assume rationalbiker means that if she has the child she can be awarded child support payments for 18+years. Do I understand properly that you believe that once a man chooses to have sex with a woman his fate, financially at least is(and ought to be) in her hands? Because if so, I disagree. When choosing to have sex, he is not necessarily choosing to be a father. In fact, usually he's not. When A woman becomes pregnent she then has the ability to make a concious decision to actually have and keep the child. I fail to see how that same concious choice ought not be afforded to men.

Something else to consider is that population growth slows down and eventually reduces as income levels rise. Also, population cannot excede food supply for very long for obvious reasons.

Are you looking for a general definition or do you wish to know specifically what objectivist metaphysics are?

A major "pitfall" that I have seen a number of people make in a situation like yours is to search endless for an answer to why the other left. If you did something particularly egregious(cheating, abuse,etc) then the answer is obvious as to why she left. If, rather, it is a number of emotional and psychological factors, it might be harder and most probably not possible to discern. If this is something you experience, two things seem to help. 1) If she is not always explicitly reasonable in her decision making process(and few people are) then you will notice that you are looking for reasons for a sometimes 'unreasonable' person's decision. Not likely to succeed 2) Two people can be great people and still bad for one another. I personally have made this mistake of believing that a similiarity of philosophy was enough when it is probably more important that you actually like each other. The response of an individual's sense of life can diverge greatly from their explicitly held philosophic beliefs. If you believe that you fit the bill for her, then it is likely that her implicitly held desires and what she says she wanted were in conflict. I asked just asked my more eloquent brother how you should get over this girl. He says "what you need is a new piece of 'butt' ".(he used a different word) Unfortunatly he is only right in the loosest sense of the word. I would suggest putting a great deal of energy into something else. Make work or a hobby your rebound relationship. Otherwise all of that time you usually spend with your girlfriend will be spent sitting around and dwelling on the whatmighthavebeens. To be clear, I don't mean bury it all away and stop introspection. Just introspect while you take up underwater basket weaving. It's a bit less obsessive that way. Probably more likely to come to more correct answers about such abstract issues when not focused on it in the linear way that dwelling involves. Hope that helps, Best of luck Gordon